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Mosque

Mosque - a place of worship for Muslims. Sunni law has strict and detailed requirements for places of worship to be regarded as mosques, and any place that fails to meet these requirements is regarded as musas. The use of the area officially designated as a mosque, usually a small part of a larger complex, is strictly restricted, and in sharia law, after it is officially designated as a mosque, the area remains until the day after.

Many mosques have exquisite domes, minarets and chapels with different architectural styles. Mosques originated in the Arabian Peninsula, but are now found on all inhabited continents. The mosque is a place where Muslims gather to hold falala activities, as well as a center for information, education, social welfare and dispute settlement. Imam led the prayer.

By the end of the 7th century, mosques had been set up in Iraq and North Africa with the spread of early caliphs outside the Arabian Peninsula. According to reports, the Imam al Hussein shrine in Karbala is one of the oldest mosques in Iraq, although its current form (typical Persian architectural style) can only be traced back to the 11th century. Although still a mosque, the shrine remains one of the most sacred places for Shiite Muslims, as it commemorates the death of Hussain bin Ali, the third Shiite Imam and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. It is reported that the AMR Ibn Al as mosque is the first mosque in Egypt and served as the religious and social center of Fustat (now Cairo) in its golden age. However, like the Imam Hussain, its original structure has not been preserved. With the subsequent Shia Fatimid caliphate, mosques throughout Egypt evolved to include schools (known as madrasas), hospitals, and mausoleums.

According to reports, today's kailuwan mosque in Tunisia is the first mosque built in northwest Africa. Its current form (built in the 9th century) is a model for other Islamic religious sites in the Maghreb. It was the first place to contain a square spire (as opposed to the more common circular spire), and included a cathedral like nave. These features can also be found in the Andalusian mosques, including the Great Mosque of Cordoba, because they tend to reflect the architectural style of the moors rather than the predecessor of the Visigoths. Nevertheless, some elements of the West Gothic architecture, such as the horseshoe arch, were incorporated into the mosques of Spain and the Maghreb.

According to reports, the first mosque in East Asia was built in Xi'an in the eighth century. However, the current architecture of the Great Mosque in Xi'an dates back to the 18th century, and it does not duplicate features usually associated with mosques elsewhere. In fact, minarets were originally banned by the state. Following the traditional Chinese architecture, Xi'an grand mosque, like many other mosques in eastern China, is like a pagoda with a green roof, rather than the Yellow roof commonly seen in Chinese royal architecture. Mosques in Western China are more likely to incorporate elements such as domes and minarets that have traditionally been seen in mosques elsewhere.

Similar integration of foreign and local influence can also be seen on Sumatra and Java in Indonesia, with the mosque including demak Grand Mosque built in the 15th century. The early Java mosques were inspired by Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese architecture, with tall timber and multi-storey roofs similar to the pagodas of Hindu temples in Bali. It was not until the 19th century that the ubiquitous Islamic dome appeared in Indonesia. In turn, the style of Javanese influenced the style of mosques in neighboring Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

The Muslim empire played an important role in the development and spread of mosques. Although mosques were first established in India in the 7th century, they did not become common throughout the subcontinent until the arrival of the Mughal people in the 16th and 17th centuries. Mughal mosques, reflecting Timur's origins, include onion domes, pointed arches and elaborate circular minarets, which are common in Persian and Central Asian styles. The Jama Masjid in Delhi and the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore were built in a similar way in the mid-17th century and remain the two largest mosques in the Indian subcontinent.

The Umayyad Caliph is particularly useful in disseminating Islam and establishing mosques in the Levant region, where the Umayyads mosque is the most respected mosque in the region - the Al Aqsa and rock dome mosques in Jerusalem and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The design of the rock dome and the Umayyad Mosque was influenced by Byzantine architecture, a trend that continued with the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

Several early mosques of the Ottoman Empire were originally churches or cathedrals of the Byzantine Empire. The Cathedral of St. Sophia (one of which is the reconstructed Cathedral) reflects the mosque architecture after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire developed its own architectural style, characterized by a large central rotunda (sometimes surrounded by smaller domes), pencil shaped minarets, and open facades.

Mosques from the Ottoman period are still scattered throughout Eastern Europe, but the number of mosques in Europe is growing fastest as more and more Muslims migrate to the continent. Many of Europe's major cities are home to mosques, such as the Grand Mosque of Paris, which contains domes, minarets and other features often found in mosques in most Muslim countries. The first mosque in North America was founded by Albanian Americans in 1915, but the oldest surviving Mosque on the continent, the American mother's mosque, was built in the 1930s. As in Europe, the number of mosques in the United States has increased rapidly in recent decades as Muslim immigrants, especially from South Asia, have entered the United States. After 2000, more than 40% of mosques were built in the United States.