Kota Kinabalu Floating Mosque

Worth to spend few hours to see this gorgeous mosque and experience the culture. Must purchase ticket to photos within the area and entering the mosque.

You have to pay to enter and you don’t get to walk around the mosque either. Now you do have to wear the traditional clothes but it comes free if you get tickets. So that can be both a positive and a negative. However you have to pay to walk around and take pictures even if you are outside of the perimeter. Also you only get 15 minutes inside. But I feel that you can spend your RM somewhere else for the better unless you are a huge cultural enthusiast.

Need to pay to even take photos on the outer perimeter. And I can’t even take the picture on the road. Stingy bunch of money minded people. It’s too hot without even shelters, and the parking and roads outside is ridiculously chaotic, bad management!

Nice place to take photo. Entrance fee required if you want to enter the mosque.

Kota Kinabalu City Mosque
(Masjid Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu)

The Kota Kinabalu City Mosque (Malay: Masjid Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu) is the second main mosque in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, after State Mosque in Sembulan.

The Kota Kinabalu City Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu) is not only the largest mosque in the city, but also the most visually striking. Surrounded by a lagoon, the building appears to float when viewed from a distance, and casts a picturesque reflection into the water below.

Description;

The picturesque view of this mosque makes it one of the main attractions in Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah. Situated on the eastern site overlooking Likas Bay, the City Mosque is a piece of a modern Islamic architectural edifice to mark Kota Kinabalu’s elevation to city status, as accorded by the Federal Government. Styled after the postmodernism design of the Arabian or Middle-Eastern typology, the mosque is the second most important mosque after the State Mosque. It serves the students and resident worshippers from Likas and the northern districts of Kota Kinabalu.

Inspired by the architecture of Masjid Al-Nabawi in Madinah, Saudi Arabia, the mosque is noted for its sturdy structure with a high pointed dome and four identical slender minarets. Its impressive beauty is often captured in reflections on the surface of the man-made lagoon, particularly during dawn or dusk, thus earning the name of ‘the floating mosque’ amongst the locals. It also depicts the neighbouring Kampung Air enclave of Likas Bay. The construction began in 1983, when it was first coined by the then Chief Minister of Sabah. It was only completed in 2000, following many obstacles and issues faced during the construction period, which lasted some 17 years. The mosque now houses the main prayer hall, female prayer gallery, inner courtyard, library, three madrasas. An ancillary block for staff quarters and a few amenity rooms, including a preventive care clinic and ATM machines. Arranged in a linear layout, the main prayer hall is identified with the main dome that sits on modified squinches.

A series of high clerestory windows and side-tucked windows give the additional appearance of the blue-checkered dome with geometrical patterns. The dome is proportionately flanked by four round minarets of the square base with three tiers vaulted balconies and surmounted with round domes.