Today's mosaics are on the King Fahad Mosque of Culver City, on Washington Blvd. According to the Taco blog, the minaret of the mosque stands over 70 feet high, and the mosque itself can hold at least 2000 worshippers. It cost $2.16 million to build, which was financed by private donations, and it opened in July of 1998.
Prince Abdulaziz Ibn Faud Ibn Abdul Aziz, Minister of State and Cabinet Member of Saudi Arabia, contributed one million dollars for the land purchase. Two former presidents, Gerald Ford and George Herbert Walker Bush praised the Mosque, which all consider a marvelous gift from King Fahd.
I wondered why Taco blog would have such comprehensive information (I show only a teensy bit of it here) as well as many photos, but their heading mentions "Street Art" as a topic (along with tacos), so there you go.
Switch to the Wall Street Journal, which claimed in 2004 that the "$8 million" mosque, the largest of several King Fahd built throughout the US, was under investigation along with other Islamic charities. Apparently the Saudi government's Ministry of Islamic Affairs kept this and the other mosques supplied with books and teachers from Saudi Arabia. It may be the operating/management organization that is technically the Islamic charity: the Islamic Foundation of Shaikh Ibn Taimmiyyah.
Another bit of trivia mentioned by the newspaper is that two of the September 11th hijackers visited and spent time there--but may be as meaningful as pointing out that a serial killer once stopped by a major cathedral.
Here is a close up of the pillars, which really are beautiful. Even the potted plant has a mosaic on it!
This is a Suni Mosque, btw.
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