Mosque

A mosque is a building designated for Muslim worship, especially the five daily prayers and the congregational prayer on Friday. The Arabic word masjid means "place of prostration," which points to the act of bowing in prayer that defines the space. Mosques are found across the Islamic world and in Muslim communities on every inhabited continent, and they range from small neighborhood prayer rooms to monumental congregational buildings. Their importance comes from both the religious meaning of the space, which the Islamic tradition treats as sacred and oriented toward Mecca, and the institutional role they have played in urban life for more than fourteen centuries.

The entry begins with the concept of the mosque as a sacred space and its origins in the first community at Medina. It then describes the architectural elements that recur across regions, the main building plans, and the regional variations that resulted from contact with local building traditions. The middle sections cover ritual practice, the educational, legal and welfare functions that mosques have historically performed, and the endowment and urban systems that supported them. The final sections address heritage conservation, modern construction, and the unresolved questions in historical research on early mosques.

Sacred space and the meaning of the mosque

The English word "mosque" derives from the Arabic masjid, which refers to a place of sujud, the prostration performed during salah in which the forehead touches the ground. The original Arabic word for mosque is masjid, meaning a place of sujūd, the act of prostration before God during ritual prayer. The noun comes from the root s-j-d, which carries the sense of bowing down. Its Semitic cognates, meaning a place of worship, predate Islam and apply to sacred sites of other religions. The Qur'an contains over twenty references to masjid, singular and plural, which shows how central this space was to Muslim life from the time of the Prophet. The word's meaning was shaped by the act it names, so the building is defined by the worship performed in it rather than by its shape.

A mosque is commonly described as a house of God, and its design is often read as an expression of tawhid, the doctrine of God's oneness. Architectural historians have connected this to spatial unity: a centralized interior under a single dome is read as making divine unity visible, because the space is perceived as one whole rather than a sequence of separate parts. The dome is widely interpreted as a figure of the heavens, and the open courtyard as the physical world, with the passage between them understood as a spiritual movement. These readings are interpretive rather than prescriptive; no single canonical plan is required by the doctrine itself.

Two ritual conditions structure the space. The first is orientation. Worshippers face the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, and the wall that indicates this direction carries the mihrab niche. The second is purity. Prayer requires wudu, the ritual ablution of hands, face, arms and feet, and the mosque's entrance zones are arranged so that worshippers can perform it before entering the prayer hall. Footwear is customarily removed at the threshold, separating the everyday outside from the sacred interior.

Mosques differ from other sacred sites in function and in their associations. The Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, which encloses the Kaaba, is the holiest site in Islam. The Prophet's Mosque in Medina is the second-holiest site in Islam, after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. Its sanctity derives partly from its origin: it was built by the Prophet himself, next to the house where he settled after his migration to Medina in 622 AD. Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque ranks third in this hierarchy of Muslim sanctity. Ordinary mosques share in the sanctity of the act performed inside them, but they do not hold the same status as these sites. Their sacredness comes from their use for prayer rather than from a relic or a sacred location within them.

A mosque is not itself an object of veneration. Muslims direct worship to God, not to the building, and the prayer's orientation points to the Kaaba rather than to any structure in the mosque. Decoration reflects this principle. Figurative imagery of humans and animals is largely absent from the mosque interior, a restraint often explained as a safeguard against idolatry. Architectural writing on this topic presents the absence of human imagery as an expression of sincerity toward God and a way to prevent idolatrous worship. In its place, mosques feature calligraphic inscriptions, often including Qur'anic verses and divine names, together with geometric and vegetal patterns. Geometric patterns are often read as human intervention in the world, while plant forms represent the natural world, and the two together are understood as consistent with divine order. The aesthetic system thus carries theological content while keeping attention on God rather than on representation.

Origins in Medina

The Prophet's Mosque (al-Masjid al-Nabawi) was founded after the emigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca. Its origins are usually dated to 622, when the community reached Yathrib, which later became Medina. The Mosque of the Prophet was built in 622 by the Muslim community after they reached the city of Yathrib, which would later be called al-Madina al-Muanwara. Its importance as a model rests on the building's combination of a walled enclosure, a covered prayer area and a domestic setting next to the Prophet's home. Accounts of the site describe a plot that was being used as a burial ground before construction, and the land was bought rather than accepted as a gift. The orphan owners offered it freely, but Muhammad insisted on paying, and the price agreed upon was paid by Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, who thus became a named participant in the foundation.

Materials and layout

The early building was modest. Its walls were made of unfired brick, and the roof rested on palm-trunk supports. The roof which was supported by palm trunks was made of beaten clay and palm leaves. The roof stood at about 3.6 metres, according to the figures typically cited from later compilations. Reported dimensions differ across sources: one account gives 30.5 m × 35.62 m (100.1 ft × 116.9 ft), while another describes a simple courtyard structure built in unbaked brick, with a rectangular, almost square, floor plan measuring about 53 by 56 meters. The courtyard, or ṣaḥn, was open to the sky, and shelter was provided by porticoes. A shaded portico supported by palm trunks stood on the north side of the courtyard, in the direction of prayer, which was initially towards Jerusalem. After the qibla was reoriented toward Mecca, a similar portico was added on the south side, facing towards that city. Another source notes a shaded area called the suffah, used for gatherings and instruction.

Multiple functions

The mosque served far more than worship. Originally an open-air building, the mosque served as a community center, a court of law, and a religious school. A raised platform, which later became the minbar, was used by teachers of the Quran and by Muhammad for the Friday sermon. It contained a raised platform or pulpit (minbar) for the people who taught the Quran and for Muhammad to give the Friday sermon (khutbah). Later accounts also describe political and diplomatic uses: consultations, announcements, and the welcoming of delegations took place within its walls. Some sources add that the mosque was a military command post, a claim that rests on less detailed evidence. The general pattern of mosques hosting public business, from teaching to adjudication, is attested for later centuries as well, and the mosque also functioned as a court of justice until the introduction of secular law into many Islamic countries in modern times.

Quba and other early foundations

The mosque at Quba, on the outskirts of Medina, is traditionally regarded as the first mosque built by Muhammad. Its foundation was laid by Prophet Muhammad upon his arrival in Madinah, with the support of the Emigrants and the Ansar (Helpers). Its identification rests largely on the Quran. In Surah At-Tawbah (9:108), Allah describes a mosque "founded on piety from the first day," which Islamic scholars widely identify as Masjid Quba. The surrounding narratives vary in detail. One tradition says the Prophet stayed 14 days in Quba before continuing to Medina, while another reports more than 20 nights there. Distance figures also diverge, from 3 km from the Prophet's Mosque to about 5-6km from the Masjid-e-Nabawi at Madinah. Historians generally treat these accounts as later narratives, transmitted through hadith and biographical literature, and read them alongside the Quranic text rather than as contemporary records.

Fixed design or gradual development

Whether the 622 building had a fixed design is debated. The sources show repeated change. Its palm-trunk supports were repaired during the caliphate of Abu Bakr, and the masjid was now rectangular in shape again, measuring about 58 metres from east to west and 66 metres from north to south after the expansion under Umar in 639. Under Uthman, in 649, the palm trunk columns were replaced by stone columns which were joined by iron clamps. Early Umayyad work changed the building more fundamentally. According to the 10th-century writer Ibn Rusta, minarets were also built for the first time during al-Walid's expansion as four towers were added to the mosque's corners. The qibla itself is poorly documented: one source states that there is no record of the qibla direction of this mosque. Because the textual record is sparse, reconstructions of the original plan remain provisional, and the building's appearance in its first decades is inferred from later descriptions.

Core architectural elements

The qibla wall and the mihrab

The qibla wall, facing Mecca, is the reference point around which the whole prayer hall is organized. Early mosques did not cut a niche into it. The earliest mosques do not appear to have had miḥrābs and instead the whole qibla wall was used to indicate the direction of Mecca. A painted mark or a tree stump sometimes reinforced the line (4-6).

The concave mihrab niche is usually linked to the reign of al-Walid I (705–715). One account places the first concave niche in the Prophet's Mosque at Medina during restoration work in 706 (4-8), while another puts it in 707–709 (1-3). Excavations at Wasit, where a seventh-century lower mosque has no niche and an upper one does, support the early-eighth-century date (4-9). A possibly earlier candidate is a blind niche carved into a marble plaque in the cave beneath the Dome of the Rock, which may date to 692 if it is contemporary with the building (4-7). Its origin remains contested. One reference ties the form to the prayer niches of Coptic monks (2-4), while another proposes a synthesis of Roman exedrae and Christian apses (3-6). Some medieval scholars regarded it as an undesirable innovation (1-4).

Over time the niche moved from a plain indentation to a showpiece. The first mihrabs were simple and straightforward, just a small indentation in the wall to show which way to pray. Later niches carried tile, stucco and carved decoration. A Seljuk-era geometric tile mosaic survives beneath a 19th-century mihrab at the Iplikçi Mosque in Anatolia, a sign of how the niche was rebuilt in each period (6-3).

The minbar

The pulpit began without a seat. Initially, the Prophet leaned against a palm tree trunk during lengthy sermons. When standing grew difficult, a Medinan craftsman made a small wooden platform (11-7). During the era of the Prophet and his Rightly Guided Caliphs, the minbar consisted of two stairs and one seat. Under the Umayyads, Marwan ibn al-Hakam added six steps during Muawiyah's caliphate, making it nine steps.

Later history is a sequence of replacements, mostly after fires. Sources differ by a year or two on the dates. One records that the original structure was lost in a fire in 1256 (10-10), and a sandalwood pulpit sent by the Yemeni ruler arrived in 1258 (17-9). Mamluk sultan Baybars sent another in 1266 (10-13). After a 1481 fire, the people of Medina built a temporary minbar of brick with lime plaster, which was replaced by a marble one in 1483 (12-11). The minbar in use today was commissioned by Ottoman sultan Murad III in 1590 (12-12). It is marble and topped by a pyramidal dome supported by four columns. The pattern of loss and renewal is not unique to Medina. A fire at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem destroyed its historic pulpit, and the replacement of the minbar was a more complicated task which was not completed until 2007.

The minaret and the call to prayer

Before dedicated towers existed, the call was given from rooftops or elevated platforms (20-1). The early Umayyad towers at Medina, Damascus and Fustat are often described as proto-minarets rather than true minarets (21-6, 21-7). The first minarets as such are associated with the Mosque of 'Amr at Fustat, rebuilt and enlarged in 673 (27-4). At Damascus, the surviving square stone minaret known as the Minaret of the Bride was built around 850, in the Abbasid period (21-13, 21-14). Its square plan was likely inspired by Byzantine church towers (21-16).

The Abbasid period brought more experimental forms. The Great Mosque of Samarra, built in the ninth century, has the spiral Malwiya Tower, a cylindrical core wrapped by a spiraling external ramp that gradually ascends to the top. Regional traditions then diverged. Minaret forms changed by region, material, city scale, and dynasty, from square Maghrebi towers to Ottoman pencil minarets and Mughal corner towers. The Maghreb favoured solid square towers, such as the two-storey square minarets of the Zayyanid period in Tlemcen (26-2). The Ottoman tradition favoured slenderness: that tradition emphasizes solidity, whilst the tradition that developed in the Ottoman lands emphasizes grace and beauty through slenderness. In Iran and Central Asia, cylindrical brick shafts with inscriptions became typical (19-8).

The sahn, ablution fountains and entrance zones

Most congregational mosques were built around an open sahn, a courtyard that separated the noise and activity of the street from the prayer hall. Fountains or basins in the courtyard, or in dedicated ablution rooms near the entrances, allowed worshippers to wash hands, face and feet before entering. Entrance portals and arcades (riwaq) screened the way into the hall, so that purification and access were managed in stages. The sequence reflected the ritual requirement that the prayer space be clean, and in many regions it also shaped how crowds moved on Friday.

Domes, roofs and the prayer hall

Early prayer halls were largely roofed with flat, beamed ceilings supported on columns, which gave a dense forest of supports. Domes became important where builders wanted to mark the axis toward the qibla. A dome over the bay in front of the mihrab emphasized direction and focus in several traditions. In the centrally planned Ottoman mosque, a single large dome covers the whole square prayer hall. The transition from a square base to a circular dome requires supporting elements such as pendentives or squinches, and the drum pierced by windows admits a controlled light that falls across the carpeted floor. The roof system therefore shaped both the geometry of the space and the quality of its illumination.

Principal building plans

The hypostyle plan

The hypostyle plan is the oldest and most widespread layout in the early Islamic world. It describes an interior space with a roof supported by columns or pillars. Such halls suit congregational worship because they create wide, expandable prayer spaces, with worshippers lining up in rows facing the qibla wall.

Early examples show how the plan was used. The Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia, built in the 9th century under the Aghlabid dynasty, has a prayer room of seventeen aisles supported by a "forest" of marble and porphyry columns. Many of its columns were reused from older buildings, so the columns were recycled from earlier Roman and Byzantine buildings across Roman Africa. The mosque at Kufa was so influential that later hypostyle mosques are generally known as Kufa- or Kufic-type mosques. In al-Andalus, the Great Mosque of Córdoba pushed the form further, with its prayer hall of many columns and double horseshoe arches in alternating red and white. In Iran, the Abbasids rebuilt the Masjid-i Jami of Isfahan in 840–41 in a typical hypostyle plan. Before the four-iwan plan spread in the 12th century, the hypostyle was the dominant form across Islamic lands.

The four-iwan plan

An iwan is a vast vaulted space open at one end. In the four-iwan plan, four iwans face a central court. The components themselves had older roots: each element, the iwan, the iwan-dome combination and the court with four iwans, can be traced to pre-Islamic traditions in Iran and Iraq. Scholars treat the plan's arrangement, rather than its parts, as the innovation. The novelty lay in arranging a court with a side entrance and four iwans of different sizes depending on their position in the building.

The Seljuqs made the plan central to mosque design in Iran. When the Seljuqs took Isfahan as their capital, they transformed a pre-existing hypostyle mosque into the grand four-iwan Great Friday Mosque. The Great Mosque of Isfahan is considered the prototype for future four-iwan mosques. The earliest dated example is the Friday mosque of Zavareh, dated to 1135 (530 AH). Thereafter, this four-iwan plan became the dominant mosque type in eastern Islamic lands. The plan was also adapted to other buildings, including madrasas, hospitals, and even caravansaries. Regional variation persisted: in the northwest, cold winters discouraged the presence of an open courtyard, as at the Jameh Mosque of Ardabil.

The centrally planned mosque

The centrally planned mosque places a dome over the prayer hall so that the dome, rather than a field of columns, defines the interior space. Domed mosques were slow to become common in the Islamic world. Early domed sanctuaries such as the Dome of the Rock followed octagonal Byzantine models, and domed mosques, however, were not commonly built until some six centuries later. From the 16th century, the form became a leading type in the Ottoman lands. The architect Mimar Sinan and his workshop produced major examples in Istanbul and Edirne, including the Şehzade, Süleymaniye and Selimiye mosques, which combined large central domes with the spatial traditions of Byzantine church building. Similar mosques appeared across Anatolia and the Balkans, where they became the standard for imperial and urban patronage.

The Maghreb T-plan

The Maghreb T-plan is a variant of the hypostyle hall in which the prayer hall is organized around a hierarchy of aisles. The aisle running along the mihrab axis, from the courtyard straight to the mihrab, is made wider and taller than its neighbours, forming a processional nave. Where that nave meets the qibla wall, a second wide aisle runs the full width of the hall, parallel to the wall. The arrangement guides the worshipper toward the mihrab without abandoning the extendable structure of the hypostyle.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan is the usual reference point. It became the template from which mosques across the Maghreb and al-Andalus developed. Earlier Almoravid work shows the form emerging. The Great Mosque of Algiers, begun in 1097, has a central aisle that is bigger than the rest, but it does not yet completely exhibit the distinctive T-shaped design typical of later Almoravid mosques. At the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, the central aisle is wider than the rest, drawing attention to the mihrab. Later Almohad and Marinid mosques, such as the Great Mosque of Taza, continued the scheme, where the "T" plan was replicated by making the last southern aisle larger. The term "T-plan" is a modern descriptive convention, and it is often referred to as the "T-plan" model in scholarship.

Hybrid plans

Many mosques combine these types rather than following one pure model. Persian mosques are often described in terms of three basic designs: columned shabestani (prayer hall with columns); porch (iwan) shabestani (single iwan, two iwans, and four iwans); and finally mosques with iwan and dome. The Great Mosque of Isfahan shows the process at work. The Abbasids rebuilt it in 840-41 CE in a typical hypostyle plan. The Buyids, who established the first local dynasty, enlarged it between 908-32 CE. Two major and innovative domed chambers were added to it in the late 11th century. Four large iwans were then erected around the courtyard around the early 12th century. Seljuq builders elsewhere produced varied results, from entirely covered by five domes like 11th-century Masjid-i Diggarun or nine domes like the 12th-century Natanz mosque to a dome chamber with an iwan in front, as at Ardabil. Site, patron and climate determined which elements were kept and which were combined.

Regional variation and cultural exchange

Iran and the Iranian plateau

Mosques on the Iranian plateau relied on brick, glazed tile and stucco. Turquoise tilework became popular in the 10th and 11th centuries and was mostly used for Kufic inscriptions on mosque walls. Carved stucco had earlier roots. At the Buyid-period mosque in Nayin, dated to 960, a typical example combines the styles of the so-called Samarra groups, and its stucco mihrab has palmette motifs set within large scrolls at the corners.

Under the Seljuq Empire, the ornamental and structural repertoire expanded. Seljuq builders are credited with a symmetrical four-iwan layout in mosques, advancements in dome construction, early use of muqarnas, and the first widespread creation of state-sponsored madrasas. Their buildings were mostly brick, with decoration created using brickwork, tiles, and carved stucco. The Friday mosque at Neyriz shows how such layers accumulated over time: its style list runs from Buyid through Seljuq, Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid work, and its surviving dated elements include a south iwan from 951/952 and a mihrab from 973/974.

Recent research on Seljuq and Ilkhanid revetments argues that the stucco and tile functioned to highlight selected architectural elements and spaces in a specific manner, thus bolstering the devotional significance of architectural spaces. Iranian stucco traditions also moved westward, though the influence was limited: the reflections of this style reaching Anatolia by way of Iran are noteworthy, though limited, in Seljuk-period stucco and stone works, and it is possible to detect such influence in the mihrab of Arslanhane Mosque in Ankara. The iwan itself is often linked to pre-Islamic models. A UNESCO tentative-list dossier for Persian mosques traces the form to the Sasanian iwan at Ctesiphon in Iraq, among other examples.

Egypt and the Mamluk legacy

Cairo was the capital of the Mamluk sultanate (1250–1517), a period representing the golden age of medieval Egyptian art and architecture. The Mamluk patrons of Cairo endowed religious and funerary complexes on a large scale, and this patronage shaped mosque furnishing. The minbars were mainly made from imported and local wood, with finely carved panels inlaid with ebony, ivory and mother of pearl, and a few were made from polychrome marble and stone.

Stone pulpits were rare. The original minbar of the mosque of Ulmas al-Hajib was made of stone and featured some of the highest-quality carved stonework to survive from the Mamluk period. Its present pulpit is an Ottoman-era wooden replacement, and fragments of the stone minbar are kept today at the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. Wooden minbars followed a different path. A minbar made for Sultan Qaytbay (1468–1496) is carved wood inlaid with ivory, and it was purchased in 1867 by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Its surfaces are assembled from panels built from hundreds of small, carefully shaped pieces of wood. Geometry dominated this work: this type of star-based composition was fully developed by the early 8th/14th century and became the most typical approach for woodwork decoration in the Mamluk era.

Marble also shaped Mamluk interiors. Marble dadoes were a key part of Mamluk architecture. The Al-Ashraf Mosque, built in the Mamluk period, has pavements made of marble mosaic, a center aisle with raised iwans on both sides, and arcades with classical capitals. Much of this material was vulnerable. Already in the mid-19th century the Mamluk minbars became subject to looting, and old photographs of the Cairo mosques show these structures stripped of their carved and inlaid panels.

China and the Sino-Islamic mosque

The Sino-Islamic tradition is best seen in the Great Mosque of Xi'an. It is the largest and best preserved of the early mosques of China. Built primarily in the Ming Dynasty, when Chinese architectural elements were synthesized into mosque architecture, the complex has a dated history that sources present differently: one listing gives 742 CE (ancient) as its original date and 1392 for the current building, while another records restorations in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Sources also differ on its courtyards. One describes five successive courtyards, each with a signature pavilion, screen, or freestanding gateway, leading to the prayer hall at the western end of the axis. Another counts four successive courtyards that lead up to the main prayer hall, which is backed by a fifth and final courtyard.

The layout is Chinese in form but Islamic in orientation. Its grand axis is aligned from east to west in order to face Mecca, rather than north to south in accordance with traditional feng shui practices. Decoration follows Islamic preferences: the mosque is richly decorated with geometric and floral motifs, but contains few depictions of living creatures, the only exception being occasional images of dragons. Pavilion details draw on Chinese timber practice. Its halls show the striking features of Chinese pavilions, with painted beams and engraved ridgepoles. Carved brick elements imitate timber structure: ornamental projections resembling wooden dougong brackets are carved into the brick under the raised eaves of the roofed screen wall.

South Asia

In the Indian subcontinent, mosque builders combined imperial Islamic forms with local materials. Mughal patrons favoured red sandstone with white marble inlay, as in Delhi's Jama Masjid, completed in the 1650s. In Bengal, mosques of brick and terracotta often adopted curved, sloping roofs drawn from local domestic architecture.

Southeast Asia

In maritime Southeast Asia, timber construction and multi-tiered roofs gave mosques a distinctive profile. The Great Mosque of Demak in Java, traditionally dated to the late fifteenth century, is a well-known example of a stacked roof rising in tiers, a form often read as a local adaptation of earlier Hindu-Buddhist roof types. Teak, the durable timber widely available in the region, was the standard material for columns, roof frames and carved elements.

Christian and Byzantine exchange

Early mosques often built on or beside existing Christian structures. The Great Mosque of Damascus, completed under the caliph al-Walid in the early eighth century, occupies the site of a church dedicated to John the Baptist, and later Arabic accounts credit Byzantine craftsmen with its mosaics. The Great Mosque of Córdoba incorporated part of a Visigothic church. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Hagia Sophia became a mosque, and its dome scheme shaped later Ottoman design, most notably in the work of Mimar Sinan in the sixteenth century.

Ritual practice and community worship

Daily prayer and the role of the imam

Muslims perform the obligatory five daily prayers at specific times: Fajr (pre-dawn), Dhuhr (midday), Asr (afternoon), Maghrib (just after sunset), and Isha (night); these are known collectively as salah. Although an individual may pray alone, the Islamic tradition treats prayer in congregation as having more social and spiritual benefit than praying by oneself. Congregational prayer requires a leader, the imam, who is ordinarily selected for his command of the Qur'an, with a preference for someone who has memorized the whole text (a hafiz) . Worshippers stand in ordered rows behind him, facing the qibla toward Mecca . A second hafiz may stand in the first row to correct the imam if he makes an error .

Jurists generally encourage men to attend the mosque for the daily prayers, and the reward attached to communal prayer is said to be at least twenty-five times that of prayer at home . Women's attendance is treated as optional, a distinction that later shaped the spatial arrangements described below.

The Friday congregation and the sermon

The weekly congregational prayer, jumu'ah, takes the place of the noon prayer on Fridays. For men it is obligatory, and it is preceded by a sermon, after which two units of prayer are performed . The imam delivers the khutbah from the minbar, the pulpit that is the most visible element of the Friday service . The sermon is therefore both a ritual act and a regular occasion for addressing the whole community, a function that links the mosque to the civic life discussed elsewhere in this entry. Other special occasions include the night prayers of Ramadan (taraweeh) and the festival prayers of Eid . During Ramadan evenings, professional reciters of the Qur'an may also chant from the platform described below .

The adhan, the muezzin and the mahfil

The adhan announces that the time for each obligatory prayer has begun. It is performed by a muezzin, usually from the minaret, and today is often amplified through speakers . In many mosques the call may also be pre-recorded, so that it is played at each prayer time without a live muezzin . Within the prayer hall, the muezzin may have his own elevated station. The müezzin mahfili, or dikka, is a raised platform or tribune in a mosque from which the Quran is recited and where the muezzin chants or repeats in response to the imam's prayers. The platform also serves to chant the iqama, the second call that signals the prayer is about to start . It is typically found in large mosques, where worshippers far from the mihrab would otherwise struggle to hear the imam . It may stand freestanding near the centre of the hall or project as a balcony against a pillar or wall opposite the minbar . In the Prophet's Mosque in Medina the same structure is known as the mukabbariyah . In Ottoman Istanbul mosques, a separate screened balcony, the hünkar mahfili, was reserved for the sultan and his retinue .

Arrangements for men and women

Mosques have never had a single gender layout. Historically, women's access ranged from full participation to partial or separate space, and this shaped interior typology, especially in the form of a women's prayer area known as the maksura . Early sources describe women's prayer space in the mosques being separated from the rest by ropes tied between the columns, while in Jerusalem the Aqsa Mosque had three maksuras for women by about 912–913. Later examples include mezzanine galleries around the courtyard at the Quwwat al-Islam mosque in Delhi, built in 1191 . Many places of worship provide a dedicated prayer space for women within the main building, although separate buildings were built in a few regions. Women's mosques have existed in China for several hundred years .

Arrangements also changed in response to reform movements. In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, the women's side room of the Gedhe Kauman mosque, built in 1839, was moved in the early twentieth century to the rear of the main hall behind the men's lines after a reformist organization issued a fatwa allowing women to pray in the main hall . Scholars also note that the earliest mosques often had gendered spaces that were organized socially rather than by physical barriers . In recent decades, some communities have gone further, creating women-only or women-led mosques as part of liberal movements within Islam . The contested status of women's access in contemporary mosques, and the way it is reflected in building design, is a recurring topic in the later sections of this entry.

Educational, legal and welfare functions

For much of Islamic history the mosque was also a principal place of religious learning. Instruction often took the form of study circles (ḥalaqāt), and the instructor would be surrounded by students in ascending order of seniority. In Mecca and Medina, the renowned courtyards and arcades of the two holy mosques served as the usual settings for these circles, and elementary kuttab schools and formal madrasahs developed in their vicinity. Teaching was not confined to one building. Learning took place in homes, schools, mosques, and later in endowed institutions, and a student could move between several of these settings during a single course of study.

The madrasah grew out of this mosque-based teaching. These learning spaces eventually gave rise to the concept of the madrasah, which was a way of separating lessons from the ritual space of worship. Lodging for students was sometimes provided within mosque precincts, and the earliest madrasas met there. Only later did madrasas become free-standing institutions. From the tenth and eleventh centuries, endowed madrasas gave some teachers and students more stable buildings, income and lodging. From the eleventh and twelfth centuries, ruling elites founded madrasas to secure the cooperation of the religious scholars, and the Abbasid Mustansiriyya Madrasa of 1227 is a well-documented example. Its curriculum ranged from medicine and mathematics to philosophy, but the major focus of education was Islamic law.

Mosques were also used for judicial and quasi-judicial purposes. Arbitration predates the Islamic state: it predates the state judiciary, or even the state itself. Islamic legal thought built on this tradition. The foundation of any conflict resolution process under Islam is sulh, amicable settlement, which upholds the ties of family, brotherhood, and society. In the Medina period, one analysis of the Prophet's mosque notes that it met its administrative, educational, military, and judicial needs alongside religious ones. In the modern period, disputes have continued to be settled near or through mosques. Some contracts have named an Arbitration Court of an Islamic Mosque as the forum for disputes, and a 2004 decision in Minnesota upheld an arbitral award from such a service on procedural grounds. In England, a tribunal operating under the Arbitration Act 1996 had dealt with around 100 cases dealing with issues such as inheritance and nuisance neighbours by 2008, and it works within English law rather than as a separate legal system.

Mosques were also centres of welfare. Zakat is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and the collected amount should be paid to the poor and the needy, Zakat collectors, orphans, widows, those to be freed from slavery, the aged who cannot work to feed themselves, those in debt, in the cause of God and to benefit the stranded traveller. In the earliest period, the Prophet's mosque became a place from which the poor of Medina could come to receive food and alms. Over time, the mosque's role in charity was linked to the waqf system, because of the various modes of extending charity in Islam, only the waqf became a fully developed legal institution. In Ottoman towns, alms stones were erected in front of mosques, and through these stones, aid was carried out in cash and in kind.

Mosques also hosted rites of passage. Funeral prayers (ṣalāt al-janāza) were commonly performed in mosques or in attached prayer grounds, and many communities concluded or witnessed marriage contracts there, which made the mosque a setting for family life as well as worship. These practices differed widely by period and region.

Finally, the mosque was not a place for commerce. A widely transmitted hadith tells those who see people buying or selling inside a mosque to pray that their trade will not be profitable. Consequently, markets, workshops and money-changers tended to cluster on the streets leading to mosques rather than within their walls, and in many cities the congregational mosque became the focal point of commercial life outside its doors.

Endowments, urban form and the mosque in the city

The waqf as the mosque's financial base

A mosque's upkeep and staffing rested mainly on the waqf system. Founders dedicated durable property, such as buildings, land or fountains, and the revenue it generated was tied to a named public purpose. A waqf may be composed of any kind of durable property whose use or income provides communal benefits, including mosques, hospitals, libraries, schools, canals, roads, and water fountains. Under the classical rules, the endowed asset was removed from circulation. The one endowing the waqf, and its subsequent maintainers, should sequester the principal and allocate the proceeds to charity. The endowment should legally be removed from commodification, such that it is no longer on the market. Its sole purpose must be charitable, and the beneficiary group must be named. The founder therefore could not later sell or reclaim the property, which gave the endowment its durability.

Ottoman usage distinguished the charitable intention from the assets that paid for it. Hayrat, the plural form of hayr, means 'goodnesses' and refers to the motivational factor behind the vakıf organization; akarat refers to corpus and literally means 'real estates,' implying revenue-generating sources such as markets (bedestens, arastas, hans, etc.), land, and baths. Institutions such as madrasas, public kitchens (imarets), karwansarays, mosques, libraries, etc. were the services the endowment then delivered. Each endowment was managed by an administrator, the mutawalli, who was normally paid a share of the income; one reference puts that share at about 10 percent of the income from the endowment under their control.

Revenue flowed mainly to religious and educational needs. In the nineteenth century, waqf lands covered substantial proportion of land area in Egypt, Algeria, Turkey and Palestine. According to literature reviews drawing on Monzer Kahf's 2003 work, most of the waqf revenues were spent on mosques, to pay for the salaries of imams, teachers and preachers, in addition to covering for the expenses on maintenance of the mosques. Education came next: education has been the second largest recipient of waqf revenues. The al-Azhar complex in Cairo is the best-known case of this continuity. Egypt's Al-Azhar University arguably be one of the oldest waqf university in the world that has sustained its operations for centuries through the management of extensive waqf properties, including agricultural land and commercial and research centres across Cairo and other regions.

Endowment law and state control

The Ottoman state treated the waqf as a central social institution. One historical account describes it as the single most crucial social institution during the foundation and rise of the Ottoman Empire. Supervision became more centralised over time. A specialised ministry for the endowments of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina was set up in 1586, and its remit was soon widened to include endowments founded by sultans, royal family members and prominent pashas. Waqfs in Ottoman lands came under the charge of the central administration in the nineteenth century with the establishment of the Ministry of Imperial Waqfs (Evkaf-ı Humayun Nezareti) in 1826.

Central control also weakened the endowments' independence. Although the waqfs each individually constituted separate legal entities with independent budgets, over time their monies were increasingly diverted to various departments within the state. Scholars link the decline of the system to state interference and taxation during the nineteenth century. Under the Republic, the administration was reorganised again. On May 2, 1920 it passed the Law on the Election of Ministers in the Grand National Assembly, which created a Ministry of Waqfs and Islamic Law (Şeriye ve Evkaf Vekâleti) in place of the old Ministry of Imperial Waqfs. The ministry was later superseded by the Directorate General of Foundations in 1924.

A 1967 Turkish law revived the system by introducing new forms. The 1967 law revitalized Turkish waqfs, allowing cash waqfs with shares and professional management. In the following years the number of new foundations grew sharply; the Turkish waqf system witnessed an explosion in new waqf establishments, from 73 new waqfs before to 1,877 afterwards by 1985. A 2008 law addressed property that had been taken by the state, and it required all governmental bodies to restore previously seized waqf assets to their original owners. In Istanbul alone, 77 significant waqf properties were returned under this regulation. In Egypt, the Ministry of Awqaf of Egypt is one of ministries in the Egyptian government and is in charge of religious endowments. Critics note that the state-run model changed the waqf's character. In one account, anyone who made a waqf would do it with the government and the system was no longer as decentralised, and public familiarity with the concept has been low; in one survey, 30% thought it meant government-owned property.

The mosque at the centre of the city

In the traditional Islamic city, the congregational mosque was the main point of reference. The most important of these is the congregational mosques, built to express and focus the religious commitment of the Muslim community and its solidarity. The commercial and administrative activities and associated buildings grew around this central symbol of the Islamic city. Early cities had one Friday mosque each, and it was only later that as cities and populations grew over time, it became more common for many mosques to host Friday prayers in the same area. Some large centres developed more than one, as in Isfahan, where Isfahan, however, came to have two congregational mosques, the older one founded in the eighth century and the other built under Shah ʿAbbās I.

Commercial life was organised around this centre. It occupied the heart of the town and was usually surrounded by the Suq (market), and the goods sold were arranged by their nature. Sacred items such as candles, incenses and perfumes were sold close to the mosque, as well as items that would be sold by booksellers and binders, while coarser goods were placed farther away. Schools also clustered near the mosque, and Islamic schools were situated around the central mosque, often funded by the rentals from traders in the nearby marketplace. Public baths and hotels were likewise concentrated in the central area. Positioned at the center of the old city, the mosque shares walls with other buildings abutting its perimeter.

Residential quarters formed a second layer. From the commercial centre, streets and roads branched out, usually becoming narrower and more winding, more disposed to provide seclusion than general access, into the residential quarters. Each neighbourhood usually had its own small mosque. They were usually dense and each quarter had its own mosque used only for daily prayers, Quranic school, so that daily religious life was local while Friday worship stayed central. Many quarter names still preserve the identities of their first residents; in many cases the different quarters are still called by the names of the clans who first inhabited them.

Property, maintenance and survival

The endowment rules also shaped how buildings were kept up and how they survived. Because a waqf could not be sold or inherited, its buildings were protected from many of the pressures that affected private property, and the donor could never take the property back. Maintenance was funded from the endowment's own income. Repairs to buildings, along with staff wages and supplies, were therefore built into the financial structure from the start. When the endowment was neglected, the consequences could be serious. In the Ottoman period, the central ministry found that it was incapable of maintaining the upkeep of the benevolent waqf properties, known as hayrat, under its care. The same financial logic explains why some congregational mosques were expanded over many centuries, although it is uncommon for such expansion and modification to continue over a span of a thousand years.

Modern administrations continue to face the tension between legal independence and state supervision that the endowment system has carried since the nineteenth century.

Heritage, decoration and conservation

Decoration and its meanings

Mosque interiors rely mainly on calligraphy, geometric patterning and vegetal motifs rather than figurative imagery. Inscription bands usually carry Qur'anic verses, divine names or dedicatory texts that name patrons, and they are placed around the qibla wall, the mihrab, the dome base and the portals. Interlaced star and polygon patterns turn a wall into a mathematical composition, and the three-dimensional honeycomb vaulting known as muqarnas layers small cells over domes, niches and portals, multiplying the surface and scattering light. Scholars continue to debate how far these forms carried specific theological meanings, so their religious significance should be stated with care rather than assumed.

Recognition and the World Heritage List

Mosques that are recognized internationally are usually inscribed as cultural heritage on the World Heritage List, administered by UNESCO. To be included on the World Heritage List, sites must be of Outstanding Universal Value and meet at least one of ten criteria, as well as the relevant conditions of integrity and authenticity and requirements for protection and management. Criteria frequently relevant to mosques include (iv) be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history, and (vi) be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs. Inscription also carries obligations, since listed sites can be placed on the "in danger" list when threats persist. The Great Mosque of Djenné, for example, has been on that list since 2016, due to its integrity and the ongoing insecurity in the region.

Original fabric and later additions

The Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul illustrates the central conservation question of how much of a building should be treated as original. The complex was built by Nur Al-Din Zengi during the twelfth century. Its 1942 rebuilding reused the original 40 octagonal Moslawi marble columns, but also introduced a mihrab brought from another Mosul mosque and a reinforced concrete roof. Later restorers therefore had to decide which layer represented the building's authentic state. Destroyed by the Islamic State in 2017, the mosque was rebuilt with UNESCO and UAE funding and reopened in 2024. During preparatory work, excavators identified four new environments dating back to the 12th century A.D. — probably used for ablutions, which had to be studied before the foundations could be fixed. UNESCO also planned an international architectural competition for the reconstruction of Al-Nouri Mosque, showing that rebuilding can involve new design choices rather than simple copying.

Damage from conflict, earthquakes and neglect

Mosques suffer from several kinds of damage. Armed conflict has been the most abrupt cause in recent decades, as the Mosul case shows. Seismic activity is a further threat: a structural study of the Mosul mosque notes that several destructive earthquakes were recorded around Mosul, which shaped the analysis of its stability. Neglect and weather are slower threats. At Djenné, unusually heavy rain caused greater damage in 2009, when the upper portion of the south tower of the east facade collapsed. Repairs were funded by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in 2010. Earlier, the building had fallen into disrepair by the 19th century, and the current version dates from 1907.

Craft traditions and routine maintenance

Mosque heritage depends on living craft skills. The annual plastering of the Great Mosque of Djenné is the clearest example. The mosque requires a new layer of mud each year before the start of the rainy season, or the building will fall into disrepair. The work is organized as a communal event: women and girls carry water from the river in buckets balanced on their heads, while men and boys climb the mosque's walls and terraces to apply the new mud. The protruding wooden beams called toron serve as permanent scaffolding. The festival also keeps social ties strong, and in 2022 the same year, Djenne's annual plastering was nearly canceled entirely due to unrest.

Beyond mud construction, tile making in Iran, stucco carving, wood-carved minbars and ceilings, and the cutting of stone inlay in Egypt each depend on workshops that pass techniques from master to apprentice. Where these workshops decline, repairs often rely on substitute materials, and conservators then face the challenge of matching old techniques and appearances without falsifying the record.

Modern mosques and contemporary design

Minimalism and the search for essence

Since the late twentieth century, some architects have questioned whether domes, minarets and ornament are the essential signs of a mosque, and have asked instead what the prayer space itself requires. The most frequently discussed case is the Sancaklar Mosque near Istanbul, by Emre Arolat Architects. The practice says the project distances itself from the current architectural discussions based on form and focuses solely on the essence of religious space. The building is set into a depression in the landscape, with only the stone roof and a tall minaret visible from certain points. Its interior avoids adornment and uses the textures of its material palette, a choice the designers linked to mosques built in Islam's formative years, and the design drew on the cave of Hira, where the Prophet Muhammad received the first revelations of the Quran. Light enters through a narrow skylight running above and illuminating the prayer hall's south wall, or qiblah. The building also received ArchDaily's Best Building of the Year award in 2015.

Other designers have pursued different reinterpretations of traditional elements. The Dandaji Mosque uses locally fabricated compressed earth bricks for the building's structure, which allows for very little maintenance unlike mud bricks while sharing the same thermal qualities. In the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, the mosque's column-free prayer hall has a floating mezzanine and filtered natural light. Competition proposals have also explored light as the main architectural material, such as a design using mashrabiya screens to filter daylight into the interiors of the prayer hall.

Community and cultural centres

Many new mosques are designed as multi-purpose complexes. One contemporary project is designed to address sustainable aspects while maintaining historical cultural continuity and to define a space of social interaction. Mosques are also described as a place for youths to strengthen the spirit of virtue and increase awareness of the current issues. Surrounding spaces can generate income for upkeep: a study of the Islamic Cultural Centre Ireland model proposes income from halal services such as book fairs and bookshops, multi-purpose halls and seminar rooms, shops, restaurant, and translation services. These facilities provide a practical setting for language classes and youth programmes, although their scope varies widely between communities.

Mosques in Muslim-minority countries

In minority contexts, the planning and funding of new mosques often become contested. In Finland, the proposed "Grand Mosque" in Helsinki was financed in its planning stage by the Kingdom of Bahrain, which had agreed to fund an international architectural competition, and later to coordinate the funding. The main concern voiced was that foreign money would come with conditions attached and bring unwanted religious influence. In France, where the state gives little direct support, French Muslim associations rely almost exclusively on public donations to build mosques. In one example, the small communes Massy and Gennevilliers reported raising €500,000 and €1.3m respectively during just one Ramadan, while fundraising in Marseille has proved harder. Siting decisions carry similar weight, since mosques in some European settings have become symbols of perceived social incompatibility rather than purely places of worship.

Materials and environmental design

Contemporary mosque design increasingly emphasises environmental performance. Current practice includes the use of renewable energy sources, natural ventilation and lighting systems, water conservation measures, and materials that reduce the building's environmental impact. Traditional strategies remain relevant: courtyards, possibly with vegetation and water elements, are a common passive cooling strategy in hot climates, and domes and vaults facilitate natural ventilation through their high-level openings and reduce solar gains through their self-shading effect. A study of a tiered-roof mosque in Aceh found that thermal comfort was not fully achieved during some time, particularly afternoon and late afternoon, though users reported that the conditions were adequate for prayer activities. The same study noted that the application of this roof design has rarely been found in modern mosques due to the widespread use of the dome, which indicates a tension between inherited form and climate response.

What a contemporary mosque should look like

The central question is how far a new mosque should depart from received types. Arolat has argued that "We wanted to get rid of the form" and that modest mosques suit the present age. The imam of the Sancaklar Mosque has said that "There are no distractions to the worshippers". Critics and practitioners alike point to the need to address the tension that exists between preserving the traditional architectural character of mosques and embracing contemporary green design solutions. Designs therefore vary from abstract minimalism to vernacular reinterpretation, and the outcome depends on the community, site and climate concerned.

Research questions and unresolved problems

The most basic problem is dating. Standing fabric from the seventh and early eighth centuries is scarce, and the narratives about the first mosques were composed under the Abbasids after a period of civil war. Their authors openly acknowledged selecting material, which makes them hard to test Narratives about the first mosques were composed under the Abbasids, after a period of civil war, which makes their reliability hard to assess. Excavated remains do not settle matters automatically. Walmsley and Damgaard connect the early mosque at Jarash in Jordan with a phase of urban renewal under Hisham (724–743) The early mosque at Jarash is reconstructed by archaeological excavation and survey and attributed to a wave of urban renewal in the reign of caliph Hisham (AD 724-743)., yet the minaret and porticoes there cannot be firmly dated, because the excavation that uncovered them removed the evidence bearing on the tower At Jarash, the date of these additions, and whether the tower and porticos were added contemporaneously, is not known. Unfortunately, the excavations of the Yale Joint Mission removed all the evidence associated with the tower.

Interpretations of the same material can diverge sharply. Creswell located the beginnings of the congregational mosque not in Medina but in Basra, under Ziyad ibn Abihi's rebuilding of 665 As he maintains, the making of the mosque, as defined in the modern sense, was launched not by the Prophet, as commonly believed, but by Ziyād b. Abīh when he reconstructed the mosque of Baṣra in 45/665.. Later critics find that this reading lacks firm grounding in the historical record Creswell's interpretations lack support from historical evidence, leading to significant scholarly inconsistencies..

The origin and standardisation of the mihrab is a particularly contested case. Britannica ties the earliest concave niche to the reign of al-Walid I (705–715) The mihrab originated in the reign of the Umayyad prince al-Walīd I (705–715), during which time the famous mosques at Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus were built., while the earlier qibla markers were simpler, as the earliest mihrabs generally consisted of a simple stripe of paint or a flat stone panel in the qibla wall.. A concave niche added to the Prophet's Mosque during restorations around 706 is usually counted as the first of its kind The first concave miḥrāb appears to have been inserted into the Prophet's Mosque at Medina during some restorations carried out by the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd I in 706., and stratigraphy at Wasit seems to corroborate this, since only the upper of two superimposed mosques contains a concave niche Excavations at Wāsiṭ in Iraq have confirmed this date for the introduction of the first concave miḥrāb where there are two superimposed mosques; the lower one datable to the seventh century has no miḥrāb whilst the upper mosque has a concave miḥrāb.. A carved blind niche in a marble plaque beneath the Dome of the Rock could predate these examples, perhaps to 692, if it belongs to the original construction In the cave beneath the rock in the Dome of the Rock there is a marble plaque with a blind niche carved into it which, if contemporary with the rest of the structure, may be dated to 692 making it the oldest surviving miḥrāb.. The form's ancestry is also disputed. Proposed sources include church apses and the alcove shrines of Buddhist architecture Some trace it to the apse of Christian churches, others to the alcove shrines or niches of Buddhist architecture., and a further hypothesis links it to the recess that framed a ruler's seat in certain audience halls The mihrab niche could have also been related to the recessed area or alcove that sheltered the throne in some royal audience halls..

The minbar raises parallel questions. Traditions place a pulpit in Medina during the Prophet's lifetime, but these reports are late and their details vary, so the early documentation for the feature is thin. Few early examples survive, and most reconstructions depend on literary descriptions and on later replacements. Historians therefore find it difficult to establish when a fixed pulpit became standard in congregational mosques outside Medina, or how far its form owed to local woodworking practice.

Debate over external models is perhaps the most consequential. Early building traditions diverged: in Syria this was based on the conversion of churches whilst in Iraq mosques developed out of square enclosures used for prayer.. Scholars have disagreed about how far Byzantine, Sasanian and local precedents shaped these traditions. Umayyad patrons borrowed heavily from late-classical, Byzantine, Sasanian and Coptic repertoires They used late-classical, Byzantine, Sasanian, and Coptic elements generously in their architecture to achieve their goals.. Some accounts instead describe a recognisably Islamic style growing out of regional Egyptian, Byzantine and Sasanian models, adapted to ritual needs Thus a distinguished Islamic architectural style emerged, developing from localized Egyptian, Byzantine, and Sasanian models, and adapted to specific religious needs of space and order.. Chronology complicates the argument: the dating of the Sasanian building at Sarvestan has been questioned because its vaulting closely parallels early Islamic constructions such as Qasr al-Kharana in Jordan Its dating in the mid-Sasanian period has also come into question because of its highly developed vaulting system, closely paralleled by early Islamic constructions such as Qaṣr al-Ḵarāna in Jordan, so a supposed precedent may in fact postdate the Islamic example.

Methodological questions compound these problems. Waqf deeds, endowment accounts and court registers allow historians to study mosques as legal and social institutions, including who funded them and how they were staffed and maintained, as discussed under waqf. Such documents survive unevenly. They are relatively abundant for some Ottoman and Mamluk cities, but scarce for many regions of Africa, Central Asia and South Asia, where individual mosques are poorly documented. Until more regional archives are catalogued and sites are excavated, general narratives will continue to rest on a small group of well-studied monuments.

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