Iri Into Elsewhere
Abrahamic Family House
13 Feb 2024
Imagine walking into a place where a mosque, a church, and a synagogue stand side by side — equal in form, purpose, and respect. No hierarchy. No borders. Just shared space, open hearts, and a deep belief in humanity’s ability to coexist peacefully.
Welcome to the Abrahamic Family House, one of the most important cultural and spiritual landmarks to grace the modern world — and it’s right here in Abu Dhabi.
It’s a statement. A living, breathing symbol of hope, tolerance, and dialogue.
The mission is crystal clear: to create a space where people of different faiths come together in understanding — not in spite of their differences, but because of them. At the heart of the complex stand three houses of worship:
-
Eminence Ahmed El-Tayeb Mosque
-
St. Francis Church
-
Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue
Each is designed with equal stature, size, and materiality — because faith should never be ranked. They’re oriented towards their respective spiritual focal points — Mecca, the East, and Jerusalem — yet connected by an elevated garden that feels like a sanctuary of stillness in the midst of symbolism.
Designed by Sir David Adjaye Om OBE, the architecture here isn’t just beautiful — it’s deeply symbolic. Adjaye is known for his storytelling through space.
Eminence Ahmed El-Tayeb Mosque: A Dialogue in Light and Form
Named after the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed El-Tayeb, the mosque is both a tribute to tradition and a quiet exercise in architectural diplomacy. It doesn’t compete with its neighboring synagogue or church — it listens to them. Together, they form a triangle of presence, each distinct, each in balance.
The mosque’s design speaks in numbers and geometry. Seven arches mark its façade — a number deeply rooted in Islamic symbolism, from the seven heavens to the seven verses of Al-Fatiha. Inside, nine sail vaults rise one after another like breaths drawn upward, lifting the gaze — and the spirit — toward the light.
But perhaps the most poetic gesture is in the mashrabiya: hundreds of hand-finished lattice panels that filter sunlight like verses whispered through carved wood. These intricate screens don’t just soften the desert sun — they preserve the rhythm of privacy and openness, that elegant balance between shelter and connection so intrinsic to Islamic design.
There’s a humility in the way this space welcomes you. It doesn’t insist. It simply stands — serene, precise, and deeply rooted — offering its silence as a kind of prayer.
St. Francis Church: A Vertical Whisper Toward the Divine
Named after St. Francis of Assisi — the barefoot friar who turned his back on wealth to walk alongside the poor — this church isn’t built to impress with grandeur, but to move with meaning.
It faces east, not by chance but by conviction. That first light of day, that slow flood of gold through timber slats, is treated here not just as illumination but as theology. In Christian tradition, light is divine presence — and this structure is choreographed entirely around it.
Step inside and you're surrounded by what feels like a forest of columns, all drawing your eyes upward. The verticality is intentional — a physical metaphor for descent and ascent, for incarnation and resurrection.
Then there’s the timber — over 13,000 metres of it — rising and weaving overhead like beams of early sunlight. These wooden battens subtly echo the altar at St. Peter’s in Rome, but the effect here is more hushed, almost monastic. It’s a space that doesn’t just invite worship — it embodies it.
Quietly modern and spiritually grounded, this is not a church that shouts. It’s one that listens — to light, to legacy, to the slow rhythm of reflection.
Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue: A Shelter of Symbols and Sky
Named after the great 12th-century Jewish thinker Moses Ben Maimon — known to many simply as Maimonides — this synagogue is a quiet marvel of metaphor, rooted in tradition but speaking fluently in the language of contemporary architecture.
At first glance, it may appear minimalist. But look closer: its skin is woven with stories. The lattice-like façade and ceiling, a geometric dance of lines, evokes the palm-branch shelters of Sukkot — a festival that commemorates both fragility and faith. The open weave offers protection from the sun but leaves just enough space for the stars to speak through — a poetic nod to how ancient rituals once unfolded under desert skies.
Bronze chainmail drapes over the structure like a tent in the wind, a soft shimmer against the light — evoking both impermanence and intimacy. Above, a skylight filters daylight like a chuppah, the symbolic canopy under which Jewish couples wed. That gesture — temporary, sacred, open to heaven — is carried through in the design like a whispered blessing.
The synagogue doesn’t tower. It gathers. It doesn’t dazzle. It reflects — light, meaning, memory. A place not only to pray, but to remember that shelter can be both physical and spiritual, temporary and eternal.
