Most people who visit Makkah look up at the iconic Mecca Royal Clock Tower and admire its golden crescent glowing against the sky. But very few know what is actually hidden inside that crescent moon, the world’s highest prayer room, sitting over 600 metres above the ground.
At the base of the huge, beautiful Makkah Clock Tower, there is a very special room. This open-air room, located at the very top of the tower, has been dedicated solely to prayers and serving Allah. The moon room has now become the highest place of worship anywhere in the world.Â
In the beginning, at the time of construction of the tower, it was too difficult for engineers and construction staff to come down from the moon structure to pray. Due to this, they started praying inside the room, and the engineers liked the idea so much that they made a permanent mosque inside the moon of the Makkah Clock Tower.Â
To this day, it is still the highest occupied space on any manmade structure. The Burj Khalifa’s highest occupied floor is at 585 metres, while Shanghai Tower’s is at 583 metres. Both pale in comparison to the prayer room 600 metres above Mecca.Â
A prayer chamber is located directly under the crescent and can only be reached from the top level of the structure by an 18-metre spiral staircase or an auxiliary chairlift.
The crescent is 21 metres in diameter, made of fiberglass-backed mosaic gold, and weighs up to 35 tonnes. It was constructed in Dubai in April 2011 before being transported in pieces to Makkah.Â
The minaret and its base are also equipped with loudspeakers that transmit the prayer call and can be heard up to 7 kilometres away, covering an area of roughly 160 square kilometres.Â
This hidden prayer room is one of Islam’s most extraordinary and little-known wonders, a place of worship so high it touches the sky, right above the holiest city on earth.
