Mosque

The English word "mosque" denotes a Muslim house of worship. The word evolved from the Arabic term masjid, which means "place of prostration." During prayer, Muslims briefly kneel and touch their foreheads to the ground as a sign of submission (literally, Islam) to the will of God.

The Origin of the Mosque

The Prophet Muhammad's original house in Medina (in present-day Saudi Arabia) is thought to be the first mosque and probably served as a model for early mosque architecture. It was a mud-brick structure with living quarters on one side of an enclosed rectangular courtyard. Since Muhammad's followers would gather at his home for prayer, the side of the courtyard facing the qibla, or the direction of prayer, included a porch covered by palm branches, which offered shelter from the hot desert sun. Most early mosques, as well as the majority of later mosques in Arab lands, follow this general layout (see fig. 4).

Mosque

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The Role of the Mosque

Mosques reflect the size and needs of individual Muslim communities, as their members all worship together on Fridays. Historically mosques have been at the center of education and intellectual life.

Inscriptions from the Qur'an adorn the interiors and exteriors of mosques, establishing a strong link between scripture and the place of prayer. Mosque decoration almost never includes human or animal forms, which are seen as potentially idolatrous. Instead, geometric, floral, vegetal, and calligraphic designs adorn mosques, symbolically recalling the promise of Paradise.

Mosques around the World

Mosques throughout the Islamic world use diverse building materials and reflect different regional traditions and styles. Despite variations in size and design, the special place mosques hold in Muslim communities remains universal.

The first mosques were simple places of prayer for Muslims, and may have been open spaces rather than buildings.[4] In the first stage of Islamic architecture, 650-750 CE, early mosques comprised open and closed covered spaces enclosed by walls, often with minarets from which calls to prayer were issued.[5] Mosque buildings typically contain an ornamental niche (mihrab) set into the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca (qiblah)[1] and ablution facilities.[1][6] The pulpit (minbar), from which the Friday (jumu'ah) sermon (khutba) is delivered, was in earlier times characteristic of the central city mosque, but has since become common in smaller mosques.[7][1] Mosques typically have segregated spaces for men and women.[1] This basic pattern of organization has assumed different forms depending on the region, period and denomination.[6]

Mosques commonly serve as locations for prayer, Ramadan vigils, funeral services, marriage and business agreements, alms collection and distribution, as well as homeless shelters.[1][7] Historically, mosques have served as a community center, a court of law, and a religious school. In modern times, they have also preserved their role as places of religious instruction and debate.[1][7] Special importance is accorded to the Great Mosque of Mecca (centre of the hajj), the Prophet's Mosque in Medina (burial place of Muhammad) and Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem (believed to be the site of Muhammad's ascent to heaven).[1]

With the spread of Islam, mosques multiplied across the Islamic world. Sometimes churches and temples were converted into mosques, which influenced Islamic architectural styles.[7] While most pre-modern mosques were funded by charitable endowments,[1] increasing government regulation of large mosques has been countered by a rise of privately funded mosques, many of which serve as bases for different Islamic revivalist currents and social activism.[7] Mosques have played a number of political roles. The rates of mosque attendance vary widely depending on the region.

Islam was established in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad in the 7th century CE.[9] The first mosque in history could be either the sanctuary built around the Ka'bah ('Cube') in Mecca, known today as Al-Masjid al-Haram ('The Sacred Mosque'), or the Quba Mosque in Medina, the first structure built by Muhammad upon his emigration from Mecca in 622 CE,[10] both located in the Hejaz region in present-day Saudi Arabia.[11]

Other scholars reference Islamic tradition[12][13][14] and passages of the Quran,[15][16][17] according to which Islam as a religion precedes Muhammad, and includes previous prophets such as Abraham.[18] In Islamic tradition, Abraham is credited with having built the Ka'bah in Mecca, and consequently its sanctuary, Al-Masjid al-Haram, which is seen by Muslims as the first mosque that existed.[19][20][21][22] A hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari states that the sanctuary of the Ka'bah was the first mosque on Earth, with the second mosque being Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem,[23] which is also associated with Abraham.[20] Since as early as 638 CE, the Sacred Mosque of Mecca has been expanded on several occasions to accommodate the increasing number of Muslims who either live in the area or make the annual pilgrimage known as Hajj to the city.[24]

Either way, after the Quba Mosque, Muhammad went on to establish another mosque in Medina, which is now known as Al-Masjid an-Nabawi ('The Prophet's Mosque'). Built on the site of his home, Muhammad participated in the construction of the mosque himself and helped pioneer the concept of the mosque as the focal point of the Islamic city.[25] The Prophet's Mosque is considered by some scholars of Islamic architecture to be the first mosque.[26][27] The mosque had a roof supported by columns made of palm tree trunks[28] and it included a large courtyard, a motif common among mosques built since then.[25] Rebuilt and expanded over time,[29] it soon became a larger hypostyle structure.[27] It probably served as a model for the construction of early mosques elsewhere.[26][27][28] It introduced some of the features still common in today's mosques, including the niche at the front of the prayer space known as the mihrab (first added in the Umayyad period)[29] and the tiered pulpit called the minbar.[30]

The Great Mosque of Kairouan in present-day Tunisia was the first mosque built in northwest Africa, with its present form (dating from the ninth century) serving as a model for other Islamic places of worship in the Maghreb. It was the first to incorporate a square minaret (as opposed to the more common circular minaret) and includes naves akin to a basilica.[31][32] Those features can also be found in Andalusian mosques, including the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, as they tended to reflect the architecture of the Moors instead of their Visigoth predecessors.[32] Still, some elements of Visigothic architecture, like horseshoe arches, were infused into the mosque architecture of Spain and the Maghreb.[33]

The first mosque in East Asia was established in the eighth century in Xi'an. The Great Mosque of Xi'an, whose current building dates from the 18th century, does not replicate the features often associated with mosques elsewhere.[34] Minarets were initially prohibited by the state.[35] Following traditional Chinese architecture, the Great Mosque of Xi'an, like many other mosques in eastern China, resembles a pagoda, with a green roof instead of the yellow roof common on imperial structures in China. Mosques in western China were more likely to incorporate elements, like domes and minarets, traditionally seen in mosques elsewhere.[34]

Muslim empires were instrumental in the evolution and spread of mosques. Although mosques were first established in India during the seventh century, they were not commonplace across the subcontinent until the arrival of the Mughals in the 16th and 17th centuries. Reflecting their Timurid origins, Mughal-style mosques included onion domes, pointed arches, and elaborate circular minarets, features common in the Persian and Central Asian styles.[38] The Jama Masjid in Delhi and the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, built in a similar manner in the mid-17th century,[39] remain two of the largest mosques on the Indian subcontinent.[40]

Several of the early mosques in the Ottoman Empire were originally churches or cathedrals from the Byzantine Empire, with the Hagia Sophia (one of those converted cathedrals) informing the architecture of mosques from after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.[43] Still, the Ottomans developed their own architectural style characterized by large central rotundas (sometimes surrounded by multiple smaller domes), pencil-shaped minarets, and open facades.[44]

Mosques from the Ottoman period are still scattered across Eastern Europe, but the most rapid growth in the number of mosques in Europe has occurred within the past century as more Muslims have migrated to the continent. Many major European cities are home to mosques, like the Grand Mosque of Paris, that incorporate domes, minarets, and other features often found with mosques in Muslim-majority countries.[45] The first mosque in North America was founded by Albanian Americans in 1915, but the continent's oldest surviving mosque, the Mother Mosque of America, was built in 1934.[46] As in Europe, the number of American mosques has rapidly increased in recent decades as Muslim immigrants, particularly from South Asia, have come in the United States. Greater than forty percent of mosques in the United States were constructed after 2000.[47]

According to early Muslim historians, towns that surrendered without resistance and made treaties with the Muslims were allowed to retain their churches and the towns captured by Muslims had many of their churches converted to mosques.[48] One of the earliest examples of these kinds of conversions was in Damascus, Syria, where in 705 Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I bought the church of St. John from the Christians and had it rebuilt as a mosque in exchange for building a number of new churches for the Christians in Damascus. Overall, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (Al-Waleed's father) is said to have transformed 10 churches in Damascus into mosques.[49] ff782bc1db