Interpreting Mosque Architecture in the Twentieth Century: Trapped between Two Worlds

The main intention of this chapter is to summarize some of the discourse related to the interpretation of mosque architecture in order to demonstrate how the discourse is trapped between the two worlds of academia and practice. One is the intellectual framework of what constitutes the ‘history’ of architecture and the notion of ‘Islam’ in the West. In the second, that of architectural ‘practice’, there is a serious lack of commitment and professionalism on the part of architects to design mosques in the true spirit of what practice should be, which is replaced instead by the popular approach of Revivalism. The result is a confused state of architectural language that, at one end, makes it difficult to use, and, at the other, presents Islam as an extravagant religion, relegating most architectural issues regarding mosques to object- centered rather than value- centered discourse.