Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca
The Hassan II Mosque is one of the only mosques in Morocco open to non-Muslim visitors, via a mandatory 45-minute guided tour (no independent visits) running several times daily except during prayer. Foreign-visitor tickets run roughly 130-140 MAD ($13-14). Tour times shift seasonally: 9am, 10am, 11am, noon and 3pm Saturday-Thursday (September 16-March 14), with an extra 4pm slot added mid-March through mid-September. Modest dress and shoes off before the prayer hall.
Most of Morocco's mosques are simply off-limits to non-Muslim visitors, full stop — which makes the Hassan II Mosque the rare, genuine exception, and one of the very few religious buildings in the country you can actually walk into rather than just photograph from outside.
Why this mosque, and not others?
Built between 1986 and 1993 under King Hassan II specifically as a modern national landmark (not an older, purely religious structure with centuries of restricted-access tradition attached), it was designed from the outset to welcome visitors of all faiths via guided tours — a deliberate exception to Morocco's general rule that mosque interiors are for Muslim worshippers only.
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Ticket price (foreign visitors) | Roughly 130-140 MAD (~$13-14) |
| Tour times (Sept 16-Mar 14) | 9am, 10am, 11am, noon, 3pm Sat-Thu; 9am, 10am, 3pm Fri |
| Tour times (Mar 15-Sept 15) | Same, plus an additional 4pm slot |
| Tour length | About 45 minutes |
| Booking | No official advance online ticket from the mosque itself — buy on-site, or book a skip-the-line slot via a third-party platform like GetYourGuide or Viator |
The minaret reaches roughly 210 meters (689 feet) — the tallest minaret in the world — and the mosque holds over 100,000 worshippers between the interior and the surrounding plaza, making it the second-largest mosque in Africa after Mecca and Medina's holy sites globally. Part of the prayer hall's roof retracts, and the floor above the ocean has small glass panels visitors can look through to the water below.
What the guided tour actually covers
The roughly 45-minute tour walks through the main prayer hall (vast, marble-floored, with the retractable roof overhead), the ablution halls beneath (a genuinely stunning, less-photographed part most first-timers don't expect), and an overview of the building's history and engineering — including the fact that part of it is literally built out over the Atlantic Ocean, per King Hassan II's original vision that 'God's throne was on the water.'
Dress code and rules
- Shoulders and knees covered for all visitors, regardless of gender.
- Shoes off before entering the prayer hall (bring socks if you'd rather not go barefoot on marble).
- No visits during active prayer times — tour slots are scheduled specifically around them, so this is handled for you, not something to plan around yourself.
- Photography is generally allowed inside, but be respectful and avoid photographing anyone praying nearby, if the timing overlaps at all.
Booking ahead vs. walking up
There's no official way to buy a ticket online directly from the mosque, so most visitors either queue at the gate before a tour slot or book a skip-the-line ticket through a third-party platform. If your schedule is tight (say, a layover day in Casablanca before flying home) a pre-booked skip-the-line slot removes the one real variable — a walk-up queue that can run 20-30 minutes in peak season.
Morning tours (9am or 10am) tend to have the best natural light inside and noticeably smaller groups than the early-afternoon slots, which fill up faster with day-tripping tour buses.
Getting there and what's nearby
The mosque sits right on Casablanca's Atlantic waterfront, a short taxi or a walkable stretch from the Corniche promenade. It pairs naturally with a walk along the Corniche and, if you have time, the Art Deco downtown — see our full Casablanca guide for how to combine them into one day.