This thesis is a modest enquiry into 'The Mosque as an Institution of Islamic Da'wah'. The main study involves the elaboration of the terms, 'Mosque', 'Institution', 'Islam' and 'Da'wah'. The Mosque, being an institution reflecting the dissemination of information suitable to prepare its community for Paradise, must excel in delivery of knowledge; Most importantly this begins with that of the All-Mighty creator, His knowledge, the knowledge of mankind, Islam the way of life in its social, economic and political aspects and the consequence of committing a crime against the life, property and honour of a person or people. The main focus of this work centres around the Masjid; what it is; its role in the life of the individual and the community; as a means of physical and spiritual cleanliness; as an Institution to teach and learn the manners and morality of mutual interaction. Also addressed are aspects dealing with the building of a Mosque and Da'wah from the mosque.

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Prayer is the central way of communication between God and the human being, which involves man's thoughts, emotions, and acts. It is the whole expression of the individual in the presence of God. The core aspects of one's religiosity appear in prayer, which is perceived as one of the main subjects of the psychology of religion. In this study, we have three aims: firstly, we want to explore the main psychological approaches to prayer in the psychology of religion. Secondly, we aim to examine main Muslim approaches to prayer. Thirdly, we want to compare Western and Muslim psychological approaches to prayer. To achieve our first aim, the first part of our study deals with Western psychological views of prayer. We chose to examine the views of four prominent Western psychologists. In the first chapter, the views of Francis Galton and William James on prayer have been examined. The main issues of this chapter are the question of objective efficacy of prayer, and experiential and pragmatic dimensions of prayer. In the second chapter, Friedrich Heiler's and James Bissett Pratt's approaches are studied. By doing this, we explored the historical and psychological development of prayer and its subjective effects on human life. The second part of our study deals with three Muslim approaches to prayer. In the first chapter of the second part, Al-Ghazali's views are studied as a classical approach in Muslim thought. In the second chapter, Ibn 'Ald' Allah's ideas of prayer as a Sufi approach, and in the third chapter, Muhammad Iqbal's views on prayer are examined as a modem Muslim approach. In the concluding chapter of the thesis, we compare the views of four Western psychologists, whose views are examined in the first part, with the three Muslim approaches.

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This study is an attempt to trace out and reconstruct those earliest tendencies and ideas which resulted in the sectarian consolidation of legitimist Shi'ism in Islam. The thesis is divided into five chapters, dealing in sequence with the events which took place from the death of the Prophet till the time of the Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. From these events have been elucidated those aspects which link up the Shi'ite ideas to form an unbroken chain. In the first chapter it has been shown that the Shi'ite tendency in its rudimentary form started immediately after the death of the Prophet, mainly on religious grounds, and manifested itself in the Saqifa. During the wide-spread discontent which prevailed in the reign of 'Uthman, religious Shi'ism also embraced a large political following, but the original Shi'a maintained the religious nature of their partisanship for 'Ali in distinction from his political supporters. The second chapter explains the ideas and activities of that small group of the Shi'ite's who, in spite of al-Hasan's abdication in favour of Mu'awiya, remained persistent in their religious feeling regarding the leadership of the community. In part B of this chapter the tragedy of Karbala has been studied at length and the Shi'ite's ideas and viewpoint have been elucidated from the speeches and rajaz material pronounced by the companions of Husayn. After Karbala the Tawwabun movement was another step further in Shi'ite sectarian tendency. Chapter three deals with the split among the Shi'ites after the death of Husayn and the emergence of the legitimist Shi'ite faction who fathered round Zayn al-'Abidin. Muhammad al-Baqir further advanced legitimist claims within the Shi'ite movement. The fourth chapter surveys that religio-political background which provided Ja'far al-Sadiq a propitious time to establish a firmly legitimist branch of the Shi'ites. The last chapter examines the theory of the Imamate expounded by the Imam Ja'far and his circle. In part B of this chapter an attempt has been made to examine the personalities of some of the most important adherents of Ja'far who are frequently cited as the authoritative source of the legitimist Shi 'ite dogmas and legal practices. On the whole the thesis suggests that Shi'ism was originally a religious and not a political movement, and that the legitimist faction never ceased to make its existence felt among the different groups of the early Shi'ites.

This thesis deals mainly with the historical development of the religious institution of Ithna ashari Shi'ism in both its scholarly and political aspects. It is divided into six chapters. The word "school" has been used to describe the place in which such an institution had flourished due to the activities of its fuqaha ' in response to their turbulent history, whether it was in Iraq, in Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria, i.e. Syria and Lebanon) or in Iran. Chapter one deals with the Baghdad School. It includes a study of the scholarly development right from the begining of the fuqaha' institution during Shaykh al-Mufid's times (d. 413/1022) and ending with Shaykh al-Tusi (d. 460/1068). Chapter two follows the development of this scholarly renaissance at the hands of the Hilla fuqaha starting with Ibn Idris al-Hilli's time (d. 598/1201) and ending with Fakhr al-Muhaqiqqin ibn al-'Allama al-Hilli (d. 771/1369), and investigates the relationship between the religious institution and the Mongol invaders of Iraq and the ideological influence of the Ithna'ashari fuqaha' on the leaders of the invaders. Chapter three, on the Jabal 'Amil school, deals in part with the unsettled period of the Mamluk state, its struggle against the Mongols and the internal situation of the Shi'a vis-a-vis the Mamluks. It also deals in part with the influence of the Jabal 'Amil fuqaha' on the Safawid state after these fuqaha' had migrated there. Particular attention is paid to the role of Shaykh al-Karaki (d. 940/1533) and his attempt to build a religious institution inside Safawid Iran, and the opposition that he met. The chapter ends with a study of the Akhbari Movement in its first stage, during the time of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (d. 1033/1624). Chapter four focuses on the Najaf School, which had started about two hundred years before as an intellectual school. The development and activities of this school from the beginning of the thirteenth/nineteenth century, are discussed, as is its position regarding the emergence of the Wahhabi Movement, the Akhbari Movement (in its second phase) and the Shaykhi Movement. The chapter also deals with the political activity of the fuqaha' in their struggle against the Qajari state, which had been manifested in the fatwa prohibiting tobacco and in the Constitutional Movement. Chapter five deals with the struggle of the Najaf fuqaha' from the start of the Republican period (1958) until the beginning of the 1990s. This is preceded by an introductory remark concerning the position taken by the fuqaha' towards the British forces who entered Iraq after the First World War and the events of the Iraqi Revolution of 1920. Chapter six has been dedicated to a study of the Qumm school. It looks at the historical development of that city, with particular attention to the role of Shaykh 'Abd al-Karim al-Ha'iri al-Yazdi (d. 1355/1936) in supervising an elite of mujtahids who have participated in the renewal of this city.

This thesis presents a case study of a single mosque, Jamia Masjid. It provides a description of everyday life, with attention to the congregation and the construction of sacred space. Its claim to originality is that it is an “insider” ethnographic perspective of a mosque in Britain, built upon an extended year-long period of fieldwork. It is an “insider” ethnography both in the sense that the researcher has a pre-existing relationship with the mosque, and also, that it focuses on the space and meanings within the mosque. Its timeliness is predicated upon the second decade of the 21st century being a period in which an increasingly British-born and young Muslim population take leadership in mosques established a generation prior. The thesis argues that Jamia Masjid is an interspatial mosque, providing a diverse range of activities to fulfil the needs of its congregation. It achieves this by operating as a subaltern counter-public, or a “coffee shop mosque”, in which congregants take agency for activities and events. The role of the congregation is pronounced in the thesis to address an identified gap in existing research. Furthermore, the thesis provides theorisation on the temporal dimensions of sacred space, drawing upon Henri Lefebvre and Rhythmanalysis (2004). It argues that sacredness is not a static concept, but dynamic and rhythmic. This sacredness is described as baraka. Jamia Masjid is both a site of distributing and receiving baraka, and it is sacredness is constructed dialectically – transcending some existing categorisations of sacred space in the literature. The thesis argues also that conflict is not an inevitable consequence of sacred space but, at times, a meaningful way of marking and constructing it. These original theoretical contributions are presented through a rich ethnography that provides an insight into the everyday activities of a mosque congregation.

Among the steady progression of disasters worldwide lie the numerous instances of fatality where crowds gather. The scale of these is particularly high at the Hajj in Makkah, where there are exceptionally high numbers of pedestrians in a number of confined areas and, depending on the time of year, all in searing heat. In order to reduce the likelihood of repetition in the future, the present thesis involved firstly determining the characteristics of the pedestrians attending the Hajj, and then collecting speed, flow and density data by observing them walking along one of the busiest roads between the Holy Mosque and the other holy sites, Ajyad Street. These were analyzed against various models from the literature including those of Greenshield, Weidmann and Greenberg, and it was found that none of these fitted convincingly, mostly because pilgrims do not walk at the maximum speeds that the crowd density allows. This thesis proposes the use instead of a maximum possible speed model based on a linear relationship between speed and density i.e. \(u\) ≤ 1.75 (1 - \(k\) /5.47) where \(u\) is speed (m/s) and \(k\) is density (people/m\(^2\)). It then goes on demonstrate with a simulation model that an increase of 50% in traffic with the current layout would result in severe overcrowding. This however could be avoided relatively easily by a particular combination of changing the directions of flow and the geometry of the road.

This thesis charts the stakeholder communities, physical environment and daily life of two little studied Qādiriyya Sufi shrines associated with Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (1077 – 1165 AD), a 12th century Ḥanbalī Muslim theologian and the posthumous founder of one of the oldest Sufi orders in Islam. The first shrine is based in Baghdad and houses his burial chamber; and the second shrine, on the outskirts of the city of ‘Aqra in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, is that of his son Shaikh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (died 1206 AD). The latter was also known for lecturing in Ḥanbalī theology in the region, and venerated for this as well as his association with Shaikh ʿAbd al-Qādir. Driven by the research question “What shapes the identity orientations of these two Qādiriyya Sufi shrines in modern times?” the findings presented here are the result of field research carried out between November 2009 and February 2014. This field research revealed a complex context in which the two shrines existed and interacted, influenced by both Sufi and non-Sufi stakeholders who identified with and accessed these shrines to satisfy a variety of spiritual and practical needs, which in turn influenced the way each considered and viewed the two shrines from a number of orientations. These overlapping orientations include the Qādirī Sufi entity and the resting place of its patron saint; the orthodox Sunnī mosque with its muftī-imams, who are employed by the Iraqi government; the local Shīʿa community’s neighbourhood saint’s shrine and its destination for spiritual and practical aid; and the local provider of welfare to the poor of the city (soup kitchen, funeral parlour and electricity-generation amongst other services). The research findings also revealed a continuously changing and adapting Qādirī Sufi scene not immune from the national and regional socio-religio-political environments in which the two shrines exist: a non-Sufi national political class vying to influence and manipulate these shrines for their own purposes; and powerful national sectarian factions jostling to do the same. The mixture of stakeholders using and associating with the two shrines were found to be influential shapers of these entities, both physically and spiritually. Through encountering and interacting with each other, most stakeholders contributed to maintaining and rejuvenating the two shrines, but some also sought to adapt and change them driven by their particular orientation’s perspective.