What to expect at Abu Dhabi's Abrahamic Family House

Table Of Content

• Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass safe after suspect breaks into official residence, police say
• Brutalist churches
• Exploring the architecture of the UAE’s Abrahamic Family House — a mosque, church and synagogue
• Architect-designed furniture
• Master Gardener: What’s happening to our naval orange tree?
• UAE: Adnoc is country’s most valuable brand, etisalat strongest in Middle East and globally

His Holiness Francis Church is characterised by a facade of towering Omani limestone columns that are positioned from east to west to enhance morning sunlight on the interior, referencing light as a symbol of divinity in Christianity. The Abrahamic Family House is made up of a trio of standalone cubic buildings with flat roofs, each equal in volume but distinguished by their own features including differently sized courtyards. The mosque celebrates both collective congregation and vital provision of privacy. It uniformly gifts users with opportunities to observe the customs of Islamic prayer, once again using articulated thresholds to allow viewing to occur separately to the act of joining. The Abrahamic Family House welcomes visitors and offers a range of engaging experiences, from brief tours to immersive journeys of understanding. Four years later, Muslims, Christians and Jews gathered to inaugurate the three worship centers, each representing one of the three Abrahamic faiths, and a representative from each faith provided inaugural remarks.

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Four seamless, monolithic columns represent the Islamic notions of stability, order, and fullness and create a vaulting space that orients the visitors toward the mihrab. The only fully opaque wall billows to make room for the simplistic stone mihrab, which is bathed in the patterned light from the screens. Discover Saadiyat Island’s mosque, church and synagogue, all in one location dedicated to faith and knowledge.

Brutalist churches

Visitors of all faiths are being invited to come together and take part in public worship services and education programmes. Sheikh Saif and Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, officially inaugurated the new faith centre on February 17. The National's reporter Saeed Saeed speaks to host Sarah Forster about why the complex was built, its most striking features and what a visit might entail. The mosque has a seating capacity of 322 shoulder to shoulder and separate ablution facilities for men and women. After entering the synagogue, the visitors are greeted by the Ten Commandments written in Hebrew on the white stone walls, and two gold menorahs are placed on either side of the wooden ark. A calendar of services will be published by each house of worship in the coming weeks.

Exploring the architecture of the UAE’s Abrahamic Family House — a mosque, church and synagogue

Mediating between the elements and privacy, an inverted dome and pyramid ceiling within a square form signifies the female and male ablution. But while the center is novel, the UAE has been promoting tolerance for several years. The Abrahamic Family House joins other initiatives, including a special ministry of tolerance, and hosts the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace. He explained that the names of the three houses of worship recognize the work of the Grand Imam, Pope Francis and Moses Ben Maimon, and “harnesses their teachings to forge a message of goodwill for future generations around the world”. It is an airy and acoustically pristine space defined by floor-to-ceiling windows and a wooden canopy. The altar is slightly elevated and the pews are spacious enough to accommodate up to 300 people.

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The overriding aim of the Synagogue is to bring people together and the synagogue features a series of interwoven spaces that work in service of human scale interactions. The houses of worship are open for worshippers to practice their respective faiths. He also noted that all materials were sourced from the region, including marbles from Oman, to promote sustainability. Although each building is the same size, a cube of 30 metres, they can hold varying numbers of worshippers. The church can host 300 people seated in pews, the synagogue allows for 200, due to the Bimah in the centre, and the mosque can fit 322 people shoulder to shoulder.

Architect-designed furniture

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A baptistry is located beside the church, denoted by a conical form that emerges above the courtyard walls with scattered small windows of light emitting for the interior. Inside, an octagonal room houses a baptismal font, which emerges from the ground in a rough-cut marble form. In addition to ticketed daily guided tours, each house of worship will organise events prevalent to its faith.

Aside from the houses of prayer, the landmark has a baptistery, a purifying bath in Judaism called mikvah and ablution areas. There are four pillars inside the mosque and the Minbar, or the pulpit where the imam stands when he leads the prayer, serves as the fifth, representing the five pillars of Islam. The prayer hall is an intimate space with plenty of light and designed in such a way to allow the sounds of Quran recitals to echo within its walls. Abu Dhabi's Abrahamic Family House, designed by Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye, captures the values shared between all three faiths. "As an architect, I want to create a building that starts to rise above the notion of hierarchical difference and enhances the richness of human life," he added. The three buildings sit atop a one-storey plinth that also features a secular gathering space with a library and exhibition areas known as the Forum, as well as an elevated communal garden that connects the church, synagogue and mosque.

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Interfaith events, from guest lectures to conferences, will be held at The Welcome Centre. All events will be updated on the Abrahamic Family House's website and social media channels. All three houses of worship are similar architecturally and feature stone, water, wood and metal. I can appreciate the Abrahamic Family House's vision, as the garden, which features more than 200 local plants, connects to all three houses of worship. The mosque's exterior is made up of seven arches, reflecting the importance of the number seven in Islam and the seven days of the week with Friday at the centre of the structure. There is no dome but the mosque's main internal architecture are nine ascending vaults that form a sail at their apex.

Please note The Abrahamic Family House is closed for tours and visitors on Monday. Tours are usually around an hour long and can be booked in either English or Arabic, and you will be accompanied by a Storyteller. The Abrahamic Family House will be a significant milestone if the center becomes a vibrant place for faiths to interact and fellowship. But a milestone is not an endpoint; rather, it marks progress toward a destination. With its opening, the Abrahamic Family House is now a visible landmark in the Middle East for this journey. Outside is a small triangular pool of water to symbolise the Trinity of Christianity and the three Abrahamic faiths.

The dedicated houses of worship, called the Eminence Ahmed El-Tayeb Mosque, His Holiness Francis Church, and Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue, all feature spaces for observers. Daily guided tours are planned to explore the 6,500 square meter complex, with tour guides showing visitors the particular design features chosen for the specific practices and traditions of each faith. Each of the houses takes the exterior shape of a cube measuring 30x30x30 meters. The dimensions render the three houses equal in volume and create visual harmony within the complex, while particular design decisions differentiate the architectural expression of each volume.

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A one-story plinth creates the main Forum, with the three houses of worship around it. Rooted in the UAE’s values of bringing people and cultures together, the Abrahamic Family House embodies the diversity of Abu Dhabi and the wider UAE, home to vibrant multicultural communities of various faiths. Located in Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Cultural District on Saadiyat Island, the Abrahamic Family House is free to visit. The mosque is open from the first until the last prayer of the day while the church and synagogue are open from 7am to 9pm.

These vaults also heighten the echo inside the mosque, giving prayers a powerful reverberating sound. The church can seat up to 300 people and at the centre of it is a crucifix with no human form to symbolise that it is open to all faiths and denominations. The airy and sun-washed venue was designed by Ghanaian-UK architect Sir David Adjaye.

The Emirates also has a long tradition of tolerance, with Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other port cities historically serving as an opening to the world. Two hundred different nationalities now make their homes and do business in the UAE and generally enjoy freedom of worship. “We remain committed to harnessing the power of mutual respect, understanding and diversity to achieve shared progress,” UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Thursday. The road to Thursday’s opening began with Pope Francis’ February 2019 trip to the UAE, where he met with the grand imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, leader of the oldest Islamic educational institute in the world. Their meeting ended with their signing of the Document on Human Fraternity, which set ambitious goals to foster interfaith understanding.

First stop was the Christian church named after St. Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century monk and founder of the Franciscan Order who dedicated his life to prayer and poverty as an itinerant preacher. The place of worship was built in tribute to the Abrahamic religions, drawn from the prophet Abraham, revered in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. He said the UAE had always strived to serve as a catalyst for peace, tolerance and understanding and stability in the world. One is shorter than the other, representing the ascent and descent of Jesus Christ, which is at the core of the Christian faith.