Sheikh Mansour inaugurates Google's virtual tour of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, inaugurated 360-degree street view imagery project creating a virtual tour enabling internet users to explore the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque through Google Street View The new 360-degree guide, part of a Google initiative that aims to capture every famous landmark on earth to be viewed online, steps inside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and provides close-up views and minute details of the inside and outside of edifice, the U.A.E.'s largest mosque, and also one of the world's largest. In his remarks at the launch ceremony of the virtual tour, H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed praised the initiative for enabling internet users to view the structure of the world's most beautiful mosques which represents a valuable addition to the Islamic and human cultures. "Google Inc, as a global knowledge company and a major provider of tourism, cultural, intellectual and scientific information, plays an active role in building bridges for human and cultural communication between the world's different cultures. This is also the mission set for Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque which seeks to promote cultural interaction between peoples of the world," H.H. Sheikh Mansour said noting that the mosque's virtual tour also gives any internet user worldwide the opportunity to taste the aesthetics of Islamic architecture. In the operation carried out with the cooperation of the management of the mosque, Google team captured Street View imagery of the place using sophisticated equipment. The virtual tour of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque can be experienced by visiting Google site maps: www.google.ae/streetview Mohamad Mourad, Regional Manager - Middle East ''&'' North Africa at Google Inc, noted that the virtual tour is part of Google's efforts to design a digital mirror of the real world as well as to provide internet users with a realistic experience of one of the most important landmarks of Abu Dhabi and the U.A.E. Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque has the capacity for 40,000 worshippers. It features 82 domes, over a 1,000 columns, 24 carat gold gilded chandeliers and the world's largest hand knotted carpet. The main prayer hall is dominated by one of the world's largest chandeliers -10 metres in diameter, 15 metres in height and weighing twelve tonnes. The mosque's first ceremony was the funeral of its namesake, Sheikh Zayed, who is buried at the site. In 2012 alone, the mosque attracted some 4.7 million visitors from across the world and took 13th place in TripAdvisor's 2013 Travellers' Choice Awards.