In Islam, the architecture of a mosque is able to create personal, geographical, and regional cultural identities pertaining to the place and boundaries of space it is located within. The mosque acts not only as a spiritual place of prayer, but as an important space for the community to grow together, as a beacon of the existence of Islam in reference to the culture of a particular region, and as a space for Muslims to share, create, and grow identity. The architectural identity of mosques around the world, however, differs based on its regional, societal, and cultural factors. A mosque in Morocco looks vastly different than a mosque in Saudi Arabia based upon factors of environmental landscape, climate, and both esoteric and exoteric culture. The architecture of a mosque “plays a role in defining, articulating and improving society's perception of itself…” [1]. Muslims in these countries culturally identify with their holy places of worship, which in turn gives them a sense of trust, belonging, and inheritance to the space and society they occupy. Granted, Islam in Morocco and Saudi Arabia dates its origin 1400 years ago. These countries, as with other eastern Islamic countries such as Turkey, Afghanistan, and Indonesia, have been able to develop a culture over time based solely and dominantly on the principles of Islam. Thus, they were able to mirror their culture into the architecture of their mosques. Conversely, as Islam began to make its way West, and as the West began to make its way to Islam, Islamic cultural identity slowly began to lose its grasp on the mosque.

The Islamic identity of America is an eclectic one constantly overpowered by which race or ethnic group holds ownership of the most important cultural space for a Muslim to share, create, and grow identity: the mosque. Not only that, but the architectural form of mosques in America today takes the form of old churches, business parks, or even homes. Built anew, the more grandiose “real” mosques are reflections of the culture and identity of Islamic regions in the east; back home. It is rare to find a mosques in America that holds true American identity. Through the research of cultural Islamic architecture and its comparison to the eclecticism and search for an early American architectural identity, I will attempt to convey why the mosque in America has yet to build architectural roots apropos to its American identity, and how this lack of identity affects the identity of the Muslim American community as a whole.

Today there are roughly 3.45 million Muslims living in America [2] [fig. 1]. This statistic consists of an amalgamation of different ethnic, racial, and cultural groups, ranging primarily from South East Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African nations. The Islamic identity of America is an extremely eclectic one, yet this sense of cosmopolitanism cannot be found in the design and architecture of American mosques, let alone in the identity of individual American Muslims. In his paper titled Islam and the Cultural Imperative, American convert Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah addresses this very issue that Muslims in America face. By remaining attached to the lands and cultures they left behind, Muslim immigrants are developing sub-cultures that revolve and only thrive within Islamic schools, college campuses, homes, and especially the mosque [3]. These sub-cultures reflect a counter-cultural approach to what it means to be American, causing American Muslims to live dual-lives: one at the mosque and at home, one in the outside world.

One of the first problems pertaining to the lack of a sound American mosque can be traced to the origins of Islamic Art and Architecture and the theories formed by western “orientalists” regarding it. According to Professor Nasser Rabat, the study of the architecture of the Islamic world was a post-Enlightenment European project. The term “Islamic Architecture” was never coined nor created by Muslims themselves. After toying with terms like “Mohammaden”, “Saracenic” or “Oriental”, “Islamic Architecture” was deemed fit and with it all Islamic art from varying cultures, regions, people, and countries (about 50) was homogenized into a single term and study [4]. By the 18th and 19th century, colonial powers, globalization, and western powers deemed Islamic Architecture to be a tradition of the past; a novelty that would not be taught in the schools. With this lack of an in depth education to the design and architecture of the eastern world within the architectural schools of the early 19th century, how can one blame the west for being unable to devise and design its own architectural form for a mosque? There was no blue print of avant-garde studies for Islamic architecture like those from the early 20th century German Bauhaus, or the constructivist Russians which both had a say in the development of the modern architecture of America. This pedagogy of pushing architecture from the traditional to the modern as it did in the western world never existed for Islamic architecture in America.

This search for an Islamic American architectural identity is extremely difficult to navigate within a landscape that has already been defined by an American (colonial) architectural history of almost 300 years. However, the search for a religious identity in America does not start with the Muslims; it began with the search for an original identity by the colonizing pilgrims of England. The pilgrims consisted of the Puritan and the Anglican church, each defined by their own personal beliefs, values, and ways of life. The easiest and most critical way to differ these two churches from one another was through their architecture. The Puritans believed in a purer way of religion, where the hierarchy to God was unnecessary: everyone could speak to and possess a relationship with God. They did not believe in the ornamentation of their places of worship, and disliked the need for music and celebration to praise their Lord. The Puritan church was simple, lacked ornamentation, and painted in dull, white colors [5] [fig. 2.1]. The Anglican church was highly decorative with intricate facades and stained glass windows, using interior design and space as a means to praise and prayer [5] [fig. 2.2]. These colonizers were (problematically) able to create a new identity and start up their colonies right off the boat through the design and construction of their places of worship.

This search for a bespoke architectural identity did not end with the church, however. As the population of the early United States began to increase, the need for an independent identity void of the culture in England became imminent. The structure of the Greek democratic government was used as a guiding force towards developing the government and the constitution of the United States of America. Adopting the classical methods towards the creation of a nation, neo-classical architecture was deemed the most appropriate fit for the newly developed country. Apses, domes, and columns were present not only in the buildings of DC, but also in those of plantations in the South. As time continued to pass, an eclectic approach of architecture was applied to the US, until the first skyscraper was born and a true American architecture was defined through modernism.

It is important now to present multiple cases that demonstrate this lack of a defined identity of mosque architecture in America. Focusing on the East Bay Area of California between the borders of the Contra Costa County district, there exists five mosques within a ~25 mile radius of one another [fig. 3]:

In Deconstructing the American Mosque, Kahera addressed issues regarding the spatial location of mosques. In order to satisfy the requirements of having congregational spaces to pray particularly close to certain communities, the Dyula Muslims of West Africa devised three types of Mosques [6]:

On this notion of different “levels” in mosque design, I inquired my grandmother, 78 year old Sharifa Simab on her time growing up and living in Kabul, Afghanistan before fleeing the Soviet Invasion in 1985 [7]. During our interview, I asked her about the location of mosques in relation to her home, and how distance from and to these mosques played its role on their locations. What she told me was an indirect reference to the Dyula mosques: there were small mosques throughout the neighborhood that one could walk to for daily prayers or as a small communal meeting place, but it was rare for the community to pray Friday prayers or celebrate religious holidays at these spaces. For that, one would make the longer hour walk or short bus ride and visit the grand mosques of Kabul. The multi-cultural communities in America are spending too many resources on smaller lack-luster spaces of worship versus coming together as a community and devising mosque plans such as the Dyula or Afghan people were able to design. This issue, however, is correlated back to the lack of cultural diversity within mosques that Dr. Abd-Allah makes reference to. Each mosque is sometimes governed by a certain culture; a speculative factor for the need of five main East Bay Area mosques within a 25 mile radius is a form of national and cultural pride that has stepped in the way of creating one central, multicultural, and cosmopolitan mosque. The Arabs go to the mosque in Walnut Creek, the Afghans go to the mosques in Concord, and the Pakistanis go to the mosques in San Ramon and Pleasanton. These sub-cultures are able to thrive in these settings, while disregarding their American identities and the American nuance of diversity.

The speculative design of the Park51 mosque in New York [fig. 6.1 & 6.2] proposed in 2010, dubbed as the “Ground Zero Mosque” by anti-Islamic organizations, is a prime example of the not so progressive path that American mosques might have to take in order to be realized. Located a couple blocks from the Ground Zero memorial, the project was originally titled “Cordoba House”. Known for its religious and cultural diversity, Cordoba was the third capital of the Ummayyad Caliphate in Spain of 756 – 1031. In an interview conducted by The Architecture Foundation during a symposium titled Faith in the City, the architect of the Park51 project Michel Abboud, a Lebanese Christian himself, constantly defines the space as a multi-level mixed use community center and not a mosque [8]. The mosque or the prayer hall of the project has been placed out of sight in the basement. During this interview, a Muslim audience member questioned this motive and called it a “failure” that represents Islam in an apologetic form. From the name change, to its definition as a community center, and to the prayer hall being placed in the basement, all of these signs point to an America that wants nothing to do with a mosque as grand, elegant, and beautiful as the Hassan II Mosque in Morocco or the Blue Mosque in Turkey [fig. 7 & 8].

Park51 points signs to a post 9/11 America where Islamic architecture has to be apologetic in order to thrive. It is important to notice the names of this mosque and the previous five east bay mosques I discussed. There is no “mosque” or masjid in any of their titles. Across the United States, many mosques have been built under the guise of the “Islamic Center” ever since the first mosque to be built in the capital city of America was named the Islamic Center of Washington. Out of the scope of this essay, I would have loved to conduct further research on the correlation between the names and the architecture of these mosques. Does naming the mosque a “center” change the approach to its design? If it’s named by “mosque” will its design adhere to more Islamic architectural principles?

Before 9/11, however, two mosques in metropolitan regions in America were built and designed in a manner that I believe is true to both Islamic and American identity: the Islamic Center of Washington DC 1954 [fig. 9] and the Islamic Cultural Center of New York 1991 [fig. 10].