Kuwait was a small trading center for hundreds of years prior to the discovery of oil and reconfiguration of the city. Starting with the First Master Plan in 1950, much of the old town was destroyed. Many of Kuwait’s historic mosques were saved from destruction during the urban transformation of Kuwait. As Jehan Rajab writes in Voice of the Oud, “some of the old mosques were left intact while buildings all around were razed to the ground. The mosques were left looking like ghostly ships in an empty sea.”

In his article Historic Mosques in Kuwait, Hossam M. Mahdy writes that, “during the 1950s, the then Department of Public Waqf restored all mosques of Kuwait. The degree of intervention varied from demolition and complete reconstruction to minor repairs. Constructing new minarets, upgrading the ablution and toilet facilities were probably done to all old mosques.” Mahdy notes that Al Saeed Mosque seems to be the nearest to the original plan. He continues, “by the seventies almost all the urban fabric of the old city was gone. Old mosques were not demolished for religious reasons and whenever the master plan suggested a road or any other development on the site of an old mosque, the plan was altered to allow the mosque to survive. Today the remaining old mosques stand like dwarfs amongst huge office buildings, multi-story car parks, and ultra-modern shopping malls. They form a good part of the very little that remains from the architectural heritage of Kuwait.”

In his 1988 thesis The Urbanization of Kuwait Since 1950, Muhammad Fawzi Abdo writes that, “for a community of its size, Kuwait town has a relatively large number of mosques, about forty or more, several of which are Friday mosques. The largest and most important (until recently, with the completion of the impressive state mosque) was the Masjid al-Souk al-Kabir located in the middle of the souk. The other mosques, unpretentious structures often with squat minarets, were traditionally built by individuals or families to serve the needs of the local residents of the various sections of the town.” Here are some of Kuwait’s historic mosques:

Bin Khamis: built in 1772, it is located beneath the Central Bank of Kuwait

Al-Haddad: Dr Yacoub Yousif al-Ghunaim has a series of short children’s books on the history of Kuwait entitled The Old Talk to the Young. My favorite in the series is probably “A Day from the Past.” In it, the characters discuss al-Haddad Mosque, one of Kuwait City’s oldest mosques. Originally built in 1776, it has since been renovated (as all historic mosques have). Originally, it was built from mud and palm fronds and could only accommodate 20 worshippers. It stands across the street from Souq al Safat and the Souk Al Kabir mosque.

Souk al-Kabir Mosque: built first in 1794, then renovated in 1839 and 1953. Once the primary mosque of Kuwait, it was mentioned on a tour of the Grand Mosque that Sheikh Jaber was inspired to build a new state mosque because the Souk al-Kabir mosque didn’t have a large enough capacity and some worshippers always had to pray outside.

Marzouq Al-Bader Mosque, which was built in 1810 and today is right near Fahad Al-Salem street. It has a small coffee shop called Erth attached to it. An Arab Times article from 2018 said that the khutbah (Friday sermon) is held in Tagalog for the expat Filipino community. The second photo comes from twitter.

Shamlan Bin Ali bin Saif Al Roumi: located near Bait Ghaith. It was originally built in 1893. In recent years, it was rebuilt as it would have first looked. In pre-oil times, mosques in Kuwait were built by wealthy individuals as a contribution to their community. According to Kuwait History, the sponsor of this particular mosque had a son who was martyred in the Battle of Jahra in 1920, his younger brother donated 5000 rupees to build Mubarakiya School in the 1910s, and he himself visited Paris in the early 1930s. The final photo comes from this flickr and shows the mosque in 2005 before renovation.

Al Hamdan Mosque, behind the Grand Mosque, was built in 1844. It first stood out to me because of its comparatively short minaret. In an article about the design of mosques, Omar Khattab writes that, “in 1912 there were few minarets in Kuwait that could hardly be seen above the rooftops of houses due to their low height… traditional mosques of Kuwait were simple and humble in their architectural features. The Ministry of Awqaf & Islamic Affairs have adopted the single and simple minaret model, apart from the large capacity model type (more than 2000 worshippers) where there are two minarets.” Shaheed has a miniature park, with notable buildings around Kuwait. Below you can see Al Hamdan as a miniature.

Ma’rafi Husseiniyya: built in 1906 by Al-Ma’rafi family. According to Souad M. Al-Sabah, it was the first husseiniyya in Kuwait. In 1918 a second was established along Mubarak Al-Kabir Street, known as Al-Husseiniyya Al-Khaz’aliyya because Sheikh Khaz’al gave 10,000 rupees for its construction. The images below come from google maps.

Ali Al Musawi mosque: the photo below dates to 1975 and comes from Tareq Rajab’s work Glimpses of Kuwait. The mosque is near the Husainiyat. The second image comes from google maps.

Al Khalifa mosque, which according to the book Mubarak Al-Sabah: The Foundation of Kuwait, was one of the three major mosques during Mubarak’s reign, who built this structure in Mubarakiya. Souad M. Al-Sabah also writes in the book that in 1912, the first ice-making plant in Kuwait opened nearby, owned by a Jewish citizen of Kuwait named Khawaja Saleh Muhlib.

Al Shamlan: built in 1922 and renovated in 1959, it is notable for being located on a roundabout as the process of urbanization took place around the building

Al Saeed Mosque, built in 1878 and located in Qibla. According to this Instagram post by Claudia Al Rashoud, “up until the 1950s, Kuwait’s mosques had short, stubby minarets that were reached by climbing an inclined stairway leading up from the courtyard. Around seventy years ago, the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs… began carrying out major renovations on the old mosques that greatly changed their appearance. The original, short minarets were transformed into tall minarets with spiral staircases. The sole mosque that only underwent minor renovations and therefore retained many of it’s original features is Al Saeed Mosque.”

Al-Sayer and Al Sharhan: next to Al Saeed and behind the National Museum. Below you can see photographs of the mosques as well as a miniature replica of Al Sharhan.

Al Wazzan and AlHamad mosques: located nearby to one another along Abdullah Al Mubarak street, their minarets are shown in this book that details where historic mosques are throughout Kuwait City

Abdulaziz Al Qattan and Al Rashid: both mosques are located in Hawally. Al Qattan was built in 1956, just two years after Hawally was arranged by the municipality and one year before the old city wall was torn down

A man named Tom Chu visited Kuwait in the 1980s and took photos of mosques. Here is a “then and now” using his photo of Badr:

Here is a “then and now” using Chu’s photo of Salhiya Mosque in Kuwait City: