Evolution of building types

MOSQUE
 A mosque is a Place of workship for followers of Islam.
 Muslims often refer to the mosque by its Arabic name,
Masjid,
 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, privately owned mosque and the
larger, "collective" mosque which has more community and
social amenities.
The mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come
together for salat (prayer) as well as a center for information,
education, and dispute settlement.
The Imam leads the prayer.
Evolution of building types - MOSQUE
 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.
 Grand entryways and tall towers, or minarets, have
long been and continue to be closely associated with
mosques.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

However, the first three mosques were very simple open spaces
on the Arabian Peninsula.
 Mosques evolved significantly over the next 1,000 years,
acquiring their now-distinctive features and adapting to cultures
around the world.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

 DIFFUSION AND EVOLUTION
Mosques were built outside the Arabian Peninsula as Muslims
moved to other parts of the world.
 Egypt became occupied by Muslim Arabs as early as 640, and
since then so many mosques have appeared throughout the
country that its Capital city, Cairo, has acquired the nickname
of city of a thousand minarets.
 Egyptian mosques vary in amenities, as some have Islamic
schools (Madrassas) while others have hospitals or tombs.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

Mosques in Sicily and Spain do not primarily reflect the
architecture of Visigothic predecessors, but instead reflect the
architecture introduced by the Muslim Moors.
 It is hypothesized, however, that there were some elements of
Pre-Islamic architecture which were Islamic zed into Andalusi
and Maghribi architecture, for example, the distinctive
horseshoe arch.
Mosques diffused into India during the reign of the Mughal
empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

The Mughal’s brought their own form of architecture that
included pointed, onion-shaped domes, as seen in Delhi's
Jama masjid.
Mughal style became the dominant feature in many of the
old mosques in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Mosques first arrived in the ottoman empire (mostly
present-day Turkey) during the eleventh century, when
many local Turks converted to Islam .

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

Several of the first mosques in the Ottoman Empire, such as
the Hagia Sophia in present-day Istanbul, were originally
Churches or cathedrals in the byzantine empire.

The Ottomans created their own design of mosques, which

included large central domes, multiple Minarets , and open
Facades.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

The Ottoman style of mosques usually included elaborate
columns, aisles, and high ceilings in the interior, while
incorporating traditional elements, such as the mihrab.

Today, Turkey is still home to many mosques that display

this Ottoman style of architecture.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

Mosques gradually diffused to different parts of Europe , but

the most rapid growth in the number of mosques has occurred

within the past century as more Muslims have migrated to the

continent.

Major European cities, such as Rome , London, and Munich,

are home to mosques that feature traditional domes and

Minarets.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

These large mosques in urban centers are supposed to
serve as community and social centers for a large group of
Muslims that occupy the region.

However, one can still find smaller mosques in more

suburban and rural regions throughout Europe where
Muslims populate, an example of this is the ShahJahan
Mosque in Working, the first purpose built mosque in the
UK.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

There are 40,000 to 50,000 mosques in the United States
and Islam is the fastest growing religion there.
Mosques first appeared in the United states in the early
twentieth century, the likely first being one in Maine built by
Albanian immigrants in 1915.
As more immigrants continue to arrive in the country,
especially from South Asia, the number of American
mosques is increasing faster than ever before.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

Whereas only two percent of the country's mosques
appeared in the United States before 1950, eighty-seven
percent of American mosques were founded after 1970 and
fifty percent of American mosques founded after 1980.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

 Conversion of places of worship

The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria was a Byzantine

church before the Islamic conquest of the Levant. Some
ecclesiastical elements are still evident.
According to early Muslim historian , towns that
surrendered without resistance and made treaties with the
Muslims gave the Muslims "permission" to take their
Churches and Synagogues,

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

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 (Al-Waleed's father) is said to have transformed 10
churches in Damascus into mosques.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

The process of turning churches into mosques was
especially intensive in the villages where most of the
inhabitants converted to Islam.
‘The Abbasid caliph Al-Ma’ mum turned many churches
into mosques.
Ottoman Turks converted nearly all churches, monasteries,
and chapels in Constantinople, including the famous Hagia
Sophia, immediately after capturing the city in 1453 into
mosques.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

 In some instances mosques have been established on the
places of Jewish or Christian sanctuaries associated with
Bibical personalities who were also recognized by Islam.
Mosques have also been converted for use by other religions,
notably in southern Spain, following the conquest of the
Moors in 1492.
The most prominent of them is the great Mosque at corboda.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

 Characteristic Features of Mosque
The principal entrance is usually on the east, although any
gate may be on occasion specified as a royal entrance; it is rare,
though not unknown, for any entrance to be made in the
western wall, and where this has happened it is not designed
for access by the general public.
The internal position of the principal mihrab, sometimes of
subsidiary mihrabs also is indicated on the outside of the west
wall by one or more buttresses; a feature of mosques in India is
the way the exterior elevation of the west wall is brought to life
by decorative expedients.
Evolution of building types - MOSQUE
The interior of the mosque
admits of little variation
outside two well-defined
types.
 In one the western end
(known in India as liwan) is a
simple arrangement of
columns supporting a roof,
usually of at least three bays in
depth but possibly of many
more;
Evolution of building types - MOSQUE
Evolution of building types - MOSQUE
 The roof may
be supported by
beam-and-
bracket or by the
arch; the former
arrangement being by no means confined to compilations of
pillaged Hindu or Jain material.

The liwan openings may be connected directly with the

arcades or colonnades of other sides of the sahn.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

Where Hindu material has been used it is usually necessary
to superimpose one column upon another in order to gain
sufficient height, for not infrequently a mezzanine gallery
may be incorporated in the structure, in the liwan or in the
side riwaqs
These are frequently referred to as “women’s galleries”, but
this is surely impossible unless they are placed to the rear of
the structure so that women may not make their prayers in
front of men;

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

•Gallery structures in the liwan are more likely to be either
reserved for royal (male) use or to be chillas for the use of a
local pir.
•In the other type, the liwan is physically separated from the
sahn by a screen of arches (maqsura), which may conceal a
columnar structure to the west, as in the Masjid Quwwat al-
Islam where the maqsura is a later addition to the original
structure, or in the mosques of Gujarat where the arch is not
used with as much freedom as in other styles.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

•More commonly, however, the arches of the maqsura are part
of a vaulting system whereby the liwan is composed into one or
more halls; there is always an odd number of maqsura arches,
and it is common for the bay which stands in front of the
principal mihrab to be singled out for special treatment, either
by being made taller than the rest, or by being specially
decorated (the latter treatment common in the mosques of
Bijapur).

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

•This is not invariably the central bay, as mosques are not
necessarily symmetrical about the principal mihrab axis; the
“Stonecutters’ mosque” in Fatehpur Sikri, where a chilla
occupies two additional bays at the north end of the liwan, or
the Arhai Kangura Masjid at Banaras (Varanasi), where the
side riwaqs of the liwan are of unequal length.)
• In one mosque at Bijapur (Makka Masjid), the liwan stands
within and unattached to the surrounding courtyard.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

•A staircase is commonly provided to give access to the liwan
roof, either separately or incorporated within the walls or the
base of a minaret, as this is a favorite place from which to call
the adhan staircase may be provided within a gateway for the
same purpose.
•The liwan roof may be surmounted by one or more domes.
•Inside the liwan, the principal mihrab stands within the west
wall opposite the main opening; if there are other mihrabs,
the central one is always the most sumptuously decorated and
may be set deeper within the west wall than the other.

Evolution of building types - MOSQUE

•The minbar is usually a permanent stone Structure, with an
odd number of steps, only occasionally made an object of
decoration (splendid examples in the older Bengal mosques
and in the Malwa Sultanate).
•A simple minbar is often provided when not liturgically
necessary, as in the mosque attached to a tomb. There is an
exceptional case at Bijapur, at the mosque building for the
cenotaph of Afzal Khan: the mosque is two-storeyed, the two
halls being exactly similar except that a minbar is provided only
in the lower one
Evolution of building types - MOSQUE