Rubna Kana’an (University of Toronto)

This paper re-thinks the common perception of the Friday mosque as the “architectural monument par excellence.” The talk discusses the historical development of Friday mosques in the pre-modern Muslim world and the relationship between these architectural monuments and the ways in which contemporaneous Muslim jurists discussed and legislated for Friday prayer. By so doing, it questions the current art historical approach that mainly focuses on materiality and patronage while failing to take due consideration of the legal understanding of the functional as well as symbolic nature of the Friday mosque.

This lecture is part of the “Re-Approaching Architecture of the Lands of Islam” Series addressing the historiography of the field ‘Islamic Art’ by scoring the particular moments of ruptures that fractured its foundations.. Click here for more details.

Organized by Avinoam Shalem, Riggio Professor, Arts of Islam, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, in collaboration with the Center for Spatial Research at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, the Middle East Institute of Columbia University, and the Centre for the Study of Muslim Societies at Columbia University.