Away from spacious, fancy, and luxurious mosques located in Egypt’s big cities, a small modern-designed mosque in Sohag, Upper Egypt, made it to the shortlist of the 3rd Abdullatif Al Fozan award for Mosque Architecture (AFAMA).
The recently opened Basuna Mosque captures people’s hearts with its unique architecture different than the usual Islamic design of most mosques.
The mosque’s Egyptian designer, Waled Arafa, has never imagined when he was drawing the architecture sheet of the mosque four years ago, which is located in one of the poorest villages in Upper Egypt, that it would end up in this global award’s 27-mosque shortlist.
Saudi Arabia’s AFAMA aims to document the world’s most unique, creative mosque designs, and list them in a database which detects architecture of new mosques.
The Basuna mosque was designed by the Cairo-based architecture firm, Dar Arafa Architecture. It is the first Egyptian mosque to participate at the international competition and reach the final nomination list.
The new mosque was built on the ruins of an old one built over 70 years ago and almost collapsed a few years ago.
Arafa’s design grabbed the world’s attention to the underprivileged village, attracting financial support to enhance the living conditions of the citizens there.
