Creating an islamic sense of place: Building conversion and the american mosque

Abstract

As an anomaly within the religious and ethnic landscapes of the United States, the American mosque serves as an intriguing focus from which to understand the constructionof sacred spaces and religious identities. In this study, buildings converted into mosques were hypothesized to have a "vernacular intuitiveness” of the essential place attributes of the faith of Islam. These converted places of worship are common in Muslim communities in the United States, yet understudied. This study investigated eight of these mosques in Kansas and Missouri, relying on primary data gathered through site observations and interviews. Comparing and contrasting data from each mosque lead to an understanding towards intuitive and necessary elements to the creation of an Islamic sense of place. This was in large part defined by the accommodation of Islamic ritual and the fundamentals of faith. Differences between the mosques revealed diverse communities arriving at varying answers to these fundamentals as well as to conceptions of gender and the role of ethnic identity. Designing mosques in the American context must include an understanding of Muslim-Americans' collective soul-searching and the intuitive ways identities are asserted through architecture.