Ubudiah Mosque

Ubudiah is the royal mosque of Perak, standing on Bukit Chandan at Kuala Kangsar beside the royal mausoleum and below the palace, and it was designed by Arthur Benison Hubback, the architect of the Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh railway stations, in the same Indo-Saracenic manner. Sultan Idris I vowed to build it during an illness; construction began in 1913 and dragged on, delayed first by a much-repeated incident in which two elephants belonging to the sultan and a member of the royal family got loose and trampled the imported Italian marble, and then by the First World War, so it was not completed until 1917. The result is a large golden dome flanked by four smaller ones and four minarets, in white with black banding, on a hill above the Perak river.

What you actually see

• A golden central dome - flanked by four smaller domes and four minarets.
• Black and white banding - the Indo-Saracenic treatment by Hubback.
• A hilltop royal setting - beside the mausoleum, below the Perak palace.
• The Perak river below - the town and water from the mosque terrace.

When to go

All year, outside prayer times; morning light on the domes. An hour.

Honest expectations

Closed to visitors during prayers and around Friday midday. Robes required and lent at the door. Interior access is sometimes limited to the doorway. Kuala Kangsar is a drive from Ipoh.

Nearby

The Perak royal museum and Istana Kenangan are on the same hill.