Mosques & Islamic Centres Acoustic Design Guide

Dome echoes are caused by concave surfaces focusing sound energy into hotspots. Treatment options include perforated decorative panels with absorptive backing applied to the dome interior, suspended acoustic banners, and geometric coffering that provides diffusion. The treatment must be architecturally sympathetic to Islamic decorative traditions, often using perforated arabesque patterns that double as acoustic absorbers.

The ideal RT60 for a mosque prayer hall is 1.5–2.5 seconds, balancing the reverberance expected for Quranic recitation with sufficient speech intelligibility for the khutbah (Friday sermon). Smaller musallas (prayer rooms under 200 m²) should target 1.0–1.5 seconds. Sound reinforcement systems are often necessary in larger halls to supplement natural acoustics.

Prayer carpets provide significant high-frequency absorption (NRC 0.30–0.50) across the entire floor area, which helps control reverberation at speech frequencies. However, this creates a frequency-imbalanced room with excessive low-frequency reverberation. Additional low-frequency treatment using membrane absorbers or resonant panels on walls is typically needed to achieve a balanced decay across all octave bands.