A journey to any country of the world brings vivid emotions and new knowledge, cheerful friends and pleasant memories into our lives. To know the history, we visit museums and galleries, to understand the culture, we take part in celebrations and feasts. But only those who want to look deeper, into the heart and soul of the people, go to local temples: churches, mosques, monasteries…
Numerous retreat centers, spiritual practices and meditations, being the goal of most tourists, can mislead about the religion of Indonesia which local people adhere to. Although Hinduism and Buddhism are widespread here, about 90% of people are Muslims who have erected a huge number of amazing mosques and minarets.
You can swim from island to island, visiting one Muslim shrine after another, but if you are not a big admirer of temple architecture, then it’s worth going only to one abode – the Mosque Amirul Mukminin, the first «floating mosque» in Indonesia. It rises above the blue waters of the sea, standing on slender stone columns that let a fabulous sunrise through every morning. Every evening hundreds of tourists come to Losari Beach to see a beautiful sunset, where the sun seems to go below the horizon through these columns.
Three floors of a magnificent grey and white building with an area of 2000 sq.m. seem to levitate, occasionally touching the waves of the warm serene sea. The building is filled with calmness and peace, with everything that faithful and humble believers find within its walls.
It was built in 2009, but the ceremonial opening happened only in 2013, after the fundamental reconstruction of Losari Beach with the support of the former Mayor of Makassar Ilham Arief Sirajuddin. The magnificent Bahari and Bugis parks were opened here at that time.