MOSQUES

I love mosques; so much so that I include visiting mosques in my travel itineraries, where possible.

It all started two years ago in Bali when a friend and I, spending the New Year on the island, decided to venture some 200 km to Singaraja to look for what is said to be the oldest mosque there.

It was on the eve of the New Year that we set out on our journey there. We had googled the night before, looking for places to go to, when we asked ourselves, “Where is the oldest mosque in Bali?”

We had read about Masjid Agung Jami’ in Singaraja and the oldest handwritten Quran kept at the mosque. The Quran was dated 1830s and handwritten by I Gusti Ngurah Ketut Jelantik Celagi, a Hindu royalty who converted to Islam following a civil war then. It is still legible despite the years. The handwriting is flawless.
We were told by the imam of Masjid Agung Jami' that the Hindu prince had studied Islam under the tutelage of one Haji Muhammad Yusuf Saleh. One of the conditions he imposed on his students was that they have to write the entire Quran by hand after they have completed their study.

The oldest mosque is called Masjid Kuno, now located behind some houses, in Singaraja.
The old Quran was originally kept here but moved to the other mosque after floods hit the area.

Masjid Agung Jami' is where the oldest Quran is kept

The oldest Quran on the island, dated 1830s, written by a Hindu royalty who converted to Islam

 So, imagine my excitement when I received in the mail this book, “Masjid – Selected Mosques from the Islamic World”, from ATSA Architects chief executive officer Azim A Aziz.

I first met him when I interviewed Datuk Baharuddin Abu Kassim, the architect of the National Mosque some two weeks ago.

I could use it as a guide as it lists 112 mosques all over the world, including 15 in Malaysia.

The 800-page treatise has the trappings of a coffee table book, generally described as “an oversize, expensive, and usually illustrated book suitable for displaying, as on a coffee table”.

Only, this particular one is an encyclopaedia of sort, with monographs (detailed and documented architectural drawings), photographs and architectural background information on the mosques.

Azim said he started putting together information about other mosques in the country as well as overseas when ATSA Architects was appointed to design the Cyberjaya mosque.

While researching on the history of mosque architecture, he could not find any written materials that he could refer to. Books that were readily available were either outdated or out of print.

Azim started planning the book with just 50 mosques but as he dug deeper into the subject matter, he found more and more interesting mosques the world over.

Some of the mosques are in countries where the official religion is not Islam like Thailand, Singapore and China. These countries were once in regions which were predominantly Muslim territories.

Azim also intended the book to be a study on the history of Islam and mosque architecture since 622, which is the first Hijrah year.

The first mosque featured in the book, Al-Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah, dates back to 2130 BC. It spreads over 32 pages of photographs, monographs and text. It covers the initial construction of the mosque up to its planned expansion in 2020.

It is interesting to note that throughout its expansion over four eras – Abbasid, Umayyad, Ottoman and Saudi – the Al-Masjid Al-Haram was and is still void of the onion-shaped domes which have become synonymous with mosques and Islam.

The onion-shaped domes are part of what is known as Mughal architecture. It came into being during the rise of Islam in the Indian subcontinent in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Azim’s research showed that most mosques in the country featured a pyramid-shaped roof in the centre, often said to follow a structure from a Hindu-style religious architecture found mainly in Java.

It is also said that the construction of these earlier mosque was influenced by the use of Chinese carpenters brought in from China to build in Malaya, Java, Sumatera and the surrounding areas.

The book also revealed that the Kampung Laut Mosque in Kota Baru, Kelantan is not the oldest mosque in the country. That title in fact belonged to the Tengkera Mosque in Malacca, which was built in 1728, two years before the Kampung Laut mosque.

Azim said they could not find any concrete or specific dates for the Kampung Laut Mosque.

“Most of the legitimate websites cited that the Kampung Laut Mosque was built in the 18th century. From our findings, the closest date that we obtained was year 1730, while Masjid Tengkera was on 1728. The two-year difference is very close,” he said.

The Malacca mosque was considered as the state’s state mosque before the Al Azim state mosque was built in 1990. The Tengkera Mosque is also listed as a heritage building by the National Heritage Deaprtment of Malaysia in 1976.

If history is to be traced through the existence of mosque, the mosque was built during the Dutch colonial period following the relaxation of the rule on freedom of worship of non-Protestant Christian faiths. The design of the Tengkera Mosque, which incorporates traditional elements of Javanese and Sumatran architecture, bears testament to the presence of Islam in Malaysia for six centuries.

The structure of Tengkera mosque as seen today dates back to 1780, when the first recorded restoration of the mosque took place.

The book also covered the National Mosque, which celebrates its 50^th anniversary this year. The ‘’modernist, international style” mosque was described as progressive for its time back then.

Azim was barely four months old when the National Mosque opened in 1965.  At the age of 22, he served as intern to Datuk Baharuddin Abu Kassim, the man who designed the international style National Mosque.

Azim will soon publish a book on Malaysian mosque architecture, from the earliest surviving mosque to the present.

“We are working with five higher institutions to publish a Malaysian mosque architecture monograph that has not been done before.

“There is a real need to understand how mosque typologies originate and the various styles that influence the architecture. With these monographs, many other architects the world over can benefit from it.

“As a developing Muslim country, we have are very fortunate to have the opportunity to design mosque of the future to express our very own modern progressive mosque architecture.

“This can lead the way or influence mosque designs throughout the world,” he said.

Describing himself as a modernist in his architectural thinking, he wants to rethink the ways of designing a mosque to not only withhold its traditional values but also to reflect a progressive Islamic architecture.

It must also be sustainable and meets the needs of the modern Muslim congregation.

The review I wrote on "Masjid - Selected Mosques of the Islamic World"
in PULSE of Life & Times dated September 4, 2015

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