A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word entered the English language most likely through Turkish (camii), French (mosquée), from Portuguese (mesquita), from Spanish (mezquita), and from Berber (tamezgida), ultimately originating in Arabic: masjid مسجد — Arabic pronunciation: [ˈmæsdʒɪd].[1] The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration. The word "mosque" in English refers to all types of buildings dedicated for Islamic worship, although there is a distinction in Arabic between the smaller masjid dedicated for the daily five prayers and the larger masjid jāmi (مسجد جامع) where the daily five prayers and the Friday congregation sermons are held with a high volume of attendance.
The mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together for salat (prayer) (Arabic: صلاة, ṣalāt) as well as a center for information, education, and dispute settlement. The Imam leads the prayer.
They have developed significantly from the open-air spaces that were the Quba Mosque and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in the 7th century. Many mosques have elaborate domes, minarets, and prayer halls. Mosques originated on the Arabian Peninsula, but are now found in all inhabited continents.
Large mosques play sometime a political role as well. In Islamic countries like Pakistan, Iran and Iraq (after 2003), political subjects are preached by imams at Friday congregations on a regular basis.[2] In other Islamic countries, imams are usually banned from mentioning political issues.
Grand entryways and tall towers, or minarets, have long been and continue to be closely associated with mosques. However, the first three masajid were very simple open spaces on the Arabian Peninsula. Masajid evolved significantly over the next 1,000 years, acquiring their now-distinctive features and adapting to cultures around the world.
History and Development
This Madina mosque had social, political, and judicial functions, as well as housing Muhammad's family. The religious functions were mixed with other functions. Rules on prayers seem to have not been shaped at the first period, since the prescriptions of the Koran, came gradually in these years. Apart from the mosques of Mecca and Madina, one finds some few indications that there were other mosques in the time of Muhammad.
Mosques soon grew into becoming more complex, and uniform, in their shape. A minbar, the pulpit, from where the Friday prayer is held, was placed next to the mihrab. Within few years after the death of Muhammad, mosques became such important symbols, that when Muslim conquerors established themselves somewhere, a mosque was put up first, and then the military camp was built around it. This was inspired by the Madina example, but in some principal cities, Muslims constructed their mosque in the place that was the centre of other religions.
In the beginning of Islam, tribes and sects in Islam, often marked their independence or their purity, by putting up mosques of their own, or by defining a certain part of the mosque as their part. This pattern have changed up through history, but the situation today is not as tolerant as it might appear. Muslims of all creeds are in theory free to enter all mosques, but in reality some mosques are considered inappropriate, and a traveling Muslim will try to find a mosque which is used by people belonging to his own creed (Sunnis, Shi'is, and Kharijis are the main division points, while governmental dominated or Islamist dominated mosques, is a new and even delicate division point). But most major mosques, the so called jami (cami) are seen upon as neutral, and are used by all creeds. Many mosques of the first centuries, were originally churches. Many of these conversions were against the will of the Christians, but not all. In many regions, Christianity lost its position, and churches turned into mosques over time, simply through Muslims using the churches as the religious buildings they were, and in full respect of Christianity.
Most mosques today in the Arab territories are closed to non-Muslims, but this was a regulation that was developed through the first century of Islam. There was an increase in the emphasis on the sanctity of the mosque, more and more elements of the mosque was regarded as sacred, and any mosque was commonly regarded as 'House of God'. In Turkey any mosque is open to visitors, non-Muslims can visit them as well.
The design of the mosques developed from very simple to complex structures, in short time. In the first mosques, erected in Hijaz, orientation was more important than of form. The development of the mosque as it is known now, lasted for a period of 80 years. The shape of mosques came in many cases from a mixture of the architecture of conquered territories, and of the original patterns.
The addition of minarets, the towers from where the callings are made, and absent in the early mosques, was inspired by religious buildings of other religions, where one believes that it was the churches of Syria, that were most important. The implementation of minarets, were both for embellishment of the mosques, and for the functionality of the mosques, as calling for prayer, ezan, from ground level, did not carry more than a few blocks. But for some time after the introduction of the minarets, the ezan was still performed with the muezzin walking the streets, while inviting for prayer. The first minaret came probably in 703, in Kariouan, Tunisia, almost 100 years after the Madina mosque. But there are written material suggesting that minarets were erected as early as 665 AD. The addition of adornments to the mosques was strongly discussed, and many Muslims opposed this process, and thought of it as a way of jeopardizing what was Muslim, and they disliked letting Christian elements in. This reaction was not farfetched, as many architects of early mosques, were in fact Christians.
Over time, many rooms were added to the mosque, rooms used by people of different social classes, people performing their professions in the mosque, travelers, sick, and old. Devout and ascetics lived often in the mosque, and even in the minaret.
Other elements inside a mosque are:
Dakka, a platform, from where the muezzin calls for prayer, after he has done this from the minaret.
Kursi, a desk and a seat, for the Koran and for the reader. Reliquaries, where bodies, parts of bodies, or belongings of religious personalities are kept. Carpets covering the floor of mosques. Lights, both candles and lamps, used for illumination, but not ritually. Incense, especially together with festivals. Water in the courtyard, both for ablutions, and for drinking.
