Masjid Raya Sumbar: Minangkabau Folks and Their Mosque

Several years ago, on a certain weekend, I went to Padang with my family, and for the first time, I noticed an unfinished construction site of a large building on Jl. Khatib Sulaiman. It was a large site, so I asked my dad what was built there and he said it was going to be a mosque; the government planned it.

So every time we went to the city, we were passing by the construction site. I was curious and was actually bored in the car, wondering what this building was going to look like finished because the architecture was so unusual from the other mosques I had ever seen.

After a decade of making, in 2019, the construction of Masjid Raya Sumatera Barat was officially opened to be used for praying. The majority of citizens had positive responses to Masjid Raya Sumbar. It surely became one of the signature landmarks in West Sumatera. There are tons of people, including my family, visiting the iconic mosque to pray, or even only for taking a selfie there. The people that visited the mosque were not only the locals, some people from outside West Sumatera happened to share the same appreciation to Masjid Raya Sumbar and purposely visited the mosque. At this point, the mosque is even more well-known after winning the Abdullatif Al Fozan Award recently for its architectural design. Kudos to that.

The creativity in its design is really fascinated me, especially the roof, in which the architect Rizal Muslimin explained that the idea the roof symbolized was not only Atok Bagonjong that was used for Rumah Gadang but also the placement of the Black Stone story as well. Rizal said that the roof was made to mimic the cloth that was held by its corners by the clan leaders of the Quraysh tribe to lift the holy stone to the Kaaba. From what I remember from my Islamic Cultural History teacher in Elementary School, the story was told to show how Muhammad resolved the conflict between the leaders in peace and fairness by suggesting the cloth to satisfy the honor of all clans and making them cooperate together despite their differences. And I think it was neat.

The mosque was very huge and open, the place was so bright and had great air circulation. It was nice to pray there. In addition to its function as a place to pray, according to Kumparan, it also can function as a temporary shelter. It was so well-built and was claimed to have a solid construction that it was believed to be strong enough to withstand the earthquake. Liputan6 also mentioned that this mosque is specifically designed so that it does not collapse if an earthquake hits. Therefore, its construction adapts to the geographical conditions of West Sumatra, which just casually sits on the Ring of Fire region, and has been rocked by some large earthquakes several times. Well, I had no doubt about all these facts, the walls seemed quite sturdy.

Not far from the unique Minangkabau-esque design and handy two-in-one purpose, I was intrigued by the traditional and Islamic ornaments that were placed side by side, as if to represent the harmony in our Minangkabau customs between our tradition and belief, which also painted in the signature brick-red and gold. It was so gorgeous and rich.

However, like most of any new building, there was a slight disagreement on its unusual design a while back. Even now, a few people are still quite not fond of the unusual design of the mosque. I even caught a commenter online on a post that remarked that the mosque was too luxurious. Well, it was nothing new, some people will always disagree on something new or innovative.

I mean, mosques are some serious business for Minangkabau folks. Even back in the day, most of the social activities in our community evolved around Surau, the traditional mosque; such as praying, studying the Koran, discussions, gatherings, and even training Silek. It’s unusual to see a mosque like this award-winning mosque. So yeah, people could be wary of something out of the norm when they are most familiar with some terraced-roof surau or the one like ‘middle-east-ish’ mosques with round domes.

Regardless, it was such pride to see this beautiful landmark become more acknowledged not only in Indonesia but overseas as well thanks to the award.