The study attempts to trace the development of mosque architecture in Islamic history, in modern architecture in the world, specifically focusing on the history of the mosque in Libya. It investigates whether the conformity of mosque components and finishing is due to historic, current and local Islamic prescriptions / due to functional purposes and necessities, or merely as an imitation of the stereotype styles for loyalty to mental and habitual traditions regardless of functions. The main objective of this thesis is to study &lsquo / the lack of innovation&rsquo / in mosque architecture, especially in the Libyan case. The thesis investigates the factors which may have caused this phenomenon and attempts to explore whether there is possibility to innovate mosque design. For this end, the thesis analyzes and evaluates urban, spatial, architectural and performance properties of the existing mosques in city of Ajdabiya in Libya, the results of which are expected to help architects in developing the innovations in mosque design. Finally, the study asserts that acceptance of innovation is possible under the given circumstances: there are differences from one mosque to another, there are variations of mosque elements in terms of type and form, already varying from region to region. The main reasons for the absence of innovations are found to be due to unqualified designers who lack creativity, fear for the vulnerability of the heritage and some misconceptions and misinterpretations in terms of religious prescriptions.

Timelessness is an ethereal component of sacred architecture as defined by the belief of man. The spiritual vision of humanity has demonstrated techniques of expressing belief in the existence of a Higher Being within the universe. Various systems of belief, based on religion today, have their own interpretation of their existential being in relation to the cosmos; this is strongly conveyed by means of architecture and built form. Modern interpretations of ancient belief systems have transmitted timeless qualities in ancient architecture. This research is aimed at providing an interpretation of timelessness that is able to capture and portray a sacred identity in built form and architecture. The author has identified a complex inter-relationship between the spirit, earth and the universe, forming a timeless design philosophy. The evaluation of various sacred archetypes in a historical setting has set a foundation to timeless design, which when implemented in sacred Islamic architecture, reveals its timeless elements. The contemporary interpretation of theory in this research has led to a timeless design philosophy, which when applied to any sacred architecture, will reveal timeless design elements that can be used today. This contemporary application of timeless elements or physical representations of belief may stimulate the deep spiritual vision of humanity once again, where qualities of 'ultimate human value' detached from differing religious belief systems enhance the 'collective human experience'. Ultimately leading toward an architecture expressive of unity in multiplicity. / Theses (M.Arch.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Det finns idag en ganska omfattande samhällsvetenskaplig litteratur om lokala och nationella protester mot planer på moskéer och böneutrop i västvärlden. Men det finns endast få studier som uppmärksammar växelverkan mellan sådant motstånd och olika former av stöd för muslimers religionsutövning. För att belysa rörelsernas retoriska inramningar analyseras ingresser till svenska namninsamlingar, Facebookgrupper och Facebooksidor. Innehållsanalysen visar bland annat att retoriken inte begränsas till praktiska lokaliseringsfrågor utan handlar i högsta grad om det svenska samhällets framtid. Moskéer utgör här viktiga symboler där de antingen representerar ett hot eller ett samhälle baserat på mänskliga rättigheter.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 194-197). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

La recherche s’intéresse à la place de l'islam en France et les problèmes qu'il soulevè dans une société sécularisée, principalement la problématique de la gestion du culte musulman: L’organisation du culte musulman en France s’est développée en lien avec une actualité nationale et internationale. La recherche essayera de mettre en lumière le rôle des différentes acteurs qui participent à cette gestion et le sens qu'ils donnent à leurs actions: Gouvernement, collectivités locales,associations cultuels, pays d'émigrations musulmanes,organisations etc. Le sujet est à la croisée de plusieurs disciplines : sociologie politique, sociologie religieuse, sociologie de l’immigration, administration territoriale, droit, théologie etc. / “The Muslim issue” stands in the very centre of the public debate in France. Studies andexpert reports are more and more numerous as a response to the academic interest and politicaldemand.It is to be noted that this issue is often studiedin relation to a given social or political reality,namely the surroundings areas of the Islamic creed, the status of women within the Muslim Faith,secularism and Muslim Faith and the issue of religious freedom, religious extremism, how to be aMuslim in France…Few research works however have considered the managing issue of theMuslim Faith in France.Scanning the still ongoing secularisation process of the Muslim creed inFrance , our research work deals with and draws a distinction on two closely linked different trendsconcerning how the Muslim Faith is organised :a mobilisation “from the higher levels of theMuslim society” backed by political and security considerations in combination with a “lowerlevels” originated mobilisation of the Muslim leadership to respondto the needs for religious dutiesand the necessary cultural transmission towards the newer generations. The interactions at playwithin the Muslim cult places and the officials organising the Muslim creed in France , thecontestfor the leadership of the Muslim standing ,the patterns of organizing and gathering funds forthe mosques, the meaning given to their dealings by the Muslim leaders , those are the manyquestions purporting to our attempt at decoding the situation. Thus the gist of our study focusesupon some topical issues concerning namely§ Muslim ranking officials and the different faces of the imam profession in France.§ the managing of the mosques and Muslim cultural associations as they are a meeting pointof the Muslims’ interests and the active political players’.§ finally the part played by the French State and the states subject to Muslim immigration inthis managing.The research spectrum is widespread and deals with several incidental issues, each of thesecould valuably lead to separate studies. We are facing a vast project which implies the engagementof several human and financial resources as well as the involvement of several research units for along duration.We are deeply aware that our study is an attempt to give a general view of the managingorganisation as regards the Muslim cult in France and the trends that are at play at the beginning ofthe 21st century.

abstract: This dissertation examines the concept of gendered space as it applies to prayer spaces in Islam, particularly mosques and mushollas exclusively for women. Gendered space is often articulated as space created by those with power—men— in order to control women’s access to knowledge and to put them at a disadvantage, thereby maintaining patriarchal structures. Yet, when groups are relegated to or voluntarily choose the margins, those within may transform the margins into sites of empowerment. I consider the dynamics of religious space, including its construction, maintenance, and activities performed by its inhabitants, by focusing on the Women’s Mosque of America in Los Angeles, which opened in 2015, and Musholla ‘Aisyiyah Ranting Karangkajen and Musholla ‘Aisyiyah Kauman, which have been in operation since the 1920s in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This work is based on ethnographies of the attendees of these three sites in order to explore the experiences of the women and the impact both traditional religious spaces and religious spaces exclusive to women have on their spirituality, ideas of authority, and sense of community. The Women’s Mosque of America and ‘Aisyiyah women’s mushollas create opportunities for women to participate in and contribute to Muslim communities by basing their efforts on the Sunnah and examples of female piety and leadership in early Islam. The present research challenges the argument that gendered spaces are inherently detrimental and must be remedied by a de-gendering process. Rather, the accounts of the attendees of the Women’s Mosque of America and ‘Aisyiyah women’s mushollas speak to the possibilities of creating an exclusive space that privileges those within it, fulfilling the women’s desire of religious knowledge, leadership, community, and piety in ways that traditional religious spaces have at times fallen short. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2020

This thesis consists of four self-contained essays. Essay 1 (with Olof Åslund and Matz Dahlberg): In this essay we investigate the impact of commuter train access on individual labor market outcomes. Our study considers the exogenous introduction of a commuter train linking locations in the northern part of Uppsala County (Sweden) to the regional employment center, considerably decreasing commuting times by public transit to the center for those living close to the pre-existing railroad. Using difference-in-differences matching techniques on comprehensive individual panel data spanning over a decade, our intention-to-treat estimates show that the reform had mainly no impact on the earnings and employment development among the affected individuals. Essay 2: In this essay I look into the role of public transit for residential sorting by studying how the introduction of a commuter train linking locations in the northern part of Uppsala County (Sweden) to the regional employment center affected migration patterns in the areas served. Using a difference-in-difference(-in-difference) approach and comprehensive individual level data, I find that the commuter train had a positive effect on overall in-migration to the areas served and no effect on the average out-migration rate from these areas. With regards to sorting based on labor market status, I find no evidence of sorting based on employment status but some evidence that the train introduction increased the probability of moving out of the areas served for individuals with high labor incomes relative to the probability for individuals with lower income. Considering sorting along other lines than labor market status, the analysis suggests that people born in non-western countries came to be particularly attracted towards the areas served by the commuter train as compared to other similar areas. Essay 3: In this essay I look into the relation between housing mix and social mix in metropolitan Stockholm (Sweden) over the period 1990-2008. Using entropy measures, I find that although the distribution of tenure types over metropolitan Stockholm became somewhat more even over the studied period, people living in different tenure types still to a large extent tended to live in different parts of the city in 2008. The degree of residential segregation was much lower between different population groups. I further find that the mix of family types, and over time also of birth region groups and income groups, was rather different between different tenure types in the same municipality. The mix of different groups however tended to be similar within different tenure types in the same neighborhood. While the entropy measures provide a purely descriptive picture, the findings thus suggest that tenure type mix could be more useful for creating social mix at the municipal level than for creating social mix at the neighborhood level. Essay 4 (with Matz Dahlberg): The last decade’s immigration to western European countries has resulted in a culturally and religiously more diverse population in these countries. This diversification manifests itself in several ways, where one is through new features in the cityscape. Using a quasi-experimental approach, essay 4 examines how one such new feature, public calls to prayer, affects neighborhood dynamics (house prices and migration). The quasi-experiment is based on an unexpected political process that lead way to the first public call to prayer from a mosque in Sweden combined with rich (daily) information on housing sales. While our results indicate that the public calls to prayer increased house prices closer to the mosque, we find no evidence that the public calls to prayer served as a driver of residential segregation between natives and people born abroad around the mosque in question (no significant effects on migration behavior). Our findings are consistent with a story where some people have a willingness to pay for the possibility to more fully exert their religion which puts an upward pressure on housing in the vicinity of a mosque with public calls to prayer.

The primary focus of this dissertation is to establish the extent to which ta§awwuf, commonly referred to as Islamic Spirituality, impacted on Cape Muslim culture. The study spans the time period between the arrival of the first significant political exiles at the Cape in 1667 to the founding of the Muslim Judicial Council in 1945. To this end a short historical review of ta§awwuf as it unfolded since its inception in the Muslim world is given in order to provide the necessary background against which any study of ta§awwuf at the Cape must be measured. This, in the authorÕs opinion, has not been attempted before in local studies in any systematic way. To further augment this study, a review of the nature and character of ta§awwuf as it emerged in the geographical areas from whence the political exiles and slaves were brought to the Cape is also engaged. As part of the conclusion to this dissertation an ÒafterwordÓ is provided that briefly sketches the post-1945 theological milieu that increasingly witnessed the emergence of new anti-ta§awwuf pressures within the Muslim community. / Religious Studies and Arabic / MA (Arabic)

Après son annexion à la Sublime Porte au XVIe siècle, Alger a vue naître de grandes fondations de waqf, dont celle des Subul al-Khayrāt qui se distingue par le fait qu'il s'agit d'une fondation de madhhab hanéfite alors que la population algéroise est de madhhab malékite dans la grande majorité. Elle a été crée par les Turcs ottomans vers la fin du XVIe siècle et chargée de la gestion des mosquées hanéfites qui lui en dépendaient ainsi que de leurs biens appartenant à leur waqf. Trois de ses mosquées ont survécues à la démolition après la prise d'Alger : al-Jāmi‘ al-Jadid qui est la principale mosquée hanéfite édifié au XVIIe siècle par ordre de l'armée (bi amrin min al-‘askar al-manṣūr) et financée par les Subul al-Khayrāt, Jāmi‘ Kashshāwa et Jāmi‘ al-Qā'id Ṣafar. L'exploitation des documents relatifs aux waqf, pour la plupart inédits, a servi à connaître le nombre et la nature des biens waqf de la dite fondation et, par conséquent, leurs fondateurs qui sont en majorité des Turcs. Les documents ont également servi à connaître la composante démographique de la ville d'Alger à l'époque ottomane ainsi que les différents fonctions et métiers exercés dans cette cité. / After its annexion to the Sublime Porte in the 16th century, large waqf foundations developed in Algiers: the Subul al-Khayrāt figured among them. The Subul al-Khayrāt were different from other waqf in the city because their foundations were regulated by the Hanafi madhhab while the Algerian population was largely Maliki. The Ottoman Turks created the Subul al-Khayrāt towards the end of the 16th century and they created the structures to manage the waqf which belonged to it. Three mosques belonging to the Subul al-Khayrāt survived the demolition of Algiers after its conquest by the French in 1830: al-Jāmi‘ al-Jadid which is the principal Hanafi mosque built in the 17th century by order of the army (bi amrin min al-‘askar al-manṣūr) and financed by the Subul al-Khayrāt, Jāmi‘ Kashshāwa and Jāmi‘ al-Qā'id Ṣafar.The study of the pertinent documents regarding this waqf which, for the most part have not been published, served as the basis to study the number and the nature of the assets belonging to this foundation and, as a consequence, to study their endowers who were mostly Turks. The documents also served as a source to know the demographic components of the city of Algiers during the Ottoman period as well as the different functions and professions exercized in this city.

The primary focus of this dissertation is to establish the extent to which ta§awwuf, commonly referred to as Islamic Spirituality, impacted on Cape Muslim culture. The study spans the time period between the arrival of the first significant political exiles at the Cape in 1667 to the founding of the Muslim Judicial Council in 1945. To this end a short historical review of ta§awwuf as it unfolded since its inception in the Muslim world is given in order to provide the necessary background against which any study of ta§awwuf at the Cape must be measured. This, in the authorÕs opinion, has not been attempted before in local studies in any systematic way. To further augment this study, a review of the nature and character of ta§awwuf as it emerged in the geographical areas from whence the political exiles and slaves were brought to the Cape is also engaged. As part of the conclusion to this dissertation an ÒafterwordÓ is provided that briefly sketches the post-1945 theological milieu that increasingly witnessed the emergence of new anti-ta§awwuf pressures within the Muslim community. / Religious Studies and Arabic / MA (Arabic)