Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com Concerning the realm of architecture, the role of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunnah is to provide Muslims with an inspired outlook on life, in general, and on those issues that are pertinent to architecture, in particular, and with some broad rules of morality […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com According to the worldview of agnosticism, certainty and knowledge are impossible and we will never be able to know the true reality. A constant sceptical approach to epistemology, thus, ought to be a norm. Exemplifying somewhat this doctrine, Albert Einstein once remarked: “I don’t […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com (The fast-deteriorating breath-taking skyline of the old Cairo) Since my childhood, I had a feeling of inexplicable admiration for Islamic traditional buildings, be they mosques, madrasahs (schools), houses, caravanserais (khans), bazars, and, to some extent, even Sufi khanqahs (tekkes or zawiyahs), mausoleums and tombs. […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com (An austere mosque in Ghardai’a, Algeria.) Abstract This paper discusses a conceptual framework for sustainability in Islamic architecture. Some major segments of such framework are elucidated along the theoretical, or philosophical, rather than empirical, lines. Firstly, the need for sustainable architecture is outlined. That […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com Abstract When Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) migrated from Makkah to Madinah, the first and immediate task relating to his community building mission was constructing the city’s principal mosque. Every other undertaking, including building houses for the migrants a majority of whom were poor and practically […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com The Qur’an was revealed by Almighty Allah through Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to mankind to bring them out of the disorienting and debilitating darkness of falsehood, ignorance and superstitions to the light and radiance of truth, guidance and proper erudition. The Qur’an is the only […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com (Shamiyyah was one of the neighborhoods pulled down to make way for the latest Holy Mosque expansion. It lied north and slightly northwest of the Ka’bah, occupying significant segments of the Qu’ayqi’an range of hills. Pictures courtesy of the Omraniyoun Company) The late Custodian […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com Mashrabiyyahs (rawashin) on a house in Cairo, Egypt. If one thoroughly studies the distinctive character and evolution of the Islamic built environment — and Islamic civilization taken as a whole – against the backdrop of the message of Islam as a complete code of […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com Rawashin (mashrabiyyahs) on a house in Makkah. The Myth of the Mashrabiyyah In Muslim literature, the earliest explicit reference to the phenomenon of rawashin[1] in the Muslim world was made either in the late 5th AH/11th […]
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Spahic Omer Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences International Islamic University Malaysia E-mail: spahico@yahoo.com The city of Fez, Morocco. In Islam, man is a social being entrusted with a noble mission of responsibly inhabiting and developing the earth (vicegerency or khilafah). He is endowed with enough appropriate at once ingenious […]