Al-Qubba Mosque

Within the walls of Qasr Ibrahim in Hofuf's Al-Koot district stands the Qubba Mosque, the palace's most striking architectural element and one of the defining images of heritage Al-Ahsa. It was founded in 979 AH / 1571 CE, after some five years of construction, as part of a complex that included a school of Islamic sciences and a place for teaching the Quran. It is crowned by a central hemispherical dome about thirteen metres across, flanked by small corner domes, with a free-standing cylindrical minaret rising nineteen metres around a stone spiral staircase. Above its entrance, a gypsum plaque records the founding date in Thuluth script — a witness to an entire era of the oasis's history.