Why Mosques Look the Same

Recently lot of mosques are built in the same way. With these cascading domes and pencil thin minarets. The image of the minaret and dome is so strong, it's the first thing people think of when you ask them. Excuse me, do you know how to draw mosque? The beautiful minarets. The dome? There is minaret here. Bubble roofs guess. Historically, you have mosques that look very different. Take the Dome of the Rock, this amazing mosque in Tunisia. They have these rectangular courtyards, roof supported by many columns and minaret in all shapes and forms. But when the most powerful Islamic empire ever conquered the last Christian stronghold in the East, styles changed. The cultural exchange that followed inspired new mosque. And in our time, this mosque is used by an autocratic leader to show his power. Now, you might say why should you care how mosques look? Well, because think this tale tells two interesting stories. One of historic dialogue of cultures and the other one of the wish of one nation to expand their cultural influence abroad. Civilization is group effort by countless individuals over many ages. That's why wanted to tap into this pool of knowledge and ask the public how they saw mosques. Within no time was flooded with capable participants. Excuse me. Do you know how to draw mosque? Do you know how to draw mosque? No. The weather's nice. No, but you can try. It don't have the time. You don't have the time you have to smoke weed. It’s very important. There's no harm in trying. Right? I'm an art major and this is not nice. I'm going off mosque that have seen in Tik Tok No? don't really remember much else. It was few months ago. deleted Tik Tok. Cross. cross on mosque? Well don’t know So this is the moon. Bubble roofs guess. THey have nice tip, the mosque. Why did you delete Tik Tok? have no storage on my phone. So it's not about the millions of hours you're throwing away into the void? No, am happy to throw them hours away any day of the week. Okay. And this is the tomb guess. It's really pretty day. This is what made. They're usually beautiful, but. think this looks beautiful as well. What do you think? Yes, think also. Yeah. I've got the pictures that the people drew right here. And I'm going to show you what they come up with. But first, little thing about mosques. mosque is place of worship. The term mosque or Masjid comes from the Arabic Sajda or prostration. It's place of prayer and submission. And yes, there's lot of ways you can build mosque. Take this impressive modern one in Morocco. The Hassan II. You can see it doesn't have dome. There are no pencil shaped minarets. And if you ask me, the tower has bit Big Ben vibes. So as you can see, there are domes everywhere. The inside of mosque. lot of minarets around, yet more domes and minarets. Okay, so you get the point. But it's not only the people on the street. The minaret and dome are so present that even the Islamic Society of North America, when they had mosque built, they were bit unsure about the design. And few years later, they said they wished the mosque had minaret and dome so it could be perceived to be mosque. Or look at this mosque in Shanghai. It is completely flat roof. But they put dome on building just so people can see it as mosque. And due to the rise of Islamophobia in the West, some modern mosque designs ditched the minaret and dome to be less conspicuous. So how did the pencil, minaret and the dome come to stand for the mosque? It all has to do with the greatest Islamic empire to ever exist. The Ottoman Empire. The Empire was big. like ‘em big, like ’em plumpy. They reach from Algiers to Basra and from Budapest to Mecca. The Empire lasted around 600 years. They even besieged Vienna. But before all that happened, they needed to capture one of the best fortified cities in the region, Constantinople. In 1453 something happens that shocked the Western world. Constantinople falls to the Ottomans. The reason that it's such shock has to do with the history of the city. When the Roman Empire was divided into two in 395, Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. You have to understand the city has big symbolic worth for Western rulers. It was Christian and sometimes it was called second Rome. It was kind of big deal. Then this guy Mehmed The Second conquers the city. And he knows his history. He calls himself Kaiser-i Rum or Caesar of Rome, and he instantly makes Constantinople the capital of his empire. He says he actually continues the Roman Empire instead of replacing it. and by the way, he was 21 when he pulled this off. What was doing at 21? When the Ottomans conquered the city they are impressed by the architecture they find. Especially of this one church the Hagia Sophia. This huge building was the biggest cathedral in the world for almost thousand years. And it is really something special. The Ottomans converted the church into mosque and they add minarets to it. They do have challenge. They look at all this monumental buildings and they want to build like this. But not only that, they want to improve it and make their own version of this new mosque. You can look at the difference of Ottoman architecture before and after the capture of Constantinople. So this is mosque they built in 1399. Like 50 years before they conquered Constantinople. And it's considered as one of the first true examples of Ottoman architecture. So, yes, mosques with domes were already thing. But before the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, they usually made mosques with lot of smaller domes. And what then follows is whole different ballgame. And there is one man who makes big impact on Ottoman architecture. Mimar Sinan is seen as the greatest Ottoman architect that ever existed. He gets to work to improve Hagia Sophia. He really wants to one up it. To make it better. And although he built hundreds of buildings, there are two mosques that stand out. The Suleymani and then Selimiye. hope I'm not butchering that too much. You can see the influence the Hagia Sophia had. You have these sprawling mosques with domes, half domes, pencil, minarets and courtyard. They show confident global power. The Ottoman Empire at its greatest. went to Istanbul twice and it's really something to see these mosques. So definitely go there if you have the chance. The difference of before and after in the Ottoman Empire is big. whole new style emerges that will be blueprint for the entire empire. And Sinan, he is sure he succeeded in his goal. What think is interesting is how this new mosque were partly based on Christian church. think it's actually really good example of cultural dialogue. Cultures and religions they don't exist in isolation. They interact all the time. mean, the Christians just took over the whole Jewish holy book and made it the first part of the Bible. think it's good reminder because in our day and age, we often get the feeling that everyone is divided on ethnic, social and religious lines. And in that way we lose sight of beautiful examples of inspiration, innovation and cultural dialogue that happen. After this moment mosques really change. And because the Ottoman Empire is so big and influential, you see this Ottoman style just popping up everywhere in countries it conquers. So this mosque design with dome and minaret actually becomes template in big part of the Muslim world and beyond. Take the Taj Mahal. Some say it is inspired by Ottoman mosque design. But even the influence of the powerful Ottoman Empire is limited. It doesn't reach all the way to modern day Morocco, for instance. So here you can find mosques in this time that are built in different way. And of course, Persian and Chinese or African mosques also have different features. But the pencil minaret came to rule the world. Okay, so that's the history. But why do we have so many modern mosques that again, look like the Ottoman one with the dome and the pencil minaret? How that happened is something that Kishwar Rizvi explains very well in book about modern mosques built by nation states. So before the 20th century, mosques were mostly built by rulers or great patrons. National mosques didn't exist because, well, nation states didn't exist. And when states did come into being, building mosque wasn't really on their mind. So for me here, it gets really interesting. In the 20th century, lot of countries are freed from Western colonialism or influence. These new countries have to decide what is their nation's image. As all nations do they look to history. The Ottoman Empire had been in decline for more than century, and the new Turkish state that was officially recognized in 1923 had to make decision. Were they going to modeled new state on the once powerful Islamic Ottoman Empire or something else? Well, the New Turkish Republic was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Who has great stache, by the way. This is the story of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the strong man who in little more than decade, led Turkey out of the Middle Ages and into the 20th century. He changes what remains of the Ottoman Empire into modern, secular state. So mosques are out. Atatürk go shopping in Europe. He takes the Swiss civil code, the French separation of church and state. He bans women wearing scarves in governmental spaces and adopts the Roman alphabet. All these changes. Does it mean that the Turkish populace isn't religious anymore? But Islam gets backseat in this new state. There's this tension between modernist Kemalist politics and more traditional Islamist views. It's tension you can also see in the architecture. The new national parliament that the Kemalists build takes this neo classical approach. They don't even include mosque in it until much later. bit later Atatürk died. On November 10th, 1938. Atatürk dies at the age of 58. After his death. You can see the tension between these Republican and conservative politics in two buildings. The mausoleum of Atatürk and the Kocatepe mosque. This mosque is the first in the slow revival of Ottoman mosques. The first is modernist, minimalist structure. It's blend of European and pre-Islamic Turkish heritage. You can really see the embodiment of the Republican ideals of the founder of Turkey. But the Kocatepe mosque has traditional 1600s Ottoman design. It's complete with half domes and pencil minarets. But it was actually meant to have much more modern design. It was changed because of conservative critics. You can see in this period in the sixties and seventies that Islam becomes bigger part of the Turkish identity again. And that means reevaluation of the Ottoman heritage. Especially as migration from the more conservative parts of Turkey to the big cities starts. This leds to resurgence of Islamist parties that make sure that mosque make comeback. In the eighties? 1500 mosques were built each year in Turkey until there was one mosque for every 857 people. This Ottoman mosque style is not only built in Turkey, it is then also exported. They exported to places where lot of Turkish migrant workers went in the 60s and 70s. Like in Berlin, where they built this modern mosque. It's very different from the oldest mosque in Berlin that was built in 1923 and has more Indian vibe to it. And when the Turkish state can't find migrant workers that they have this ethnic connection with, they look for ethnic ties that are not so direct. They are building mosques for Seljuk Turks in Turkmenistan or Kazan Russians in Tokyo. And since Erdogan has become the country's leader he has Intensified the mosque building. His party invested half billion dollars in over 100 mosques all over the world, from Cuba to Britain, Russia and Somalia. Many of these countries and communities embrace these gifts and they lead to opportunities for trade. But Turkey has also been called out for having imperialist ambitions. For explicitly connecting their national identity to the Ottoman empire in the building of neo Ottoman mosques. And also because these most are often run by the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs. So Ankara can decide what sermon you hear. You can also see this new Ottoman mosque design in places that are not directly supported by Turkey. And this is because this Ottoman Empire just is the strongest historical example of an Islamic superpower. It's so strong of an image even Saudi Arabia are sponsoring mosque in this style. And so the resurgence of the Ottoman mosque can be traced back to Turkey, reevaluating their past, giving more attention to Islamic history after trying to suppress it for decades. And it comes in combination with projection of cultural and economic influence over their borders. These mosques are not only linked through religion, but show geopolitical aspiration of the Turkish state. Governments and societies choose to highlight one store of history over the other all the time because it fits certain narrative much better. History and use of it in nation building is never objective. Luckily, some facts are objective, like how access to two streaming services for just $2 month is great deal. This video is sponsored by Curiositystream. You can get access to my streaming video service Nebula when you sign up for Curiositystream using the link in the description. So what do you get with access to these two? 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