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The Amiriya of Rada'a

Out of the sand

It was built in 1504, but abandoned 13 years later and left to crumble. Now, after a huge restoration project, Yemen's Amiriya Palace is considered the world's most beautiful mosque

The Amiriya is dated 1504 and was part mosque, part religious school and part private residence of Sultan Amir ibn Abd al-Wahhab, one of the last Yemeni rulers from the Tahirid Dynasty and an enormously wealthy man who had made his fortune trading with India out of Aden. His palace, with its domes and archways, echoes the architecture of Mughal Delhi and may even have been built with Indian designers. In 1517, not long after his palace was built, Sultan Amir was killed fighting an invading Egyptian army allied to his Yemeni rivals. The Amiriya was abandoned, left by Yemen's new rulers to collapse into the sand.

The monument was in poor condition until 1978 when Iraqi-born archaeologist Selma Al-Radi saw it and enlisted financial help from foreign missions to restore it in a more than twenty-year effort which she led. The restoration took place between 1982 until 2004.

Rada'a, Yemen