God’s Dominion: Omar Ibn Said use of Arabic literacy as opposition to Slavery

Omar ibn Said’s Th e Life of Omar Ibn Said, Written by Himself (1831) occupies a unique position within the slave narrative tradition. As the only surviving Arabic autobiography written by a slave from the United States, the Life juxtaposes a religious exegesis based on the textual authority of the Qur’an with a first-person account of Omar’s life. Only recently rediscovered, having been found in a trunk in a Virginia at-tic in 1995 and sold to a private collector after being lost since 1920, the manuscript has sparked renewed interest in writings by enslaved Muslims in America, and in particular Omar’s literacy in Arabic and his religious training. Omar’s Life is a hybrid narrative: it is a slave narrative, a spiritual narrative, and a quasi-conversion narrative. Th is essay examines two critical moments in Omar’s life—his Arabic writings on the walls of a Fayetteville, North Carolina, jail during his imprisonment and his ambiguous relationship to Christianity later in life. Omar’s meditation on the Qur’anic chapter Al-Mulk, which means “Dominion” or “Sovereignty,” encapsulates the contradictions between these narrative modes, challenges the religious sanction of slavery, and undermines the practice of granting slaveholders dominion over other human beings

Exegesis of the Hausa and Fulani models

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1987.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-109).This thesis will examine two models of West African architecture-- the Mosque at Zaria, Nigeria and the Mosque at Dingueraye, Guinea. It will also attempt to illustrate implicit patterns of creative expression, both literal and allegorical , in the space-making processes of the Hausa and Fulani peoples. In passing, some attention will also be given to the cultural and building traditions of the Mande people. The notion of space and place in much of sub-Saharan Africa oscillates in a realm which is neither absolutely rational nor ethereal. Culture, it could be argued, can offer us an opportunity to investigate an analytical taxonomy through which we can compare and discover particular attributes of space and the phenomenological dimensions of built form. Culture , as a layered accumulation of historical events , visual vocabularies, and architectural expression, is subject at one time or another to an ethos which may have had a syncretic origin. Among the Hausa and Fulani, the image which exists within the architectural paradigm can be described as a language, or code or a method of explaining spatial concepts related to concrete space and traditional culture. The Hausa and Fulani spatial schemes are concerned with the nature of space as a context and metaphor for experience , inner and outer, hidden and manifest.by Akel I. Kahera.M.S

Mosque Design

Over the last five decades more than 100 mosques have been established in Texas to serve the estimated 150,000 Muslims living mostly in its largest cities. The urban mosque, also known as an Islamic center, represents the heart of the Muslim community and provides the most visual expression of Muslim religious identity. The mosque (masjid in Arabic) is where the faithful gather to engage in communal worship, spiritual retreat, matrimony, education, and social activities

Design criteria for Mosques and Islamic Centers : art, architecture, and worship

ix,93hlm.;bib.;ill.;indek

Critical Environmentalism and the Practice of Re-Construction

This research focuses on the implications and applications of “critical environmentalism” as a quintessential epistemological framework for urban interventions while implementing digital applications that foster collective, round-table approaches to design. Essentially centering the environment (Umwelt) as an encompassing and interconnecting catalyst between multiple disciplines, philosophies, and modes of inquiry and technologies, the framework reciprocally fosters individual and critical identities associated with particular places, belief systems, and their participants as a primary concern. Critical environmentalism promotes a comprehensive, reciprocally unifying epistemological framework that can significantly inform architectural interventions and the tethered use of its technologies in order to foster increased vitality and a certain coinvested attention to the complexities of the greater domain. Grounding the theory in pedagogical practice, this paper documents an approach to urban design and architectural education, implemented as a case-study and design scenario, where divergent perspectives amalgamate into emergent urban configurations, critically rooted in the conditional partialities of place. Digital technologies are incorporated along with analogical methods as tools to integrate multiple perspectives into a single, working plane. Engaging the above framework, the approach fosters a critical (re)construction and on-going, co-vested regeneration of community and the context of place while attempting to dialogically converge multiple urban conditions and modes-of-thought through the co-application of various digital technologies. Critically understanding complex urban situations involves dialogically analyzing, mapping, and modelling a discursive, categorical structure through a common goal and rationale that seeks dialectic synthesis between divergent constructions while forming mutual, catalyzing impetuses between varying facets. In essence, the integration of varying technologies in conjunction, connected to real world scenarios and a guiding epistemic framework cultivates effective cross-pollination of ideas and modes through communicative and participatory interaction. As such it also provides greater ease in crosschecking between a multitude of divergent modes playing upon urban design and community development. Since current digital technologies aid in data collection and the synthesis of information, varying factors can be more easily and collectively identified, analyzed, and then simultaneously used in subsequent design configurations. It inherently fosters the not fully realized potential to collectively overlay or montage complex patterns and thoughts seamlessly and to thus subsequently merge a multitude of corresponding design configurations simultaneously within an ongoing, usable database. As a result, the pedagogical process reveals richly textured sociocultural fabrics and thus produces distinct amplifications in complexity and attentive management of diverse issues, while also generating significant narratives and themes for fostering creative and integrative solutions. As a model for urban community and social development, critical environmentalism is further supported the integrative use of digital technologies as an effective means and management for essential, communicative interchange of knowledge and thus rapprochement between divergent modes-of-thought, promoting critical, productive interaction with others in the (co)constructive processes of our life-space

Design criteria for mosques and islamic centers: Art, architecture, and worship

xi, 93 hlm. : ilus. ; tab. ; 28 cm

Gender, inclusivity and UK mosque experiences

Access to, management and attendance of places of worship often takes gendered forms. Gender imbalances in UK mosques manifests in attendance and management patterns and is reflected in the facilities available. The sense that mosques are perceived widely as ‘prayer-clubs for men’ (Maqsood 2005: 4–5) is often reflected in the physical spaces and facilities made available to female worshippers, and it must be noted that some mosques do not provide any of the latter at all (Dispatches 2006). Shockingly, a recent survey found that ‘women form part of the congregation in [only] half (51%) of the organisations surveyed’ (Coleman 2009: 10). Relatedly, UK Mosque management committees privilege male involvement, decision-making and leadership roles, with figures of as few as 15% women in management positions (Asim 2011: 34) and more who ‘will simply not entertain the idea’ (Asim 2011: 39). Such imbalances reflect the specificities of the UK-religious context (Maqsood 2005) yet, globally, women’s mosque involvement appears to be changing far more rapidly than here. This paper explores how gender, religious identity and sexualities interface with women’s mosque access, involvement and experiences therein. It draws upon original research with a sample of women, and indicates that inclusivity is an important topic in UK mosques, far beyond gender