Religious buildings
Mosques, corners, schools…etc.
The mosque: The true center of life for Arabs. Arabs use the mosque as a place for gathering, worship, education, and, when necessary, a place of residence, not just for the worship of God like the churches of Christians.
In a previous chapter, we explained the general layout of mosques. We mentioned that the ancient mosques were built in a single style, that is, they consisted of right-angled courtyards surrounded by arcades, and that prayer was performed in the widest of these arcades. In the middle of each courtyard, you would find a basin for ablution. In the prayer area, you would find a niche in the wall facing Mecca, a pulpit for preaching, a niche on which the Qur’an could be opened when performing religious duties, and many lamps hung from the ceiling. You would find mats, rugs, and all the furniture therein.
Next to the prayer area, there is usually a room containing the tomb of the mosque’s founder.
There are minarets on the corners of the mosques, from which the believers are called to prayer.
The mosques generally include baths, hotels, churches, hospitals, and schools. Thus, the mingling of civil and religious life among Muslims is evident in their mosques.
Figure 5-8 : A candlestick of Sultan Qalawun (photographed by Brice Al-Afini)
Mosques remain open from dawn until evening, that is, until about two o’clock after sunset.
Each mosque is independent from the others, and the mosque is funded by the proceeds of what its founders endowed it with, in addition to what is added to it from the endowment. Its affairs are managed by a trustee who is assisted by a group of imams, chamberlains, muezzins, water-carriers, servants, etc., who are found even in the smallest mosques. The imams of mosques usually practice other professions in addition to leading the worshippers in prayer at designated times.
Just as Muslim mosques are centers of assembly, refuges for strangers, and places of reference for the sick, they are also places of learning. In the smallest mosques, children are taught, and the largest mosques are considered universities, sometimes no less important than European universities. Among these, we mention the famous Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, which includes three hundred professors and more than ten thousand students who come to it from all parts of the Islamic world.
Indeed, Al-Azhar University is an extremely important religious and literary center, and many preachers, scholars, judges, notables, and influential people have graduated from its professors… It is a cause for regret that education at Al-Azhar University remains in the same state it was in at the beginning of the decline of the Arabs, and that it follows a program similar to the program of our universities in the last centuries.
Figure 5-9 : A candlestick of Sultan Qalawun (photographed by Brice Al-Afini) .
The middle school, and at Al-Azhar University, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, grammar, literature, rhetoric, and logic are taught, in addition to the recitation and interpretation of the Qur’an.
Teaching in mosques is not only similar to that in our previous universities in terms of programs; rather, we see similarities between them in the curricula and in the lives of the students as well. When I had the opportunity to tour Al-Azhar Mosque during the lessons of its professors, I saw myself transported, by magic wand, to one of our old universities in the thirteenth century. I saw what was there, as in Al-Azhar Mosque, of confusion in the lessons of theology and literature. I also saw what was there like what is in Al-Azhar Mosque in terms of curricula, the organization of student associations, and the enjoyment of freedom and exemption.
Each professor sits on a mat in the largest portico of Al-Azhar Mosque, which is the prayer hall. He is surrounded by a circle of students wearing black robes and white turbans, carrying reed pens to write what is dictated to them. Inkwells are brought into their belts. Al-Azhar Mosque provides for the poor among its students and houses them in its rooms.
I saw all those young men serious in their work and diligent in their studies. Some of them came to gain knowledge from India and Marrakesh. Knowledge that other religions belittled.
Muslims truly revere him, and it is to Muslims that the true saying is attributed: “Among human beings are those who learn and thus learn, while others are considered insects or those who are neither good for anything nor of any benefit.”
Muslims have other religious sites of lesser importance than mosques, such as the shrines of saints, which are small cubic buildings, each topped with a dome, and which are found in almost every Islamic country. The shrine of the saint, whose photo we have published in this book, is located in the magnificent sacred forest near Blida. I remember, in addition to these religious buildings, the corners where the dervishes reside. I see that our number is small compared to the number of monasteries spread among the Christian nations in Europe. The corners differ little from the other Muslim buildings, and you do not see in them the appearance of our foreign monasteries.
