MOSQUE. — A building for Muslim worship, which in its primitive form, according to some, derived from the Arab dwelling house. The oldest mosque was the one founded at Medina by Muhammad himself, later completely rebuilt in the 13th century.
The mosque of ʿAmr in Cairo dates from the 7th century and shows, despite its alterations, what the original arrangement of such buildings was: a rectangular courtyard (sahn), surrounded by open porticoes, has at its center a basin for ritual ablutions; in the deepest part of the portico is the prayer hall, within which the mihrāb, a kind of richly adorned niche, indicates the qiblah, that is, the orientation toward Mecca. This simplest type later became more complex when Islam, as it spread, made use of materials taken from other buildings, or adapted
Christian basilicas into mosques (especially in Constantinople and Syria), changing their orientation and arranging a courtyard in front of them, or imitated their forms. An example of a mosque derived from Western basilicas is that of Cordova (later converted to Christian worship after the expulsion of the Arabs from Spain), whose construction, begun toward the end of the 8th century, continued with additions and extensions until the end of the 10th century. It is a rectangular building with several naves, the central one wider than the others; in it, the maqšūrah (the part reserved for the sovereign), separated by a partition and
with its central section covered by a dome, and the mihrāb correspond to the transept with the iconostasis and to the apse of Christian churches. At other times, churches with a centralized plan were imitated, as in the mosque of ʿOmar in Jerusalem (7th–8th centuries).
The architectural and decorative features of mosques vary from one locality to another, depending on local influences. Inside the mosque, the liturgical furnishings consist of the minbar (pulpit for preaching), the dīkhah
(a small platform for the readers of the Qur’an), and the lectern for the Qur’an itself. The larger mosques, in which alone the Friday prayer may be recited, are called jāmiʿ; they usually have a kitchen for the poor and a school or college attached to them. Access to mosques is absolutely forbidden to non-Muslims.