Beyond the minaret: A space for the spirit, a place for the people. Toward an integral design for a contemporary mosque via an embodied decorum or ethos

This work is intended primarily as an original contribution to knowledge in the field of architecture and subsequently as a useful text for architects and designers and grass roots Muslim community builders. Though written to serve in particular the Muslim communities who seek to establish socially dynamic places of work, and worship, the present study is intended to be of interest to those looking at approaches to build collectively and create beneficial spaces and places of great architectural merit. Although the particular lived way or praxis that is served is Islam, which asserts unseen and seen realms and a life beyond this life, the present study is written from the human phenomenological perspective of being and dwelling in this world here and now, and addresses the cultural role of architecture today. Islam is equally concerned with the eternal now of the present moment. This open book exploration is enframed by a) the foil of a specific proposed mosque project b) grounded in the history and living tradition of Islam, and c) the phenomenologically understood life patterns of those who would dwell in the mosque complex daily