Iqra



The first command revealed in Islam was not to pray, fast, or give charity. It was to read. Iqra’. This word, delivered to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, marked the opening of revelation and the foundation of a civilization. Yet the Prophet, in that moment, responded with vulnerability: “What shall I read?” The command was not simply about literacy but about recognizing that reading is never neutral. It is relational. It asks us to read the world, the self, the Divine, and the material. This origin moment in Islam positioned knowledge as sacred and placed education, not just formal schooling, but the cultivation of consciousness, at the very heart of spiritual and communal life. And it did not begin in a school. It began in a cave, and it was soon carried forward in mosques.

For centuries, the mosque served not only as a place of worship but also as a living space of coexistence, justice, exchange, and education. In early Islamic cities, the mosque was often the most public and porous structure, a judge’s court by morning, a school by afternoon, a wedding venue by evening. It was a gathering ground, a shelter, a shared room of air and thought. Yet this architectural ethos has slowly eroded. Today, as mosques multiply across the globe, many built as charitable offerings in the names of the deceased, the question arises: why? It is not simply a matter of belief, but of care. Too often, these mosques are constructed without regard for their surrounding context, without considering who will use them, who will maintain them, and how their materials will endure. Frequently funded by distant donors, they arrive as concrete imports rather than locally rooted structures. The intention may be noble, even spiritual, but the disconnect between vision and lived reality produces what we might call architectural orphaning.

Yet in Islam, the built environment is never mute. The Qur’an tells us that every stone, every tree, every grain of sand praises God. Matter is not inert, it is always witnessing, always testifying. To practice ihsan (to do good) is therefore not merely to give, but to give wisely: to build in ways that align with the grain of the earth and the rhythms of the people who walk upon it. A truly good mosque is not necessarily the tallest or most symmetrical; it is the one that creates openings, openings for livelihoods, for conversation, for shared governance and imagination. A mosque that functions as a classroom, a counseling center, or even a micro-market is not a compromise of its sanctity but an embodiment of its purpose. Reclaiming this potential requires a reorientation of what it means to “do well.”

The mosque, as both spiritual anchor and civic form, holds a charged architectural history, one that extends far beyond prayer. In his book My Journey in Africa, Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Sumait recounts moments when the architectural presence of mosques in abandoned or neglected contexts was re-appropriated. He describes how churches in various African towns preserved the facades of disused mosques, their familiar silhouettes drawing in Muslim passersby who entered expecting a mosque, only to discover a church. These moments of architectural camouflage reveal the power of built form not only to house belief but to shape it, redirect it, or obscure it entirely. The minaret, the dome, the courtyard, these are not neutral symbols. They carry memory, identity, and expectation. When left unexamined or unmaintained, they risk becoming vessels for unintended uses.

This layered history forces us to think more critically about the architecture we construct in the name of faith. What values do these structures transmit, and how do they age in contexts of shifting power and belief? To do well by a mosque today is not only to build it, but to ensure that its presence continues to reflect the community’s needs, truth, and spirit across time.