Well, thank goodness that this doesn’t happen in America. Oh, who am I kidding, it totally does. There are plenty of ways to discourage the building of Islamic masaajid and only one of those ways is zoning laws.
I think it was in 2007 that Chicago suburb Palos Heights’s city council offered a group of Muslims $200,000 to NOT build a masjid there. Four days after the group accepted the offer, the mayor vetoed the deal as "insulting." Disgusting behavior on both sides, in my opinion, though I admit to not having all the facts. Religious prejudice and greed. Fabulous.
Really, what’s so insulting/offensive/icky about this building? If anything, it’s a pretty addition to any American city and a testament to global multiplicity, tolerance, and harmony.
(Full entry after pic!spam)
See? What did I tell you? Absolutely gorgeous! And look at how well the D.C. masjid (FYI – masjid is a generally preferable term to mosque, since it’s the original Arabic instead of the clunky Anglicized version) fits into the surrounding architecture of the city. If not for the minaret (and perhaps the arched doors) you’d think it was some sort of library or office building. It’s an excellent example of how masjids across the country (take a look at the ones in LA, Houston, Arizona, and NYC) take on the looks of the cities they’re built in.
And why not? Obviously, masjids built in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, like Masjid An-Nabi in Madinah, or the Haram al Sharif in Makkah, are going to be different in construction and orientation than those built in NYC. One is an impressive, sprawling construction erected between the sand dunes and the mountains; the other is a sleek metallic construction erected in the middle of a thriving metropolis. And where space isn’t available, masjids take on the look of normal office or apartment buildings, like the masjid I’ve occasionally stepped into on Wabash by the corner on Jackson in Chicago. From the outside, it’s nothing more than an office building.
Masjids built in traditionally non-Muslim countries don’t have to be some other-worldy, medieval constructions where people rub their foreheads on the ground five times a day and according to the consummate genius that is Pat Robertson,worship the Moon God. Yes, there are masjids in this country that preach radical and militant Islamic thinking (as a possible reason why masjid construction might be discouraged) but then again, it’s equally true that there are a number of churches and other religious headquarters, for lack of a better term, that do the same and preach ideologies not necessarily in line with the normative social, political, and cultural values of the country at the time.
Austria, one of many European nations with a rapidly growing Muslim population, is taking a different, more subtle tack in terms of discouraging the construction of masjids than, say, throwing a couple hundred grand around like Palos Heights, IL. (The real entry, finally!)
A masjid is being built in Nenzing, Vorarlberg, Austria, with an area of 650 sq. meters, but no dome or minaret.
The Nenzing municipality agreed to sell a 1500 sq. meter plot of land to the Turkish-Islamic Cultural Association (ATIB) as the site of the new masjid, but there are zoning laws in place that make it very difficult to construct any building with a dome or minaret. The reason is that domes and minarets "conflict with the traditional appearance" of Austrian towns. So the masjid will be made (because, obviously, the Muslims in that city need a place to perform the daily prayers in congregation that isn’t someone’s basement) but will be lacking two of the most traditional markers of masjids: the dome and the tower.
In Islamic architecture, the two markers serve different but unifying purposes: while the dome is a historical and ideological aspect of architecture, the minaret or prayer tower is a far more practical one, more of a necessity than the dome.
The prominence of the dome in Islamic architecture is generally traced back to the construction of the Dome of the Rock. Indeed, even the holiest masjid in Makkah has no dome. Masjid an-Nabi in Madinah has a green dome and others, including a dome built over the apartment in which the Prophet (S) died so as to make the graves invisible from the outside, but those were built later. It is believed that when the Prophet (S) was about to make his night journey (first to Jerusalem, then to heaven) a large boulder levitated from the ground after him but was suspended; the boulder was then covered in gold and made into the golden dome on the Dome of the Rock in the compound of the Masjid al-Aqsa in Palestine. Domes became salient markers of masjids ever since.
The function of the minaret is much more practical. When the Muslims built the first masjid in Madinah, the Prophet (S)’s former slave Bilal was the one to issue the first call to prayer. He found a higher place on the masjid wall and stood there to issue the azaan, and that was how minarets came into being. Traditionally, the call to prayer is issued from the tall prayer towers so as to be heard by all who live around the masjid. Before, a man would climb up there and issue the call to prayer as loudly as he could; now, obviously, loud-speakers and amplifiers are used. In traditional Muslim countries, masjids issue the calls to prayer that serve as alarm clocks for all living close enough to hear, waking them up for the first of the five daily prayers.
The argument in Austria, however, is that minarets disrupt the visual appearance of Austrian towns and thus zoning laws make it difficult for them to be constructed.
The construction of minarets is a hot button issue in Austria right now following the release of a report by the US State Department in its annual human rights investigation. The report criticized the province for making changes in their laws and enacting these restrictive zoning laws (ugh, takes me back to Property) that are a violation of "freedom of religious expression."
Governor Herbert Sausgruber of the Vorarlberg People’s Party rejected the criticism and called it exaggerated and unjustified by the facts, claiming that the provincial zoning law was non-discriminatory. Coincidentally, a report by the Smurf Committee, er, I mean, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) stated that Muslims in Austria have been subjected to social discrimination and verbal assaults. (The situation is generally the same throughout European nations, gripped by fears of an established Caliphate in London. Pfft.)
Dieter Egger, leader of the Vorarlberg Freedom Party, said the US report was "indefensible" and an "outrageous interference" in provincial affairs, adding, "After the attacks on 9/11, the USA must have an understanding of our forceful confrontation of fundamental Islamic currents in our country."
Pardon my language, but, oh, no, he di’int.
This rampant Islamphobia constitutes not sound national policy or an adequate means of social defense, but a self-fulfilling prophecy. By marginalizing and, yes, demonizing Muslim constituents (or legal/illegal immigrants, whatever the case may be depending on the country) and enacting discriminatory zoning laws, perpetuating social and professional discrimination and so on, nations in this situation are doing NOTHING but encouraging the same anti-Western sentiments they seek to combat.
If the government’s trying to screw you, and there’s a radical mullah on the corner willing to listen and help you out, who are you more likely to sympathize with and follow?
The only way bridge the tremendous cultural gap between ‘modern Europe’ (how I despise this dichotomy) and ‘traditional Islam’ or however you want to look at it, is to deal with the underlying perverse Islamophobia that is serving as the greatest obstacle to such aims.
*stepping off the soap box*
