Mosquee Hassan Deux

Woke up at 5am. 

Too cold to shower. 

Mission: To catch the first light to capture the great mosque, Hassan II or fondly called Hassan Deux by the locals. 

From the map it looked near but after walking for almost 30 minutes in the dark cold streets of downtown Casablanca and still no sight of the minaret, we gave up and took the Petit Taxi for a Less than 5 minutes ride mosque. It cost us less than 10 Dirham, which is not even RM5.00.





Impressive architecture, especially its 200m minaret.
Walk around the mosque in semidarkness 9-hectare compound, 2/3 of which are built over the sea. The prayers hall can accommodate 25,000 people! Apparently Hassan II is the 2nd largest religious building in the world after Masjidil Haram in Mecca.





It was still empty the time we arrived. Surety Nationale patrolled the area, stopped by us and asked us in French for permit. We convinced them, we are just tourists with cameras and tripods. They let us go. 

After walking around evaluating the angles and determining the direction of the sunrise, we finally set up our tripod at the center of the compound hugged by buildings that house a religious school and a museum. After a few test shots, we just waited for the sun to slowly rise while having a bar of Hersheys for breakfast.

It was less than 10 degree celsius.





It’s a beautiful building and more impressive if you look at the details. The mosques was designed by Michel Pinseau with 35,000 craftsmen worked on it.

*to realize the propotion of this big structure, please compare the two black dots on the bottom left on the last picture. Those are people walking.