Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
pietra dura, tilework, Umayyads
mosque
Building used for Muslim prayer, the principal unit of
Islamic architecture.
The first mosque was the house of the Prophet
Muhammad in Medina. This was a simple
rectangular (53 by 56 m) enclosure containing rooms
for the Prophet and his wives and a shaded area on
Mosque

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the south side of the courtyard which could be used
for prayer in the direction of Mecca. This building
became the model for subsequent mosques which
had the same basic courtyard layout with a prayer
area against the qibla wall. An early development of
this basic plan was the provision of shade on the
other three sides of the courtyard, forming a basic
plan which has become known as the Arab-plan
mosque. The roofs of the prayer area (sanctuary or
musalla) were supported by columns which were
either made of wood (palm trunks in the Medina
Mosque) or later on of re-used columns. From the
ninth century onwards columns began to replace
piers as the main form of roof support and domes
were introduced as a roofing method.
Several features which were later to become
standard features of mosques were introduced at an
early stage. The first of these is the minbar, or pulpit,
Plan of Mshatta, Jordan (after Creswell)
Mosque

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which was used by Muhammad to give sermons. A
later introduction was the mihrab or prayer niche
which was first introduced by the Umayyad caliph
al-Walid in the eighth century. Other features include
the ablutions facilities and a central pool or fountain
and the minaret which seems to make its first
appearance in the Abbasid period. Also during this
formative period the maqsura was introduced which
was designed to provide privacy and protection to
the ruler and also possibly to give him added
mystery. This sense of mystery may have been
reinforced by the placing of the royal palace or Dar
al-Imara at the back of the mosque behind the qibla
wall often with a connecting door.
The details of mosques in different areas of the
Islamic world were dictated by local building
traditions and materials, although the basic form
remained the same until the eleventh century when
the Seljuks introduced new architectural forms based
specifically on the dome and the iwan. Although these
had been known in Sassanian times and had been used
in mosque architecture, they had not been used to alter
the basic plan of the mosque. However, the Seljuks
introduced the idea of four iwans set into the middle
of each courtyard façade, as seen in the twelfth-
century mosques of Isfahan, Zawara and Simnan. This
arrangement became the standard form for the Iranian
mosque and was later adopted for madrassas.