Description of the attraction
The Baiturrahman Raya Mosque is located in the central part of Banda Aceh, the administrative center and largest city in the Aceh province. Aceh province is located on the northern coast of Sumatra, which is part of the Greater Sunda Islands group and is the sixth largest island in the world.
Banda Aceh is home to just over a quarter of a million inhabitants, and this city also became famous after the underwater earthquake in the Indian Ocean in December 2004, which resulted in a devastating tsunami. About 130,000 people were killed, tens of thousands were injured, and buildings were destroyed. This earthquake reached not only the shores of Indonesia, but also Sri Lanka, Thailand, and southern India. It is worth noting that the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake is considered the third strongest in the entire history of observation. Banda Aceh was practically wiped off the face of the earth, it took several years to restore the city.
One of the most important sights is the Baiturrahman Raya Mosque, which is considered a symbol of the Austronesian Aceh people - residents of the province of the same name. It will be interesting that the mosque survived the 2004 tsunami, and during the flood that followed the tsunami, many people were saved on its domes. The original building of the mosque was built in 1612, during the reign of Sultan Aceh, Iskandar Mud. There is an assumption that the first building of the mosque was built even earlier, in 1292. During the expansion of the Netherlands, the mosque was destroyed. In 1879, the construction of a new mosque was started by the Dutch colonialists themselves as a sign of reconciliation.
Initially, the mosque had one dome and one minaret, but during the reconstruction in 1935, 1958 and 1982, more domes and minarets were added. Today the mosque has 8 minarets and 7 domes.
