Chunks Chipped from Islamic Architecture.

Stupa at Sanchi (Touropia.com)

As a visual analogy for the apparent shape of the sky a domes archetypal power to evoke feelings of greatness and natural order is, I believe, beyond doubt. However, there was no specific theological reason for Islam to adopt the dome or to make it an essential feature of mosque construction although its significance as a cosmological metaphor and the emotional attachment now felt by some Muslims are very real. Following the construction of the ‘Dome of the Rock’ in 691 the dome was adopted in the construction of Mosques perhaps to enlarge the space above and around or before the mihrab but more surely as an available technology in those regions of Islamic influence that had viable burnt-brick (Grabar 1963, 192) or stone resources as a stable structure that might roof a large prayer area uninterrupted by walls or columns.

The Haram in Makkah has no roof or dome over its central area, in which men and women are not segregated, although it has some smaller domes and several pairs of minarets. The early development of Mosques owes much to the response of Muslims to religions with established material infrastructures (Grabar 1969, 30). However minarets have little if any theological significance, having originally functioned as the means to extend the range of an unamplified human voice calling the time for prayers although by the twelfth century they were a means of ensuring that the mosque should be taller than the buildings nearby (Grabar 1969, 39-40). As monumental architectural features they are statements of authority no less than stelae, free-standing columns and pylons. Churches were also intended to be taller than other religious buildings as Pope Innocent III made clear to Philip Augustus of France in 1204,

Nay, in such a matter witnesses are not permitted against the Jews, so that their insolence has gone so far that-we refer to it with shame-the Jews of Sens built next to a certain old church a new synagogue, not a little higher than the church, in which place they celebrate their services in the Jewish rite. (Medieval Sourcebook 1995, online)

Central Mosques were increasingly used as response to Christian and Jewish buildings and as symbols of Muslim authority during the eighth and ninth century. The ‘Pact of Umar’ allegedly written by Christians in this long period clearly addresses the concerns of Muslim rulers to be recognised as such by non-Muslims in all social contexts and, if the word bayt is understood to mean both home and place of worship as was often the case, in religion too “We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims” (Medieval Sourcebook 1996, online). Yet today, almost everywhere the tall towers, slender minarets and lofty domes built by princes, popes or caliphs as symbols of wealth and power seem to be dwarfed by the gigantic triumphal towers of a secular ‘global’ hegemony which although offensive to religious and aesthetic sensibilities do have the merits of social and commercial functionality.

Major mosques in Iran feature large open courtyards and only small areas are covered by iwans that sometimes feature domes. They are prominent structures that feature internal and external articulation with tiles and an emphasis upon elegant mathematically derived proportions. However, while these mathematical progressions may speak of an Islamic cosmology they also express the order of imperial structure in monumental form.

The interior of Al-Aqsa is little different from churches in the region and it can be seen that the internal difficulties of the Djenne construction are obviated by adopting the obvious advantages of stone as the building material. The original mosque was in existence in 679 CE and a wooden dome was added in c. 1034 when the entire building was rebuilt after damage sustained in an earthquake. (Wikipedia)

Mosques in the Sahel, Sub-Sahara and West Africa are traditionally of wood and pisé construction technologically similar to multi-storey structures of the Yemen and have multiple internal columns supporting flat roofs. Although the Mosque was rebuilt in the twentieth century the pylons seen in the picture of Great Mosque of Djenné, are reminiscent of Egyptian temple approaches and there is also the presence of pyramid mosques in the region which may suggest the transference across the continent of non- or pre-Islamic architectural, technological and religious features at various times throughout the regions history via the caravans which connected the Sahel with the ancient kingdoms of Kush, Ethiopia and Aksum via Kanem-Bornu,

The prayer hall, measuring about 26 by 50 meters (85 ft x 165 ft), occupies the eastern half of the mosque behind the qibla wall. The mud-covered, rodier-palm roof is supported by nine interior walls running north-south which are pierced by pointed arches that reach up almost to the roof (Maas & Mommersteeg 1992, p. 115). This design creates a forest of ninety massive rectangular pillars that span the interior prayer hall and severely reduce the field of view. The small, irregularly-positioned windows on the north and south walls allow little natural light to reach the interior of the hall. The floor is composed of sandy earth (p. 114). (Wikipedia)

Indigenously designed West African mosques have flat or pitched roofs, although newer mosques feature domes, with towers at each corner one of which may function as a minaret but may also function as a form of malqaf or wind-tower (Wikipedia, Windcatcher). A form of ventilation or air-conditioning first found in the pre-Islamic Iranian architecture of the Persian Gulf which when added to the thermal properties of mud-brick creates oases of coolness for worship in the sub-Saharan heat.

Thus, while there transferred similarities it is demonstrable that there is no single Islamic public or ritual architecture other than that which satisfies the need for a satisfactory space in which people can pray. There are undoubtedly outstanding examples where mathematics and religious expression have combined to stunning effect but these are exceptions rather than the rule. However once a tradition has formed in the popular imagination (or academic opinion) it is hard to question its validity and architects often find themselves pressed from many sides into articulating mosques with double-ogee window openings and fibre-glass domes of no structural relevance or architectural merit.

The answer to Grube’s question of whether there is an ‘Islamic Architecture’ has, with the exceptions of a mihrab and a space in which to pray, so far been a list of features that are often employed in Islamic buildings but not in all of them or not in all regions and are largely not religiously or culturally essential. This is not always the case and there are a small number of Islamic functions and duties that require common architectural features.

The orientation of buildings for Muslim usage has important implications that may affect the effective placement of service outlets. Where churches, and homes, are oriented throughout the world upon an east-west axis purpose built mosques are oriented, in the direction that worshippers must face, with one wall that excludes all other worldly sights that is tangential to a circle centred upon Makkah. In Mosques this wall is easily recognised by the mihrab, an alcove or recess that is often highly decorated, from where congregational prayers are led. In Muslim homes the direction of prayer may be indicated by a wall lacking photographs and mirrors or a corner without a television or computer. It follows that the clusters of sockets and cable outlets that feature in many newly built dwellings should be situated with users in mind. Also Muslims, as a mandatory act of respect for the Holy city and the sanctity of prayer, are required to not use a toilet facing or with their backs towards Makkah. Thus a fundamental design feature that is more than desirable in any architecture intended for or converted to Muslim use is to align or realign toilets obliquely to the direction of prayer in both domestic and public structures.

Male and female Muslims use toilets in a seated or squatting position, hence the ‘Asian’ hole in the floor type of ceramic, and are required to wash the body after using the toilet and prior to the ritual washes required for religious acts. Therefore in Islamic buildings there is a general absence of urinals and there is always a need for provision of washing quality water within reach persons situated upon or above toilets.

Shoes are not worn indoors and are placed in storage racks or areas set aside for that purpose but are usually worn in toilets as a means to avoid the possibility of any unclean matter being transferred to prayer or living spaces. Often a transitional space, effectively dividing unclean from clean, is situated adjacent to the entrance/exit of a toilet either internally or externally for donning, removing and storing toilet specific footwear.

In mosques and madrassahs it is usual to encounter the shoe removal area and toilets upon entry which are separated from the prayer space by a room for performing ritual ablutions (wudhu). In this arrangement of spaces the physical transition from unclean to clean is also a journey from the mundane to the spiritual which connotes with the meditative journey intended by those performing wudhu. It is moreover stepping away from the dangers and stress of the world into the peace and safety of a home.

As in the classical Greek world the Muslim home is divided into insider and outsider spaces. Inside a domestic space designed for Muslims, or modified by them, it is made possible for visitors to move from guest areas in order to access toilets and the outside world without passing through the private spaces. Whilst most often associated with gender separation the private spaces are places where a more relaxed standard of modesty is allowed for family members of both sexes.

Building Western Islam

Islam is an established religion in most western countries in which the descendants of migration grow more western together with the growing number of native Muslims from whom a new cultural expression for Islam is emerging. This western expression of Islam is distant from Muslim imperial history and no benefit is gained for it in looking to the architecture of eastern and African Islam hoping to re-create anachronistic and exotic forms but it will benefit greatly from approaching historic buildings with a view to abstract functions from them for application within a new generation of western Islamic buildings. No one today would attempt to revive the building of Medieval cathedrals or build another Brighton Pavilion and it seems reasonable to suggest that western architects whether looking for inspiration or to provide or convert suitable structures for Muslims should look to cost, structural suitability and unchanging function rather than transient articulation if they are to design buildings of lasting architectural, social and religious importance.

Rasem Badran recognised the wider role of the Mosque and its interaction with a living community, and applied his understanding to a Muslim urban setting, in his design for the award winning Great Mosque of Riyadh which has been described as,

Within, columns, courtyards and narrow passageways recall the traditional uses of space. The mosque, set within public areas, takes its traditional place as a centre of worship integrated into the urban fabric, rather than standing clear as an independent monument. (Agha Khan Award for Architecture, online)

Conserving extant religious buildings as functional entities against the changing demands of urban environments, is no greater a challenge in principle than constructing or converting urban spaces in a manner that satisfies both religious and secular sensitivities. The proposed Mosque and Community Centre in Dudley, UK, the development of which was halted by objections from Dudley council, may to some extent serve as an example of contemporary issues and perhaps what a twenty-first century European Mosque should not be. The Council’s objections to the new building and those of

[T]wo petitions against the plan drew more than 50,000 signatures with residents saying the building would be out of keeping with Dudley’s medieval character. (Express and Star 7.9.2012)

ignore the affects of more than two-hundred years of shambolic industrial developments and a medieval castle with a 1960s chair-lift that characterize greater Dudley today. Concrete facts which lend weight to claims that the objectors to the centre were racially motivated in their opposition. Certainly responses to a High Court judgment against the project unleashed a flood of extremely nationalistic comments from readers of the local press (Express and Star, 17.04.2012). Perhaps the Mosque and community centre actually embodies and evokes the spirit of Dudley rather better than its council believes, but for all the wrong reasons.

In all of the artist’s and architect’s impressions that I have seen of the proposed Dudley Mosque there is a vision of design by committee. An inelegant stump of a building bolted together from nostalgic preconceptions of what a Mosque should look like, nineteenth century civic architecture and elements of various schools of neo-classicism. A Greek revival portico lacking a pediment leading to two large boxes ventilated with Palladian windows that rest upon sloped window ledges topped by a cupola and disproportionately large dome. The assemblage completed by a minaret, which no one will ever ascend, that appears to have been modeled upon the inverted leg of a mid-twentieth century billiard table. A structure with an ideal design ethos for Dudley, perhaps, but as an expression of Islamic architecture in twenty-first century Europe it fails. Moreover, lacking outstanding architectural impact and without a clear expression of social relevance to the city’s cultural infrastructure it presented an easy victim for the combined forces of areligious modernity and xenophobic enmity.

It is He Who produces gardens, both cultivated and wild, and palm-trees and crops of diverse kinds, and olives and pomegranates, both similar and dissimilar. Eat of their fruits when they bear fruit and pay their due on the day of their harvest, and do not be profligate. He does not love the profligate. (Q 6:41)

Rather than building large and looming fantasy structures that are often interpreted, as was the colloquially misnamed ‘Ground Zero Mosque’, as triumphalist Mosques should be designed to best serve the people who pay for them, the members of the Muslim faith. Each unnecessary feature, each inch of a minaret, every watt of energy to heat, cool or light a Mosque is money taken away from education and help for the needy. The duties of Muslims are quite simple and while building a structure decorated like a birthday cake may fulfill the duty to provide a place for congregational prayers it may equally hinder the capacity to fulfill other obligations. If Mosques have towers they should be functional. Loudspeakers, if the local authority permits their use, have removed the need for minarets as places from which to call the faithful to prayers but they can form part of low running cost integrated heating and air-conditioning systems. The dome has been made redundant as a means to span spaces without the need for internal supports more cheaply by ferro-concrete and steel. The large flat or pitched roofs that steel and concrete provide are ideal surfaces upon which to mount solar energy panels to power the collective needs of the worshipping community from the energy that Allah (swt) freely gives.

Conclusion.

The discipline of Islamic Architecture may, rather like the Philosophy of Religion, be critiqued and deconstructed to the point where it seems on the point of extinction. Yet there survive three major styles of Islamic architecture that developed between the seventh and twelfth centuries in the Iranian, Sub-Saharan and Arabo-Mediteranean trade zones. Within each of these styles there remain the elements of water, space, orientation and function which together with the mihrab provide the essentials of the permanently Islamic in architecture. However, much that is seen is the architecture of Muslim peoples because it is composed from the styles and forms that Muslims wish to use and may only be truly considered as temporarily Islamic if, when and while it is used religiously. Put simply a dome may sit atop the sacred or profane but a mihrab can only exist as part of a masjid, the place of prostration.

Some of the features of regional Muslim architecture may even seem strange and off-putting to Muslims of other climates and traditions. Yet Islam should be accessible to all humanity,

Invite (all) to the Way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knows best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance. (Q16:125)

Inviting people to Islam is a duty for Muslims and Islamic buildings are public statements of faith even though the concept of ‘an’ Islamic architecture may be problematic since it either accepts a view that assigns Islam to the exotic or the nostalgia that bind Muslims to a belief in other than what is essential or desirable for an elegant expression of Islamic values of beauty. A Christian friend, of moderately iconoclastic leaning, once asked me “Has anyone ever converted to Islam because a Mosque is extravagantly decorated?” Muslims worship within buildings and the spiritual atmosphere within those spaces should be the product of their familial relationships and collective internal spiritual journeys from the divisive mundane toward the Universal Spirit. No one should feel alienated or excluded from the Mosque which should be a place which attracts everyone towards the worship of Allah (swt). The prophet Moses (as) removed his shoes on a mountain because he stepped towards the safety of Allah (swt) and not because he was overawed by the passing grandeur of his surroundings.

The constant nature of Creation is change and evolution ruled by an active and sustaining Creator. Mosques began as large open spaces, gained thatched roofs, hypostyle halls, became vaulted, domed and in the twelfth century were adorned with multiple minarets as the needs or ambitions of men and society changed. Therefore, Muslims should not ascribe to the form and fabric of any building built to serve human needs special importance beyond its historical and social value. Although, Muslims should recognize, value and preserve historical buildings while rejecting the judgmentalism and barbarity of misinformed iconoclasm they should not hold any style of architecture or ornamentation as a shibboleth. If there is an example of ‘Islamic Architecture’ that all Muslims of all ages agree upon it is an ancient stone cuboid to which they are all called to turn towards in prayer and hope to approach in obedient humility invoking mercy. . .