Mosque Building Quotes

While there are millions of hungry people all around the world, while there are thousands of homeless people in every country, while some continents are in a horrible poverty, while there are not enough schools, not enough hospitals in the entire world, building churches, mosques, synagogues or temples or spending money on guns, on war industry are the greatest treasons to humanity!

Build a far mosque where you can read your soul-book and listen to the dreams that grew in the night.

What did I think of Princeton? Well, the answer to that question requires a story. When I first arrived, I looked around me at the Gothic buildings — younger, I later learned, than many of the mosques of this city, but made through acid treatment and ingenious stone-masonry to look older...

Rumi tells of Solomon's practice of building each dawn a place made of intention and compassion and sohbet (mystical conversation). He calls it the "far mosque." Solomon goes there to listen to the plants, the new ones that come up each morning. They tell him of their medicinal qualities, their potential for health, and also the dangers of poisoning.

Some might argue that the reality of Nordic autonomy is that you are free ... to be Nordic. If you are a Muslim who is looking to build a mosque, or an American who wants to drive a large car, espouse your deeply held Creationist beliefs, and go shopping with your platinum card on Sunday, or even if you are English and choose to conduct yourself according to archaic forms of baroque politeness, you are likely to experience varying degrees of oppression and exclusion should you come to live in this part of the world. This is true.

The way to love the world is to know the world! But cities are not the world; churches and mosques are not the world; skyscrapers, airports are not the world! The tree is the world, the birds are the world, the blowing wind is the world, and the waves are the world! If you want to love the world, see the real world, that is, the world which we did not build, the world that was here long before us!

They let the enemy build mosques in our midst, let them rob our old folk and mingle blood with our women. It is no more than our duty as Norwegians to protect our race and to eliminate those who fail us.

In dealing with Islamic countries, insist on reciprocation or no deal. If they want to build a mosque or Islamic school in our country, we should be able to build a church and a Christian school in theirs

We are of the earth very earthy, and we are not satisfied with contemplating the Invisible God. Somehow or other we want something which we can touch, something which we can see, something before which we can kneel down. It does not matter whether it is a book, or an empty stone building, or a stone building inhabited by numerous figures. A book will satisfy some, an empty building will satisfy some others, and many others will not be satisfied unless they see something inhabiting these empty buildings.

Frederick claimed to be tired of looking into blue eyes and encouraged not only French, German and Polish immigrants but Greeks and other Mediterraneans to come; he had an immigration office set up in Venice and considered building a mosque in Berlin to attract Turks.

Of all people, we Christians should be building friendships and protecting the dignity of human beings, even those of other faiths. I loved seeing Christians in Iraq stand guard as peacekeepers outside the mosques while Muslims gathered for prayer, and Muslims doing the same for Christians.

It’s one thing building a cloister to reflect the 768 of the numerological Bismillah, it’s another planning a giant alphabet out of an entire city before you’ve even built your first mosque.’ ‘It is, but remember, Sinan was chief architect and city planner at the time of the conquest of Cairo. He practised on that city; demolishing and building where he liked. I have no doubt that he was already forming the idea of a sacred geometry. His first building as Architect of the Abode of Felicity was the Haseki Hürrem Mosque for the Kadin Roxelana. Not his greatest work by any means, and he was working from existing designs, but it was identifiable as his first mature work. There’s a story in his autobiography Tezkiretül Bünyan that while he was surveying the site he noticed that children were pulling live fish from a grating in the street. When he went to investigate he discovered an entire Roman cistern down there. Perhaps it was this that inspired him to realize his vision. Hidden water. The never-ceasing stream of Hurufism.

The illusion of being superior engenders the need to prove it; and so oppression is born. A bishop in Africa told me that, even though there were few Christians in the area, he had built his cathedral bigger than the local mosque. All this to prove that Christianity was a better, more powerful religion than Islam. So we build walls around our group and cultivate our certitudes. Prejudice grows on such walls. How did we, the human race, get to this position where we judge it natural not just to band ourselves into groups, but to set ourselves group against group, neighbour against neighbour, in order to establish some ephemeral sense of superiority? One of the fundamental issues for people to examine is how to break down these walls that separate us one from another; how to open up one to another; how to create trust and places of dialogue.

Cemetery of al-Baqi in Medina, they utterly destroyed the tombs of the Imams Hasan, Ali ibn Husayn, Muhammed ibn Ali, and Jafar, as well as the tomb of Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad.  In Mecca, they destroyed the Cemetery of Mualla, where the ancestors of Muhammad and his first wife Khadija were buried.  These prominent destructions were part of a pattern of violence that witnessed the Wahhabi Saudis smash buildings, tombs and mosques associated with the history of the Prophet and his family and which were venerated by Shia.

Every king had tried to put his imprint on the city and the mosque; some were worse than others. King Faisal had been a parsimonious man and the expansion works reflected as much—measured and reasonable, nothing too ostentatious. The current ruler, King Fahd, was a spender who disliked all that was old. He loved glitz and gold. More ancient neighborhoods were being torn down, and Mecca’s classical Islamic architecture was vanishing rapidly. Ugly modern buildings were rising, and more chain hotels were being built to accommodate yet more pilgrims.

As the Christians gradually gained the upper hand, they marked their victories not only by destroying mosques and building churches, but also by issuing new gold and silver coins bearing the sign of the cross and thanking God for His help in combating the infidels. Yet alongside the new currency, the victors minted another type of coin, called the millares, which carried a somewhat different message. These square coins made by the Christian conquerors were emblazoned with flowing Arabic script that declared: ‘There is no god except Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s messenger.

In the Afro-Asian world from which the Spaniards came, the obsession for gold was indeed an epidemic. Even the bitterest of enemies lusted after the same useless yellow metal. Three centuries before the conquest of Mexico, the ancestors of Cortés and his army waged a bloody war of religion against the Muslim kingdoms in Iberia and North Africa. The followers of Christ and the followers of Allah killed each other by the thousands, devastated fields and orchards, and turned prosperous cities into smouldering ruins – all for the greater glory of Christ or Allah. As the Christians gradually gained the upper hand, they marked their victories not only by destroying mosques and building churches,but also by issuing new gold and silver coins bearing the sign of the cross and thanking God for His help in combating the infidels. Yet alongside the new currency, the victors minted another type of coin, called the millares, which carried a somewhat different message. These square coins made by the Christian conquerors were emblazoned with flowing Arabic script that declared: ‘There is no god except Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s messenger.’ Even the Catholic bishops of Melgueil and Agde issued these faithful copies of popular Muslim coins, and God-fearing Christians happily used them.2

Rather, the issue is whether it is right to have a mosque and Islamic center in virtually the exact spot where so many Americans were killed in the name of Islamic holy war. I don’t think it is right, any more than I would support the idea of a neo-Nazi recruiting center at Auschwitz. My sympathies in this case are not with religiously deprived Muslims, but rather with Debra Burlingame, a spokesperson for a 9/11 victims group. “Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago,” she said.5 Some supporters of the mosque, such as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, clearly missed the distinction being made here between the right to worship and how and where that right is exercised. Fareed Zakaria, writer and CNN host, recognizes the distinction; even so, he argues in favor of the mosque on the grounds that the folks building it are traditional Muslims who have condemned terrorism.6 Still, it’s not clear why these moderate Muslims disregarded the sentiments of the 9/11 victims’ families and decided on a site so close to Ground Zero. Undoubtedly radical Muslims around the world will view the mosque as a kind of triumphal monument. There is historical precedent for this. Muslims have a long tradition of building monuments to commemorate triumphs over adversaries, as when they built the Dome of the Rock on the site of Solomon’s Temple, or when Mehmet the Conqueror rode his horse into the Byzantine church Hagia Sophia and declared that it would be turned into a mosque. Many Americans may not know this history, but the radical Muslims do, and Obama does as well. The radical Muslims would like the Ground Zero mosque built so it can stand as an enduring symbol of resistance to American power, and President Obama evidently agrees with them.

I am speaking of the evenings when the sun sets early, of the fathers under the streetlamps in the back streets returning home carrying plastic bags. Of the old Bosphorus ferries moored to deserted stations in the middle of winter, where sleepy sailors scrub the decks, pail in hand and one eye on the black-and-white television in the distance; of the old booksellers who lurch from one ϧnancial crisis to the next and then wait shivering all day for a customer to appear; of the barbers who complain that men don’t shave as much after an economic crisis; of the children who play ball between the cars on cobblestoned streets; of the covered women who stand at remote bus stops clutching plastic shopping bags and speak to no one as they wait for the bus that never arrives; of the empty boathouses of the old Bosphorus villas; of the teahouses packed to the rafters with unemployed men; of the patient pimps striding up and down the city’s greatest square on summer evenings in search of one last drunken tourist; of the broken seesaws in empty parks; of ship horns booming through the fog; of the wooden buildings whose every board creaked even when they were pashas’ mansions, all the more now that they have become municipal headquarters; of the women peeking through their curtains as they wait for husbands who never manage to come home in the evening; of the old men selling thin religious treatises, prayer beads, and pilgrimage oils in the courtyards of mosques; of the tens of thousands of identical apartment house entrances, their facades discolored by dirt, rust, soot, and dust; of the crowds rushing to catch ferries on winter evenings; of the city walls, ruins since the end of the Byzantine Empire; of the markets that empty in the evenings; of the dervish lodges, the tekkes, that have crumbled; of the seagulls perched on rusty barges caked with moss and mussels, unϩinching under the pelting rain; of the tiny ribbons of smoke rising from the single chimney of a hundred-yearold mansion on the coldest day of the year; of the crowds of men ϧshing from the sides of the Galata Bridge; of the cold reading rooms of libraries; of the street photographers; of the smell of exhaled breath in the movie theaters, once glittering aϱairs with gilded ceilings, now porn cinemas frequented by shamefaced men; of the avenues where you never see a woman alone after sunset; of the crowds gathering around the doors of the state-controlled brothels on one of those hot blustery days when the wind is coming from the south; of the young girls who queue at the doors of establishments selling cut-rate meat; of the holy messages spelled out in lights between the minarets of mosques on holidays that are missing letters where the bulbs have burned out; of the walls covered with frayed and blackened posters; of the tired old dolmuşes, ϧfties Chevrolets that would be museum pieces in any western city but serve here as shared taxis, huϫng and puϫng up the city’s narrow alleys and dirty thoroughfares; of the buses packed with passengers; of the mosques whose lead plates and rain gutters are forever being stolen; of the city cemeteries, which seem like gateways to a second world, and of their cypress trees; of the dim lights that you see of an evening on the boats crossing from Kadıköy to Karaköy; of the little children in the streets who try to sell the same packet of tissues to every passerby; of the clock towers no one ever notices; of the history books in which children read about the victories of the Ottoman Empire and of the beatings these same children receive at home; of the days when everyone has to stay home so the electoral roll can be compiled or the census can be taken; of the days when a sudden curfew is announced to facilitate the search for terrorists and everyone sits at home fearfully awaiting “the oϫcials”; CONTINUED IN SECOND PART OF THE QUOTE

Agadez has only a handful of multi-storey buildings. The main ones are the mosque and, next door to it, the palace of the Sultan of Aïr, who still retains a role in the local judicial system. But the houses overlooked by this pair are mostly single-storey courtyards, each enclosed by a windowless wall. These are the compounds, and perhaps fifty of them are used by smugglers – though no one knows the exact total. And that’s the point: they’re the perfect places to hide a hundred migrants until they head north to Libya. Once inside, the haggling starts. The going rate between Agadez and Libya is thought to be about 150,000 West African francs (CFA), or £166. But one traveller said he paid as much as €500 (£363), while Cisse claims he charges each of his thirty passengers as little as 50,000 CFA (£55). With such big numbers, it is no surprise that the business continues in full force despite a recent ban.

Unlike the modern church or mosque where participants in the religious ceremony congregate inside the building, in Roman religious observances the rituals generally took place outside in the precinct around the large sacrificial altar.

At the height of the 2015 crisis the single offer the Saudis did make was to build 200 new mosques in Germany for the benefit of the country’s new arrivals.

The Jamaat saw its opportunity in working with the new state’s elite, gradually expanding the Islamic agenda while providing the theological rationale for the elite’s plans for nation building on the basis of religion.

In any case, Jinnah died within a year of independence, leaving his successors divided, or confused, about whether to take their cue from his independence eve call to keep religion out of politics or to build on the religious sentiment generated during the political bargaining for Pakistan.

The traditional ulema and Islamists used the environment of jihad to advance their own agenda, and one agenda item was that they should be accepted as custodians of Pakistan’s ideology and identity. After the war, several state-sponsored publications were devoted to building the case that one Muslim soldier had the fighting prowess to subdue five Hindus.

There is only one reason people have children: they're programmed to. Whatever reasons they may have for it - selflessness, wanting to pass something on, having so much love to give - I don't believe they choose children any more than naked mole rats decide to start tunneling. Human beings are basically big complicated Rube Goldberg contraptions constructed by genes to copy themselves, and only as an unintended side effect build mosques, make screwball comedies, and launch interplanetary probes.

Our apartment was at the top of a tall building opposite Teşvikiye Mosque, and our bedroom windows looked out on many other families’ bedrooms that resembled ours; since childhood I had found strange comfort in going to my dark bedroom to look into other people’s apartments.

All religions are equal and good, if only the people that practice them are honest people; and if Turks and heathens came and wanted to live here in this country, we would build them mosques and churches. Frederick II, king of Prussia, 1740

Cobblestones and an El Torito. Thousand-year-old buildings and a McDonald’s in the distance. They were caught between the ancient mosque and the Starbucks, in a chaotic confusion of time

. Our platoon, along with third and fourth, launched out of the Combat Outpost on foot, with two Humvees mounting medium machine guns in support. After fighting our way west through the city for an hour or so, Joker One received orders to hit a building “just north of the Saddam mosque minaret, at the very middle of the city.” Immediately, the Ox’s voice crackled over the radio. “Roger, Bastard Five, will do. Be advised, what’s a minaret? Over.” A long silence followed, then the radio barked back: “Joker Five, the minaret is the large tower that every single mosque in the city has next to it. Looks like a big dick. Over.

He creates mosques and forts that aren't buildings, but tapestries of rock.

Though demonized by his Jewish and British enemies, Hajj Amin al-Husayni in fact cooperated well enough with the mandate administration. Only gradually did he use his religious authority to achieve a position of significant political influence contrary to British interests. It was a potent mix. The key event in this transformation was the so-called ‘Western Wall riots’ in 1929. The Western Wall was the only revealed section of what remained from the massive retaining wall built by Herod. This wall allowed Herod to enlarge the platform on which the Second Temple stood before being destroyed in 70 CE. Given this association, the wall became Judaism’s most important place of pilgrimage and prayer. The wall also was part of a Muslim religious trust (waqf): Muslim attachment to the wall and to the al-Haram al-Sharif (or ‘Noble Sanctuary’, as the Temple Mount is known in Arabic) is due to their association with the story of Muhammad’s night journey to heaven. The wall is known to Muslims as al-Buraq, because Muhammad tethered his horse there, and the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque, built in the 7th century, are two of Islam’s most revered buildings.

that kept the caliph from the people. The hijab was the first step on the road to the despotism of the caliph. Muhammad was never like that, never. He made the first mosque an assembly of friends. Everyone had access to him, and everyone spoke their minds. It could have stayed like that, and the mosque become the place of … of a different way. With women and men both speaking. This was what Muhammad began, and who are we to change it? Why follow the ways of those who build barriers, who turned into despots?

In Iowa, the American Future Fund began airing an ad created by Larry McCarthy that Geoff Garin, the Democratic pollster, described as perhaps “the most egregious of the year.” The ad accused the then congressman Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat and a lawyer, of supporting a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, which it misleadingly called a “mosque at Ground Zero.” As footage of the destroyed World Trade Center rolled, a narrator said, “For centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories.” Now it said a mosque celebrating 9/11 was to be built on the very spot “where Islamic terrorists killed three thousand Americans”; it was, the narrator suggested, as if the Japanese were to build a triumphal monument at Pearl Harbor. The ad then accused Braley of supporting the mosque. In fact, Braley had taken no position on the issue. No surprise for a congressman from Iowa. But an unidentified video cameraman had ambushed him at the Iowa State Fair and asked him about it. Braley replied that he regarded the matter as a local zoning issue for New Yorkers to decide. Soon afterward, he says, the attack ad “dropped on me like the house in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ” Braley, who won his seat by a margin of 30 percent in 2008, barely held on in 2010. The American Future Fund’s effort against Braley was the most expensive campaign that year by an independent group.

In Iowa, the American Future Fund began airing an ad created by Larry McCarthy that Geoff Garin, the Democratic pollster, described as perhaps “the most egregious of the year.” The ad accused the then congressman Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat and a lawyer, of supporting a proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, which it misleadingly called a “mosque at Ground Zero.” As footage of the destroyed World Trade Center rolled, a narrator said, “For centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories.” Now it said a mosque celebrating 9/11 was to be built on the very spot “where Islamic terrorists killed three thousand Americans”; it was, the narrator suggested, as if the Japanese were to build a triumphal monument at Pearl Harbor. The ad then accused Braley of supporting the mosque. In fact, Braley had taken no position on the issue. No surprise for a congressman from Iowa. But an unidentified video cameraman had ambushed him at the Iowa State Fair and asked him about it. Braley replied that he regarded the matter as a local zoning issue for New Yorkers to decide. Soon afterward, he says, the attack ad “dropped on me like the house in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ” Braley, who won his seat by a margin of 30 percent in 2008, barely held on in 2010. The American Future Fund’s effort against Braley was the most expensive campaign that year by an independent group. After the election, Braley accused McCarthy, the ad maker, of “profiting from Citizens United in the lowest way.” As for those who hired McCarthy, he said, they “are laughing all the way to the bank. It’s a good investment for them…They’re the winners. The losers are the American people, and the truth.

this saying appears in an inscription from a mosque at Fatehpur Sikri, India: “Jesus said, ‘This world is a bridge. Pass over it, but do not build your dwelling there.

Cedar Capital Group Tokyo: Construction Site Health & Safety Review Accidents on construction sites are becoming a much more regular occurrence around the globe and can have devastating affects on families, communities and regions. Just recently we witnessed the destruction and heartbreak caused when the crawler crane toppled over onto the Masjid al-Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on 11 September 2015, which killed 118 people and injured a further 394. The majority of accidents on construction sites can be avoided if health and safety requirements are followed. An experienced health & safety advisor can assist you in identifying loss control techniques which in turn minimizes the risk to members of the public, your property and your employees. One of the most frequently occurring accidents construction sites is fire. Ignoring safety policies and procedures can have a disastrous effect and are a common cause of injury on a construction site. Fire extinguishers should be available and close by and you should appoint an employee to be on fire watch. The weather can be a source of accidents on construction sites. Sites become more susceptible as severe weather patterns continue to grow across the globe. In Asia, typhoons have become more frequent, we have seen buildings collapse during high category storms. These types of accidents can be avoided by appointing someone with the responsibility of monitoring the weather to make sure that the construction site is correctly braced before the typhoon arrives. The lack of site is another key factor that causes accidents. Construction sites are like playgrounds for inquisitive children looking for something to do so it’s imperative that you have secured the site with adequate fencing. Posting visible safety signs around the construction site in order to remind and protect the employees, visitors and members of the genera public. Always post safety signs at the entrance and ensure that all visitors wear the correct personal protective equipmentwhich includes a hard hat and safety boots. Cedar Capital Group are a Singapore based, capital equipment, company that leases construction equipment throughout Asia with core markets in Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan.

Millions of Muslims humiliated and subjected to dishonor by the Zionist occupation appeal to you to restore for them their ruined self-respect. Youth of Islam, the Zionists get drunk and commit fornication with whores in the forecourt of your Aqsa Mosque!

As Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche puts it, you can tell what the most important building is within a society by which is the tallest. Within ancient Europe, cathedrals often reached the most soaring heights, as did mosques in the ancient Middle East. Now, in our Western metropolises, we all bow before cathedrals of financial commerce. Our sacred values are implied by our ritualistic choices, whether we agree to them or not. We

The majority of the Great Pyramid of Giza’s limestone casing stones are removed by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan to build fortresses and mosques in Cairo. 1358 

When the great sixteenth-century Ottoman architect Sinan would start building a new mosque, he would make sure both the design and the project were in harmony with the city's history and the city's spirit [Jehane Noujaim, "Tahrir Square, Cairo: Lost and Found in the Square"].

Your response needs to be proportional to the attack,” Nodine said. “That means you use the minimum amount of force to remove the threat and continue the mission. Let me give you an example. You may come under fire from a building. If you can kill the guy with an M-16 or an M-240, do that. But don’t call in an airstrike—take him out yourself. If you need a grenade launcher or a machine gun to do it, that’s okay, as long as you don’t cause unnecessary collateral damage. A TOW missile might be a later resort. Just remove the threat and continue the attack.” He glanced down at the paper. An enlisted man was handing out yellow note cards to the marines in the audience. “You’re all going to get one of these,” he said. “There are some circumstances under which you will need specific permission to fire,” Nodine told the marines. “If you are taking fire from mosques and minarets, you’re going to need permission from your C.O. before you can engage. The one exception for that is if the loudspeakers are being used to call men to battle. In that case, you’re free to engage. Take out the loudspeaker. “Okay, hostile intent,” Nodine said. “You can fire if you determine there is hostile intent. What’s hostile intent? Let me go through some of the situations. “If you see a guy carrying a gun,” Nodine said, “that’s hostile intent. It’s assumed. You are free to shoot. “If the guy drops his weapon and runs, you can engage him,” Nodine said. “But if he drops the weapon and puts his hands up and indicates that he’s surrendering, you cannot engage. You have to detain him.” He glanced down again at his card. Some of the men had begun looking at theirs. “If you see a guy on a cell phone—and he’s talking on the phone and looking around like he’s a spotter,” he said, “that would be hostile intent. Use your judgment, but you can shoot. “Okay,” Nodine said, looking up, “if a guy comes out of a building with a white flag, obviously you can’t shoot him. Unless he starts to run back and forth with the white flag,” Nodine said. “We’ve had a lot of insurgents try to use white flags to maneuver. If he tries to use the flag to maneuver, that’s hostile intent. You can shoot.” He glanced down at his note card again. “Okay,

Picture her then: Daphne Manners, a big girl (to borrow a none too definite image from Lady Chatterjee) leaning on the balcony outside her bedroom window, gazing with concentration (as one might gaze for two people, one being absent, once deprived, since dead, and now regretted) at a landscape calculated to inspire in the most sympathetic western heart a degree of cultural shock. There is (even from this vantage point above a garden whose blooms will pleasurably convey scent if you bend close enough to them) a pervading redolence, wafting in from the silent, heat-stricken trembling plains; from the vast panorama of fields, from the river, from the complex of human dwellings (with here and there, spiky or bulbous, a church, a mosque, a temple), from the streets and lanes and the sequestered white bungalows, the private houses, the public buildings, the station, from the rear quarters of the MacGregor House.

This book is really about the making of a great leader. In my own research and writings over many decades, I have concluded the following about leadership: You can neither manufacture nor can you buy leadership. You must earn it. Great leaders are great doers. They have a knack of organizing and inspiring the followers. Sometimes, they even generate cult-like loyalty. When the followers are ready, the leaders show up. Therefore, in times of crisis, uncertainty and chronic dissatisfaction, unexpected people become leaders. This was the case with Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. In short, ordinary people become extraordinary leaders. Great leaders are driven by purpose and passion. They derive boundless energy from their purpose and passion. To them, leadership is all about people. Management is all about grit and determination. Great leaders not only promise the future but deliver it. Great leaders are great architects. Like good architects, they imagine building something unique, enduring, and inspiring. Examples include the Pyramids, the ancient temples, churches and mosques; more recently, the Opera House in Sydney; the Olympic Stadium (Bird’s Nest) in Beijing; and Putrajaya, the new capital of Malaysia. There are three universal qualities of all great leaders: passion, caring, and capability. This is also true of great teachers.

Another celebrated building that we saw inside the Fort was the Diwan-i-Khas. Here can be seen in Persian characters the famous inscription, “If a paradise be on the face of the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.” At the time of the Delhi Durbar in 1903 to celebrate the proclamation of Edward VII as Emperor of India, this exquisite building was used as a supper room. “This is the Chandni Chauk [Silver Street],” said our driver as we passed along Delhi’s main street. “It is the richest street in the world.” “Used to be,” corrected Sam. “It was sacked at least four times and most of its riches carried away.” Nowadays it is the abode of the jewelers and ivory workers of Delhi. Ten miles south of Delhi, amid the ruins of another ancient Delhi, stands the Kutb Minar, which is said to be the most perfect tower in the world and one of the seven architectural wonders of India. Built of marble and sandstone which is dark red at the base, pink in the middle, and orange on the top story, this remarkable structure, 238 feet high, looks almost brand new, yet it was built in A.D. 1200. Close by is another Indian wonder, the Iron Pillar, dating from A.D. 400. A remarkable tribute to Hindu knowledge of metallurgy and engineering, this pillar, some sixteen inches in diameter and twenty-three feet eight inches in height, is made of pure rustless malleable iron and is estimated to weigh more than six tons. Overlooking both the Fort and the city, and approached by a magnificent flight of stone steps, is the Great Mosque, also erected by Emperor Shah Jehan. It has three domes of white marble, two tall minarets, and a front court measuring 450 feet square, paved with granite and inlaid with marble. “Sight-seeing in Delhi is as tiring as doing the Mediterranean,” I

The building is rather like a medieval Castle and was established in the Sixth Century and soon afterwards, as the Moslem armies advanced Westwards from the Arabian Peninsula, somebody had the prescience to build a small Mosque in its courtyard to guard against it being burned or demolished. At the time of the Crusades it was the turn of the Monastery to protect the Mosque, and so it has been down the ages, each House of God extending its shelter to the other as opposing armies came and went.

Hamas hides its rockets and bombs in schools and mosques, builds tunnels under United Nations facilities, and often surrounds its fighters with children and other civilians, using them as human shields. It hopes that Israel will either refrain from firing on known terrorists or that, if Israel does fire, enough children will die for the world to express outrage against Israel. In other words, this organization launches rockets hoping to kill children, and when Israel responds, it does all it can to make sure that only Palestinian children die.

Alas! as I turned around, I perceived towering above me the last red columns of the old palace of Saladin. Upon the remains of that glorious example of boldness and grace in architecture, with the delicate slightness of a building raised by genii, there had recently been set up a square building, all marble and alabaster, without a trace of elegance or character, which looked like a corn market, though it was destined to be a mosque. It will, in fact, be as much a mosque as the Madeleine is a church: modern architects always take care to provide God with a habitation which can be made to serve some other purpose when people cease to believe in him.

When he demanded gold, the Indians brought him copper, and when he demanded silver, they brought him silvery mica, which they mined in the North Carolina mountains, in sheets up to three feet wide and three feet long. De Soto found little precious metal, but an abundance of pearls, especially in the mortuary temples. In one town alone his expedition found 25,000 pounds of pearls. The mortuary temples of the people of Cutifachiqui astounded the Spaniards, who had already seen the cathedrals of Spain, the mosques and fountains of the Arabs, the palace of Montezuma in Mexico, and the gold ransom of Atahualpa in Peru. Outside the massive doors into the temple that housed the pearls, twelve wooden giants stood guard. The huge figures held over their heads massive clubs covered with strips of copper and studded with what appeared to the Spaniards to be diamonds, but may have been mica chips. The Indians had decorated the roof of one temple with pearls and feathers so that it looked to the Spaniards like a building from a fairy tale. Along the sides of the roof, pearls had been suspended from threads so thin that the pearls seemed to be floating in the air around the temple. Inside the temples the Spaniards saw rows of chests, each filled with pearls of uniform size. The Spaniards could not carry all the pearls, but they selected out the best ones for themselves. Ironically, even though De Soto’s expedition was the first into the area, his men also found in the temple some European trade goods—glass, cheap beads, and a rosary—indicating

The traveler wishing to observe Islamic Spain has his choice of two cities, Granada with its Alhambra or Córdoba with its Great Mosque (in Spanish Mezquita). Of the two former is be a considerable degree the more exciting and also the easier to absorb for its buildings, gardens and geographic settings are immediately recognizable as significant. It would take a dull man to miss the point of Granada, for its Alhambra is a museum of Islamic memories.

Grateful for their generosity, Muhammad orders the land to be leveled, the graves dug up, and the palm trees cut down for timber to build a modest home. He envisions a courtyard roofed in palm leaves, with living quarters made of wood and mud lining the walls. But this will be more than a home. This converted drying-ground and cemetery will serve as the first masjid, or mosque, of a new kind of community, one so revolutionary that many years later, when Muslim scholars seek to establish a distinctly Islamic calendar, they will begin not with the birth of the Prophet, nor with the onset of Revelation, but with the year Muhammad and his band of Emigrants came to this small federation of villages to start a new society. That year, 622 C.E., will forever be known as Year 1 A.H. (After Hijra); and the oasis that for centuries had been called Yathrib will henceforth be celebrated as Medinat an-Nabi: “The City of the Prophet,” or more simply, Medina. There

Nothing can exceed in beauty and in vision-inducing power the mosaics of gardens and buildings in the great Omayyad mosque at Damascus.

The window glass was cold as Jude touched his nose to its surface. He looked north over the centre of Tirana and drank in the thrill of the panorama. From a restaurant in the Sky Tower he could see down over the lush, green square of land criss-crossed with paths that was Rinia Park. He had arranged to meet Edona there at 3pm. To his left the apartment blocks clustered densely away to the horizon in colours of mustard, olive and denim blue. Ahead he could make out the rouge and yellow government ministry buildings on the edge of Skanderbeu Square, and the white needle of the Et’hem Bey Mosque. His eyes turned to the east past the black glass panelled Twin Towers and concrete Pyramid to the traffic flowing up the Gjergj Fishta Boulevard, where the harsh mid-day sunlight was glinting off car roofs and windscreens. Beyond that, through a haze of heat and light smog, Mount Dajti rose up to the blue, utterly cloudless sky. (From 'The Silencer').

The window glass was cold as Jude touched his nose to its surface. He looked north over the centre of Tirana and drank in the thrill of the panorama. From a restaurant in the Sky Tower he could see down over the lush, green square of land criss-crossed with paths that was Rinia Park. He had arranged to meet Edona there at 3pm. To his left the apartment blocks clustered densely away to the horizon in colours of mustard, olive and denim blue. Ahead he could make out the rouge and yellow government ministry buildings on the edge of Skanderbeu Square, and the white needle of the Et’hem Bey Mosque. His eyes turned to the east past the black glass panelled Twin Towers and concrete Pyramid to the traffic flowing up the Gjergj Fishta Boulevard, where the harsh mid-day sunlight was glinting off car roofs and windscreens. Beyond that, through a haze of heat and light smog, Mount Dajti rose up to the blue, utterly cloudless sky.

Stepping into the world of finitude, by actually building the mosque, would mean confronting all that he couldn’t do.

government buildings of various kinds. But other targets could very well include religious centers, such as mosques, madrassas, Islamic schools and universities, and other facilities where hatred against Jews and Christians is preached and where calls for the destruction of Israel are sounded. We don’t know for certain because the text does not say. So we need to be very careful not to overreach in our interpretation. But I think however it plays out, it’s fair to say we would have to expect extensive material damage during these supernatural attacks, and it’s possible—not definite, but very possible—that many civilians will be at severe risk.” Ali and Ibrahim were taking notes as fast as they could. But Birjandi was not finished. “Now, look at Ezekiel 39:12,” he continued. “It tells us that the devastation will be so immense that it will take seven full months for Israel to bury all the bodies of the enemies in her midst, to say nothing of the dead and wounded back in the coalition countries. What’s worse, verses 17 and 18 indicate that the process of burial would actually take much longer except that scores of bodies will be devoured by carnivorous birds and beasts that will be drawn to the carnage like moths to a flame. This is going to be a horrible, gruesome time. But this is what is coming. A terrible judgment is coming against Russia, against Iran, and against our allies. And perhaps what is most sobering of all is that some of Ezekiel’s prophecies have already come true.

The church or mosque, as buildings, are just symbols or beliefs that you carry deep in your heart.

Al-Wahhab allied with Muhammed bin Saud, the founder of the state of Saudi Arabia, and provided religious and ideological backing to the newly formed state.  The Wahhabi Saudi troops took advantage of the chaos of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I to seize control over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. It’s probably safe to say that the Shia will never forgive the Wahhabis for the zealotry they pursued upon taking the cities, which included obliterating centuries-old sacred Shia shrines and claiming that they were used to worship the Imams as gods and were therefore heretical.  In the Cemetery of al-Baqi in Medina, they utterly destroyed the tombs of the Imams Hasan, Ali ibn Husayn, Muhammed ibn Ali, and Jafar, as well as the tomb of Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad.  In Mecca, they destroyed the Cemetery of Mualla, where the ancestors of Muhammad and his first wife Khadija were buried.  These prominent destructions were part of a pattern of violence that witnessed the Wahhabi Saudis smash buildings, tombs and mosques associated with the history of the Prophet and his family and which were venerated by Shia.  In addition, they alienated Shia from governance and oppressed them throughout the kingdom[26].  This vandalism has been repeated time and time again by Wahhabis in other areas as well, including the much-publicized destruction of the Buddha statues of the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2001[27] and the outbreak of violence in 2013 around the city of Timbuktu, where Wahhabi fundamentalists  destroyed holy artifacts and burned a priceless library of manuscripts before fleeing the arrival of French troops[28]. While the establishment of the Wahhabi school of thought created an intellectual form of anti-Shia ideology, it is probable that this philosophy would have remained isolated in the political backwater of the Nejd Sultanate (the core of modern Saudi Arabia) if not for the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the final abolition of the Caliphate. The Ottomans had claimed to be Caliphs of the Muslim world since 1453, the same year that they conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) from the Byzantine Empire, and they ruled over a considerable portion of the world's Sunnis, as well as the shrine cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.  After 1876, the Sultans had placed particular emphasis on their role as Caliphs in order to bolster their global position by asserting their Empire's "Muslim” character, and while this was never universally accepted by all Sunnis or Shias, Sunni Muslims everywhere at least could say that there was a government that claimed to represent the form of rule established by the Prophet and that provided legitimacy and continuity.

Muslims have access to build mosques in the West, yet give us no access to build churches or synagogues in the Muslim world. They finance Muslim studies and Middle East studies departments in American universities but do not allow Christian or Judaism Studies departments in any Muslim country. They freely preach Islam around the world but kidnap and kill Christian preachers on their own soil. Christian missionary work is illegal in most Muslim countries.

The window glass was cold as Jude touched his nose to its surface. He looked north over the centre of Tirana and drank in the thrill of the panorama. From a restaurant in the Sky Tower he could see down over the lush, green square of land criss-crossed with paths that was Rinia Park. He had arranged to meet Edona there at 3pm. To his left the apartment blocks clustered densely away to the horizon in colours of mustard, olive and denim blue. Ahead he could make out the rouge and yellow government ministry buildings on the edge of Skanderbeu Square, and the white needle of the Et’hem Bey Mosque. His eyes turned to the east past the black glass panelled Twin Towers and concrete Pyramid to the traffic flowing up the Gjergj Fishta Boulevard, where the harsh mid-day sunlight was glinting off car roofs and windscreens. Beyond that, through a haze of heat and light smog, Mount Dajti rose up to the blue, utterly cloudless sky. (From 'The Silencer').

They reached an exit off the highway, Amir’s favorite spot in the city. The exit curves on top of a bridge and as you look behind in the side mirror, you see the future: the pristine Downtown Dubai skyline overshadowing the cranes that are racing to the sky. And right in the middle of this immaculate horizon stands the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. But as the car turns and moves, when you look ahead and in front of you, you see two mosques, each with a pair of minarets in perfect juxtaposition, a sacred geometric omen towering the roofs of the villas scattered all around. To Amir, he sees the past in front and the future behind when a car takes this turn. Now there’s a paradox.

It's not like I'm hiding that I'm gay from this friend, it's not that I don't want to tell her. It's just that the more l've grown into my queerness, the less I want to come out to straight people. It's been a few years since my early experiences coming out, two years since I came out to Billy's mom, and a few months since I came out to my friends from the mosque. But every telling still feels like a momentous act of vulnerability, a venture into the unknown. How will the person react? What if they're homophobic? What if they're Islamophobic? Will they be supportive? I've learned to reframe telling people as inviting in, instead of coming out-inviting into a place of trust, a space for building-and it feels like a waste of emotional energy to tell straight people whom I don't expect to understand my queerness, don't intend to count on for advice or support in this area. But what I've been noticing about people I haven't invited into my queerness is that it introduces a barrier between us. What do I talk to these people about? How do I share feelings and intimacies without revealing this huge part of myself? Who am I without this queerness that now pervades my life, my politics, my everything?

That means that however funds are raised for community projects, the highest amount goes to educational facilities and teachers. The curriculum would be based on learning what it means to be a human being, or rather, a spiritual being living in a human body/world. Courses taught would include how to develop creativity, what it means to clear the psychological and emotional self, how to be in relationship with others, what steps must be taken to ensure basic needs are met for all souls in physical embodiment, the study of different soul paths for the purpose of understanding the viewpoints and perceptions of each group, etc. Second, resources would be devoted to scientific research and application. Specifically, funding would be allocated for alternative energy projects, agricultural advances, transportation systems, cleanup of the environment, and exploration of the cosmos. Third, emphasis would be placed on cultural advancement, including creative architecture, community gardens, cooperative building and re-building projects, implementation of new economic paradigms including enlightened currencies, and providing of the latest technological systems in every household that desires them (but not necessarily with emphasis on the latest gadgets for hours of mind-numbing entertainment). The priority here is to enable more efficient communication and awareness of world events for all souls. Also, it is important to be sure and include entertainment and down time. Fourth, opportunities would be provided to help individuals express their spiritual freedom. Encouragement and support will be given for souls to build churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, monasteries, healing retreat centers, therapy and holistic bodywork facilities, and more. The truth may be within, but it is helpful to have an outer environment that reflects the inner truth.

[L]et the edifices of religions crumble, let a blind fire consume all the bricks in temples, mosques, and gurudwaras and churches, and on those ruins let us grow enchanting gardens of sweet-smelling flowers and build schools and libraries. Let places of worship be used for the good of people and be turned into hospitals, orphanages, schools and universities. Our new places of worship should be academies of art and cultures, centres of creativity and institutes of scientific research. Let the rice fields with golden grain bathed by the early rays of the sun, the open fields and rivers, and the deep sea be our new places of prayer. Let humanity be the other name for religion.

Thus, this structure also has the power to pragmatically unite the community – not only in its role as a space for congregation, but also in its almost human need to be cared for and tended to. Every year, the townspeople gather together and in an act of solidarity, pat and patch, reform and repair the mosque’s now cracked shell back upon its body. The annual spring plastering festival makes the congregational mosque much more than just a place of prayer. It helps to cement community life in the same way that the natural mortar keeps the bricks of these buildings together

the building of the Ismailia mosque, which was to become the Brotherhood’s first headquarters, was even funded by the Anglo-French Suez Canal Company.

The word adobe, Arabic in origin, has come to designate an organic building made of water, clay or mud, bound together with manure or a fibrous straw or sticks.

[M]osques and shrines carried very different political meanings than did royal temples in independent Hindu states, or temples patronised by Hindu officers serving in Indo-Muslim states. For Indo-Muslim rulers, building mosques was considered an act of royal piety, even a duty. But all the actors, rulers and ruled alike, seem to have recognised that the deity worshipped in mosques or shrines had no personal connection with a Muslim monarch. Nor were such monuments thought of as underpinning the authority of an Indo-Muslim king, or as projecting of sovereign authority over the particular territory in which they were situated.

Do You Realize? *** My question is to the World and States and Nations that, would you recognize, accept, and allow on the ground of freedom and human rights; If I set up a fake The United Nations If I organize a bogus The White House If I fabricate a fictitious 10 Downing Street If I establish a counterfeit, The Moscow Kremlin If I institute a false The European Union If I build up an illegitimate the Roman Catholic Church If I create such other phony institutions for deceiving and fooling all the genuine ones? Sure, your answer will be as it is impossible, such an answer carries authentic logic, but why then mostly entire Europe, the United States, and Canada stay silent on the matter of a fake Mirza Ghulam Ahmadi Qadiyani as Jesus and his followers who claim themselves as real Muslims and they build Mosques to falsify and deceive the real Muslims. Factually, they are neither Muslim nor Christian nor a sect of these two recognized religions; they are just a false religious gang for their evil practices and motives. The States and Nations of the world should ban that religious termite, and stop them from misuse of true Islam, and creating Mosques to fool the Muslims. The world should take action and decide regardless of the political privileges and needs for their power before the fake Jesus ride on the minds of the Christians since he is neither real Jesus of Christians nor Muslims

[M]osques in Mughal India, though religiously potent, were considered detached from both sovereign terrain and dynastic authority, and hence politically inactive. As such, their desecration would have no relevance to the business of disestablishing a regime that had patronised them. Not surprisingly, then, when Hindu rulers established their authority over the territories of defeated Muslim rulers, they did not as a rule desecrate mosques or shrines, as, for example, when Shivaji established a Maratha kingdom on the ashes of Bijapur's former dominions of Maharashtra, or when Vijayanagara annexed the former territories of the Bahmanis or their successors. In fact, the rajas of Vijayanagra, as is well known, built their own mosques, evidently to accommodate the sizeable number of Muslims employed in their armed forces. By contrast, monumental royal temple complexes of the early medieval period were considered politically active, in as much as the state-deities they housed were understood as expressing the shared sovereignty of king and deity over a particular dynastic realm. Therefore, when Indo-Muslim commanders or rulers looted the consecrated images of defeated opponents and carried them off to their own capitals as war trophies, they were in a sense conforming to customary rules of Indian politics. Similarly, when they destroyed a royal temple or converted it into a mosque, the ruling authorities were building on a political logic that, they knew, placed supreme political significance on such temples. That same significance, in turn, rendered temples just as deserving of peace-time protection as it rendered them vulnerable in times of conflict.

Muslim Mosques And Fake Jesus Created By Qadiyanis *** The visionary figures pay intention whatever issues come to the table; whereas, mindless people ignore those issues. However, the truth stays brightening. I exemplify the point of view and concerns as below, hoping the world realizes that. If whatever groups or gangs establish the false subjects with similar names as The United Nations Organization, The White House, and The Downing 10, The Kremlin, and such ones; indeed, such attempts show not only misleading and misguiding; these also describe the illegality and naked crime. It is the governmental level example; however, it can be non-governmental as well. In such situations, if that crime happens, what will be the action and reaction by the authorities and the judiciary? - Certainly, offenders will face transparent justice; otherwise, it means the world is blind, and justice is silent on that. After the above scenario, now I come to the point why I am writing that: As the Muslim world knows significantly about the fake prophet Mira Ghulam Ahmad Qadiyani as Jesus and his Ahmedi Movement, which executes and spreads its false and fake objects and subjects openly and secretly to mislead the world, especially Christians and Muslims. Mostly Muslim countries consider Qadiyanis, another term Ahmadis as non-Muslim according to their fake belief and prophet as Jesus Christ. In Western states and around the world where Qadiyanis pretend as the Muslim, and they build their payer places, naming Mosques of Muslims, which falls under the deception and violation of the Islamic concept. Consequently, most of the Westerns and simple Muslims, who have not knowledge about the fake prophet, become their victim since they keep naming their prayer places, as Mosques; thereupon, they wear the mask to pretend as real Muslim and join the real Muslim Mosques to become members, and later they occupy and claim of the Mosque as that belong to Qadiyanis. I do not feel problems and objections if Qadiyanis created a new religion; however, I have serious concerns that they misuse Islam and Muslim values and concept within the context of the Quran, the Holy Book of Allah. Indeed, they have the right to avail the human rights as others without distinctions, but they do not have the right to pretend, falsify and deceive, and even practice black magic to gain their awkward intentions and motives. Western states and Christian World should pay heed to this matter and stop Qadiyanis, who follow the fake Jesus Christ, to use their prayer place as Mosques for protection and respect of Islam. - Ehsan Sehgal

Today, and throughout history, Muslims are invoking established touchstones. Many are cleaving to their own traditions under the threat of homogenization and the attempt to create a ‘global Muslim identity’. Others are choosing architectural symbols, such as the dome and minaret, not only in solidarity with other Muslims, but because it is perceived as the ‘most Islamic’ option, even though these elements may not be indigenous to their own environments. Stories of the first Muslim settlers in Europe and the Americas are often associated with the building of the first mosque or other communal spaces. The ideas of ‘first spaces’ are also preserved in the memories of migrant communities. Whatever region in the world they may be in, whether it be rural Indonesia or urban Paris, congregations and communities continue to find ways to interpret what Islam means to them and to express those ideals in the forms of the structures they pray in.

late 630s ce, building in that city two of Islam’s holiest sites: the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. From this point forward, Jews became—as they would remain throughout the Middle Ages—a small minority subject to the rule

Hindus and Muslims are unlikely to resolve the issue of whether a temple or a mosque should be built at Ayodhya by building both, or neither, or a syncretic building that is both a mosque and a temple. Nor can what might seem to be a straightforward territorial question between Albanian Muslims and Orthodox Serbs concerning Kosovo or between Jews and Arabs concerning Jerusalem be easily settled, since each place has deep historical, cultural, and emotional meaning to both peoples. Similarly, neither French authorities nor Muslim parents are likely to accept a compromise which would allow schoolgirls to wear Muslim dress every other day during the school year. Cultural questions like these involve a yes or no, zero-sum choice.

In any war, bombing monuments of heritage and culture tells your enemy you are going for their identity - by destroying the very things that make them who they were. The Germans and the Brits did this to each other in World War II, the most famous example being the Baedeker Raids carried out by the Luftwaffe. Using the popular Baedeker's Guide to Great Britain, the Germans identified 'every building in Britain with three-stars', the top sites of British heritage and culture - and then bombed [...] them. This is why the Serbs went for the Gazi Husrevbeg Mosque. Attacks of this nature, labelled 'cultural genocide' by one Harvard observer, became a Serb hallmark during the war that devastated the country between April 1992 and December 1995.

Several of the early Turkic sultans were energetic iconoclasts and made a point of building their mosques from the rubble of destroyed temples, in some of which can still be seen the defaced sculptures of their Hindu and Jain predecessors.