Mosque Ly Bn Sltan Ally Alazhry

Set within the Egyptian coastal city of Mersa Matruh in the Muhafazat Matruh governorate along the Mediterranean shore, Masjid Ali ibn Sultan al Ali al Azhari gathers worshippers in a region whose turquoise waters, white sand beaches, and rolling desert have witnessed the passage of traders, pilgrims, and armies across more than three thousand years. Mersa Matruh was known in Ptolemaic times as Amonia, later renamed Paraetonium under the Romans, and during the Second World War its neighbourhood became famous as the scene of campaigns involving Field Marshals Montgomery and Rommel. The city today is a favoured summer resort for Egyptians escaping the Cairo heat.

The honourific al Azhari attached to the name of Ali ibn Sultan al Ali indicates his schooling at al Azhar, the great mosque and university in Cairo founded in the year 970 by the Fatimid caliphs and counted among the oldest continuously operating universities in the world. Graduates of al Azhar have spread learning from Dakar to Jakarta for more than a thousand years, and Egyptian coastal towns proudly name their mosques after the noble shaykhs whose patient teaching shaped whole generations of imams, judges, and schoolmasters across the Muslim world.

Architecturally, the mosque follows the classical Egyptian coastal style with some modern touches. Cream coloured stone walls, a dome tiled in soft turquoise recalling the Mediterranean itself, a single minaret whose muezzin's call reaches the fishing harbour, arched windows that catch the sea breeze, and a carpeted interior with a calligraphic mihrab welcome worshippers for the five daily prayers. The courtyard is planted with palms and oleander, shading wudu stations where worshippers prepare for prayer beside the cool tiled floor.

The present page lists accurate prayer times for Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha at the masjid, along with its Mersa Matruh address and practical notes for visitors arriving from Alexandria along the coastal highway, from the Siwa oasis inland where the oracle of Amun once answered Alexander the Great, or from the long beaches of Agiba and Cleopatra. Qur'an classes for children and women run on weekday afternoons in the side rooms, and during Ramadan the congregation shares tables of molokhia, kofta, and sweet basbousa for communal iftar. Every traveller exploring the jewel beaches of the Egyptian Mediterranean is warmly invited to step inside, to pray with the gentle local congregation, and to send salawat upon the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, whose teaching has reached even these remote western shores of the beloved land of Egypt through the dedicated labour of every Azhari scholar.