MALÉ: Standing among the offices, shops and tightly packed streets of the Maldivian capital Malé is Hukuru Miskiiy, or the Old Friday Mosque - a nearly 400-year-old place of worship built largely from blocks of coral stone, its walls covered with delicate carvings and Arabic calligraphy.
For travellers accustomed to images of turquoise lagoons, white beaches and luxury resorts, the mosque reveals another side of the Maldives. Here, the country's Islamic history is not confined to museums or monuments; it remains woven into the daily rhythm of the city.
When the call to prayer sounds, civil servants, shopkeepers and other residents begin arriving for congregational prayers. Imam Muhammad Haneef, 55, said the mosque can accommodate more than 100 worshippers at a time.
The present Hukuru Miskiiy was completed in 1657 under Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar I, although earlier mosques had occupied the site for centuries. The first was built in the 12th century after the Maldives embraced Islam in 1153, while another followed in 1338.
By the 17th century, the growing congregation required a larger structure. With conventional building stone scarce on the islands, Maldivian craftsmen turned to something available in abundance: coral.
Blocks of Porites coral were cut and fitted together by hand, using an interlocking method that allowed the rough, porous surfaces to grip one another tightly. Nearly four centuries later, much of that craftsmanship remains clearly visible.
The mosque walls are covered with geometric patterns, floral designs, Arabic calligraphy and examples of Dhives Akuru, an old Maldivian script. Some carvings have softened with age, but enough remains to appreciate the extraordinary patience involved in creating them without modern machinery.
The use of coral gives the building a character quite unlike the grand marble mosques found elsewhere in the Islamic world. Its beauty is quieter and more tactile: weathered stone, deeply carved surfaces and centuries of salt air.
Craftsmanship above and within
Inside, the material changes but the attention to detail does not. Timber dominates the upper portions of the mosque, from its multi-tiered roof to its doors, windows and frames, with sandalwood among the materials used and intricate carving and lacquer work displaying another side of traditional Maldivian craftsmanship.
Some of the mosque's sliding doors and windows still operate without wheels despite being almost 400 years old. Quranic verses and Arabic calligraphy appear throughout the interior, linking decoration with the building's religious purpose.
An unexpected detail also awaits worshippers: the mosque itself is not aligned directly with the qibla, the direction Muslims face during prayer. Instead, worshippers stand at an angle of about 30 degrees to the building, following a line inside the prayer hall that points towards Makkah.
One theory is that the site had previously been occupied by a Buddhist temple, reflecting the Maldives' pre-Islamic history. Buddhism was practised in the islands before their conversion to Islam in the 12th century.
Beside Hukuru Miskiiy stands another reminder of how dramatically Malé has changed. The mosque's coral-stone tower, known as the Munnaaru, was built in 1675 and rises about 11m; before modern high-rises crowded the capital, it was one of the most prominent landmarks on the island.
It is said that Malé could once be viewed almost from end to end from the top. Today, the tower sits amidst a far denser cityscape, surrounded by multistorey buildings that would have been unimaginable to those who built it.
The mosque grounds also contain four centuries-old wells and a cemetery where former rulers and members of the Maldivian royal family are buried, including Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar I.
Together, these details make Hukuru Miskiiy feel less like an isolated historic attraction and more like a condensed history of Malé itself. The Maldives marked 900 years since its conversion to Islam this year, with heritage preservation among the themes of the anniversary.
That long history is perhaps easiest to understand somewhere like Hukuru Miskiiy, where centuries-old coral carvings share space with worshippers arriving for afternoon prayers. In one of the world's most densely built capitals, the survival of a hand-carved coral house of worship from 1657 feels remarkable in and of itself.