Sacral Qualities of Form in Mosque Architecture

Abstract

By the year 800 c.E., and within less than two centuries from the inception of Islam, a new religious and secular architecture materialized in a vast area: western Asia, all of North Africa, and southern Spain. The archeological and textual references for these projects have provided us with a wealth of physical and descriptive evidence of the emerging building types and forms of Islamic architecture. The mosque, for example, developed into a well-defined building type with characteristic physical feams and spatial organization, among them the mihrdh, the minhur, calligraphic inscriptions, and surface Ornamentation, all of which are architectural elements whose designs and dispositions in the mosque space have taken on various reoccurring patterns. The theological rationalization behind the historical evolution of mosque architecture is more formidable to consolidate, however, for information is scarce and it is difficult to interpret subjective information. The Qur’an decreed emphatically the, Salah (prayer) but did not describe what features a house of worship should incorporate. The Prophet taught Salah to early Muslims and continued to lead the faithful in prayer in the architecturally modest mosque of Madinah. When the spatial requirements for congregational mosques became apparent, such architectural features as the mihrcth appeared ...