Buying Guide: 3 Tips for Choosing the Right Carpet for a Mosque

Buying Guide: 3 Tips for Choosing the Right Carpet for a Mosque

25th December 2022

Mosques are special places for Muslims. They are places for prayer, introspection, and reflection, where Muslims can go to fulfill all of their five ritual and obligatory daily prayers. Mosques especially come alive during midday prayers, when communal praying at a mosque (particularly on Fridays) is encouraged.

Therefore, mosques must be decorated in a way that befits their purpose. They should inspire awe, but they should also be warm, inviting and, most importantly, comfortable.
To this end, flooring has a crucial role, and as a carpet flooring Dubai supplier, we have tips on choosing the perfect carpet for a mosque.

1. Decide on the Best Carpet Design for the Space

Design is one of the most important considerations when choosing a carpet for any space. Specifically, you need to consider whether the carpet’s color and pattern suit the area you’ll use it on. You want a carpet that ties in with the mosque’s whole aesthetic.

Popular colors include jade green, crimson, and turquoise blue, but a mosque carpet can be any color that complements the mosque’s interior design and architecture. Neutral colors (tan, beige, brown — i.e., the colors of sand) are also preferred.

Typically, more than one complementing or contrasting color comprises a mosque carpet’s color palette.

Tip: Dark colors are great for mosques. They are warm, somber, and thus particularly suitable for the purpose. They are also better at hiding stains and dirt than light-colored carpets.

Mosque carpets are also almost always patterned. Patterns vary, but they are almost always one of three types: geometric, arabesque, and calligraphic. The circle, repeated and combined in many different iterations, is a popular geometric design, while stylized or semi-abstract intertwined plants and flowers often comprise arabesque patterns. Islamic arches are also a popular carpet pattern.

Tip: If you are picking a carpet for a large open space, it’s a good idea to choose something lined or bordered. This pattern can help direct or focus the gaze on the space’s focal point – say, an important work of art at the other end of the room. You can also use it to emphasize the size of the room.

However, more than design, they serve the purpose of neatly organizing people into single rows. This is a good idea in mosques that can get particularly crowded during prayer times.

2. Choose the Right Carpet Type for Your Needs

Should you go for carpet tiles or wall-to-wall carpeting?

Wall-to-wall carpets are broadlooms or wide-width carpets. One wall-to-wall carpet can cover an entire room by itself, although in bigger areas like mosques, you probably require multiple pieces of wall-to-wall carpets to cover the floor completely.

Carpet tiles, meanwhile, are modular, square-shaped carpeting that you can put together to cover the entire floor. Each carpet square can measure from 48 cm x 48 cm to 96 cm x 96 cm, although they should be available at even smaller or larger tile sizes.

Wall-to-wall carpets are recommended for large-scale, unique, and complicated designs. Your wall-to-wall carpets Dubai supplier can supply custom-made rugs. This will guarantee your large-scale patterns are recreated exactly as you want them to look and placed precisely where you want them to appear. You may not have as much design leeway in carpet tiles because of their limited sizes.

However, carpet tiles are easier and less costly to install than wall-to-wall carpeting. They are also easier to replace. If one square wears out, you can replace that square without replacing everything. In wall-to-wall carpets, you will probably have to replace the entire roll of carpet if a place becomes significantly worn out.

Tip: If you have a complicated design, you need wall-to-wall carpeting. However, when it comes to ease of installation and maintenance, carpet tiles win over wall-to-wall carpeting. Carpet tiles can be more practical, particularly in high-traffic areas like mosques.

To create complicated designs, you can always mix and match different designs of carpet tiles. For instance, you can mix solid or plain carpet tiles with patterned carpet squares to create more large-scale designs and patterns.

3. Know Your Carpet Material Options

Carpets can be natural or synthetic.

The most popular natural fibers include:

• Wool
• Cotton
• Silk

Synthetic fibers are a great alternative to natural-fiber carpets because they provide excellent value for money. Examples of synthetic fibers used in making carpets include:

• Polypropylene or Olefin
• Nylon
• Polyester
• Acrylic

Natural-fiber carpets, particularly woolen carpets, are beautiful additions to any space. They can retain their color for a long time, depending on how they were treated. You can also easily refresh and plump up their fibers again, regardless of how much crushing they go through.

However, woolen carpets can be costly. Wool is also fodder for insects. Additionally, while humidity won’t damage wool fibers, humidity, in the long run, can make wool (and other natural fiber) carpets susceptible to mold growth.

For these reasons, synthetic-fiber carpets make great alternatives to natural-fiber flooring.

Nylon carpets are best for high-traffic areas like mosques. They are resistant to crushing, stains, and mildew. Polyester carpets, meanwhile, are more affordable than nylon carpets. However, they are not as durable.

Olefin carpets are also a great choice next to nylon when it comes to commercial applications.

Therefore, they can be a good choice for mosque carpeting. Acrylic carpets, meanwhile, are soft and feel like wool, but they are less durable than nylon and olefin for high-traffic applications.

Tip: Mosques are high-traffic areas. Therefore, you need a carpet that can withstand the pounding of so many feet and last a long time. Otherwise, your carpet will cost you a considerable amount in upkeep.

In this case, you can choose wool or nylon carpets. While wool is an excellent material, the more practical option is nylon. It is stain-, crushing- and mildew-resistant and can withstand high-traffic and variable climate conditions. Most of all, it is more affordable than wool.

Choosing a Carpet for a Mosque

When choosing a carpet for a mosque, you have to decide on the carpet’s design, type, and material. Ultimately, your choice will depend on your priorities, such as aesthetics, cost, design application, durability, and ease of installation and maintenance.

NGC Nafees is a supplier of commercial floorings, wall coverings, and fabrics in the UAE. Contact us for our recommendations on your mosque carpeting options.

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