The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

mosque

The mosque (masjid), which serves as the preferred site for prayer among Muslims, has a rich social and political history. From the time of the Prophet Muhammad, whose home in Medina, together with the adjoining courtyard, became the prototype for later designs, mosques have combined worship, instruction, administration, practical uses, and ritual activities with direct and indirect bearing upon the maintenance of order, popular mobilization, and the exercise of power. Although after Muhammad’s death, the unity of religious and secular authority embodied by the Prophet could not be replicated, it is significant that this ideal combination of roles played a key part in the selection of Abu Bakr as the first caliph. The Companions explicitly justified their choice by recognizing that Muhammad had designated him to lead the congregational prayer on numerous occasions when the Prophet himself was unable to do so. This symbolic link between the imam or prayer leader and the ruler underwent considerable variation over the following centuries, but the precedent it established remained a core principle in classical Islamic theories of political stability.

An early and enduring manifestation of the close conjuncture of secular and spiritual leadership is reflected in the architecture and design of the new capital cities founded or appropriated by the victorious forces in the course of establishing the new Islamic empire. A standard feature of this urban outline, which persisted through the Ottoman period, consisted of placing the governor’s palace and the central mosque as a pair, marking the convergence of the administrative and ceremonial functions, at the heart of a city. In some cases, such as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Ayasofia Mosque in Istanbul, an existing Christian church was converted into a mosque, with remodeling and additions such as minarets and areas for ritual ablutions. In other instances, as happened in Basra, Kayrawan, and Cairo, conquering Arab leaders drew up plans for the first mosque at the center of a military camp. Historically, many Islamic dynasties have constructed immense monumental mosques to mark their authority, as seen, for example, in the Mughals’ Jama Masjid in Delhi, the Abbasids’ Great Mosque of Samarra, or, most recently, the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. The actual task of presiding over the prayer was, in time, delegated to others, but typically caliphs or their representatives continued to oversee the conduct of public religious ceremonies and thus legitimate their performance, whether by support, attendance, or through the invocation of a blessing upon the ruler by name spoken during the Friday prayer sermon.

The delivery of the sermon in the mosque as part of the obligatory Friday noon prayer, which the Prophet himself had originally performed, was also entrusted, upon his death, to the designated successor or caliph. Muslim rulers usually delegated this function to a scholar chosen for his eloquence and trustworthiness, but certain fixed conventions defining the classical forms of this oration continued to refer to the leader under whose auspices the preacher was speaking. For instance, the minbar, or mosque pulpit, retained importance as part of the formal procedure for recognizing the legitimacy of succession. Traditionally, the content of a Friday sermon reflected concern for the political order as well as the spiritual welfare of the community. Today, in most Muslim lands, a convergence of worldly and otherworldly concern continues to characterize sermon content, reflecting a wide range of variation from compliance and conformity to dissent and rebellion.

Another pattern that associates the administration of mosques with those governing a community derives from systems of patronage and oversight, including subsidies for the construction, the maintenance, and the staffing of a place of prayer. In general, Islamic legal conventions allow for a variety of particular edifices, large and small, to serve as mosques, but with a distinction made between the many ordinary mosques for everyday use and a limited number of generally much larger cathedral mosques. Traditionally, only these more spacious and often more celebrated mosques were authorized as sites for conducting the Friday noon prayer, a status designated by the term jāmi‘. Typically, such privileged central mosques also had more resources, enabling them to provide enhanced worship services. Today, however, this distinction does not apply consistently. On the one hand, governments in most lands with Muslim majorities have instituted ministries or other bureaucratic agencies that seek to exercise some surveillance or control over the operation of mosques, often with special attention to any potentially incendiary content in sermons. These developments include a transfer, the pace of which varies considerably across the Islamic world, of the site of education from mosques to schools. On the other hand, a vast array of mosques funded, sometimes lavishly, by private donors or by benevolent societies rather than by the government have emerged over the last century, creating independent bases for preaching, instruction, and frequently for the provision of social services. The activities of the Society of Muslim Brothers and its later offshoots, ranging from medical clinics and vocational training facilities to transportation and financial cooperatives, provide perhaps the best known example of this trend.

A second important dimension of a mosque in the context of Islamic political culture is its reference to the model of the sanctuary in Mecca, the point of convergence for the hajj or pilgrimage. Symbolically, of course, every Muslim place of prayer is related to this original site, al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, by virtue of its directional orientation, which Muslims face when they pray. But Mecca also represents an emphasis on the enduring and transcendent unity of Muslims in a way that eludes any other earthly location, even Medina, the center of the early Islamic polity and first capital of the Islamic empire. Jerusalem, considered by Muslims to be the third most sacred site, is also venerated specifically by virtue of the Qur’anic allusion to the Prophet’s mystical night journey, described as the visit to a mosque (17:1); this devotion later provided a concrete focus when the Umayyad caliphs constructed the Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount and the adjoining Dome of the Rock. The primary historical tendency has been to view both the mosques of Mecca and Jerusalem as focal points for spiritual promise rather than secular aspiration. However, in the context of the prolonged conflict between Israel and Palestine in the 20th and 21st centuries, a traditional religious site and symbol for all Muslims is frequently deployed as a popular nationalistic icon.

The Islamic revival that has surged dramatically and widely since the 1970s has also influenced the development and use of mosques. Mosque construction has increased exponentially in many Middle Eastern nations as well as the West and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Similarly, this movement has promoted the enhancement of mosques and the expansion beyond the traditional function of worship to the operation of schools, playgrounds, clinics, workshops, libraries, gyms, and performance venues. Many major European and American cities have recently acquired Islamic Centers that feature impressive architecture and décor and combine mosques with additional facilities for social and instructional purposes. Not surprisingly, mosques have lately also advanced with measured enthusiasm into cyberspace, after having extended their reach through radio and television for decades.