30 October 2024

The former ‘Pink Mosque’
with its golden domes
and gilded cupolas, is
a landmark in Kuching

The Kuching Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kuching) has golden domes and gilded cupolas, and its walls were once rendered in pink (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The Kuching Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kuching) is a landmark building in Kuching. It is also affectionately known as the Masjid Lama, the ‘Old Mosque’ or ‘Old State Mosque’ and stands on a low hill overlooking the Sarawak River.

With its Mughal-style golden onion domes and its gilded cupolas, it is one of the city’s most striking landmarks. I am told it was even more striking at sunset until recent years when its walls were painted a unique rose-pink colour.

The Kuching Mosque served as the state mosque for many years until 1990, when a new and larger state mosque was built in Petra Jaya on the north side of the river.

The present mosque was built in 1968 to replace an original wooden building erected in 1852, although the first mosque on the site was erected in 1840, making it the oldest site of a mosque in Kuching, and contemporaneous with the arrival in Kuching in 1838 of the White Rajah of Sarawak, Sir James Brooke (1803-1868).

Inside the Kuching Mosque (Masjid Bandaraya Kuching), also known as the ‘Old Mosque’ or Old State Mosque (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The mosque was founded by a local leader known as the Pangeran who had been appointed by the Sultan of Brunei. Pangeran Indera Mahkota was born Pangeran Mohd Salleh, and was better known by his title Pangeran than by his name.

He was educated in Batavia in present-day Jakarta, with further studies in Holland. He was summoned back by the sultan ca 1820 as the Governor of Sarawak, and first founded Kuching on a site previously known as Lidah Tanah. Indera Mahkota was said to be an educated, sophisiticated and talented man, and an orator, poet and skillful politician, as James Brooke acknowledged in his diary.

Brooke’s private secretary, Sir Spenser St John (1825-1910), later the British Consul-General in Brunei, thought the Pangeran was ‘the most talented man I met in Borneo’.

The Pangeran knew the promise by the Sultan of Brunei to cede Sarawak to Brooke would weaken Brunei. He devised plans to get rid of Brooke, and convinced the sultan to delay handing over power. In response, Brooke attacked the royal palace at Kuching and threatened to release all his cannons and guns unless he was ratified as the Governor of Sarawak. However, his vilification by Brooke court historians continues to obscure the achievements of the Pangeran.

Inside the central dome of the mosque, which shows strong Mughal influences (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

At first, the small hillside mosque founded by the Pangeran was a basic building on the edge of the town centre, near the shophouses and bazaar. As Kuching grew, the mosque became a focal point of the city, but a larger Muslim needed a bigger mosque. The Malay leader at that time, Dato Patinggi Ali, began a fundraising drive in 1847 to build a new mosque. He was a key figure in the resistance by Sarawak Malays resistance to the rule of the Sultan of Brunei in the 1830s and became one of the first supporters of the Brooke Raj.

A bigger mosque was built later with one of his family members, Dato Patinggi Haj Abdul Gapur, appointed as the first Imam.

The mosque was modified in 1880, using modern building materials that were readily available in Kuching, including bricks and cement, and the changes included a new concrete building and floor materials.

A high drum-pointed dome was added on top of the roof in 1932, with the help of the Brooke government and the local Malay leaders. The dome sits on an elevated base with clerestory windows.

By the 1950s, there were demands for a bigger mosque in Kuching. The first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, suggested building a new mosque instead of modifying the current mosque, and he laid the foundation stone for a new building in 1966. The old building was blown up using dynamite, and Malaysia’s Federal Government provided additional funding for building the new mosque.

The mosque has a main central onion-shaped dome, flanked by four smaller domes and instead of a detached minaret there are six smaller attached minarets (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The architectural design of the present mosque includes a main central onion-shaped dome, a design that shows strong Mughal influence. It is flanked by four smaller domes that sit on an open elevated place. It has no detached minaret, and instead, there are six smaller attached minarets, each surmounted by cupolas and onion-shaped domes.

There are modern-style crenelations on the parapet wall with a series of crescent-moon finials on top of the pilasters.

The main central onion-shaped dome is made out of lightweight metal in a golden yellow colour. It indicates the main prayer area below and expresses the importance or grandeur of the building in its setting.

The interior space is lit by natural lighting through glass windows and louvered blocks. The qibla or front wall is marked with a blind arch featuring the 99 names of Allah inscribed on a teak wood tile. Here too are the mihrab niche, with a timber minbar platform to its right.

A domed pavilion near the main entrance to the mosque (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A domed pavilion near the main entrance is perched on a terrazzo-clad platform, with three leading steps, up to the main prayer hall, and two more steps to the upper female prayer gallery. The cemetery and gravestones surrounding the mosque and filling the slopes of the hillside form an unusual feature.

The mosque was under renovation until recently, but it is open to visitors once again and while I was visiting last week a small group of four Mormon missionaries were being welcomed on a small guided tour.

During the recent renovations, the once rose-pink walls were rendered in white. But with its golden domes and gilded cupolas it remains an impressive site overlooking the Sarawak River and the waterfront, and ‘Old Mosque’ is still the main mosque on the south side of Kuching.

The cemetery and gravestones surrounding the mosque filling the slopes of the hillside overlooking the Sarawak River (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

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