"Islamabad" Islamabad by ShoebKadri

I moved from Karachi to Islamabad on June 2006, due to my job assignment in Nokia and lived here till March 2008.

Islamabad the capital of Pakistan but yet a city so different from elsewhere in Pakistan that the Pakistanis like to say that their capital “is 35 km away from the rest of Pakistan.”

The first thing which I felt different was the peaceful environment and the less traffic on the roads.

Maybe what makes Islamabad so unique is that it is a planned city, without the uncontrollable growth of most South Asian capitals and specially all other Pakistani Cities. Having only become a capital city in the 1960s (when the seat of government moved here from Karachi), Islamabad is divided into neat sectors of residential and commercial areas. Sectors are clearly marked by road signs with letters and numbers (easy to read, too, as here the lingua franca is English), and wide, grassy avenues. What this does is make the city relatively clean, smooth to navigate, and un-intimidating to the first-time visitor to the region. Besides, if you want to enjoy a more hectic pace of life, just head to Islamabad’s sister city of Rawalpindi, where bold colors gleam off the multi-storied buildings and the streets are filled with people, cars and animals jostling for attention.

Shah Faisal Mosque

The land mark of Islamabad, Shah Faisal Mosque is one of the largest mosques in the world. It is a state National Mosque. It is a popular masjid in the Islamic world, and is renowned for both its immense size and its architecture. It holds the title for being one of the largest mosques in the world, in terms of area.

This mosque, with its four white minarets, is visible from almost everywhere in the capital and is said to be the largest mosque in the world. Surrounded by rose gardens, the mosque has a glass, tent-like center structure which holds worshippers, a library, cafeteria, museum and even a small university. Muslims and non-Muslims alike are welcomed for tours, though discreet dress is required (that includes head covering for women), and Fridays are generally reserved solely for worship.

The impetus for the mosque began in 1966 when the late King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia suggested it during a visit to Islamabad. In 1969, an international competition was held in which architects from 17 countries submitted 43 proposals. Turkish architect Vedat Dalokay's design was chosen.

The masjid has an area of 5,000 square meters and can hold about 300,000 worshippers, including those in the adjacent grounds.

On Thursday, January 10, 2008, it hailed so much in Islamabad that it was like snow every where in Isloo ! and it was a wonderful and an amazing experince ...