Editing Mosque (section)

===Origins===
{{See also|List of the oldest mosques}}

Islam was established in Arabia during the lifetime of [[Muhammad]] in the 7th century CE.<ref name="Watt2003">{{Cite book |last=Watt |first=William Montgomery |author-link=W. Montgomery Watt |title=Islam and the Integration of Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AQUZ6BGyohQC |year=2003 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-17587-6 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=AQUZ6BGyohQC&pg=PA5 5] |access-date=2019-06-30 |archive-date=2023-01-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116132754/https://books.google.com/books?id=AQUZ6BGyohQC |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[List of the oldest mosques|first mosque]] in history could be either the sanctuary built around the ''[[Kaaba|Ka'bah]]'' in [[Mecca]], known today as ''[[Al-Masjid al-Haram]]'' ('The Sacred Mosque'), or the [[Quba Mosque]] in [[Medina]], the first structure built by Muhammad upon his [[Hijra (Islam)|emigration from Mecca]] in 622 [[Common Era|CE]],<ref>{{harvnb|Tajuddin|1998|p=135}}</ref> both located in the Hejaz region in present-day Saudi Arabia.<ref name="Palmer2016">{{Cite book |author=Palmer |first=Allison Lee |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aMsvDAAAQBAJ&pg=236 |title=Historical Dictionary of Architecture |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4422-6309-3 |edition=2nd |page=236 |language=en |quote=The first mosque is considered to be either the one built around the Kaaba, or "House of God", in Mecca, now called Al-Masjid Al-Haram, or the Quba Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, built when Muhammad arrived there from Mecca in 622. |access-date=2023-12-26 |archive-date=2023-12-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226065604/https://books.google.com/books?id=aMsvDAAAQBAJ&pg=236 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Other scholars reference Islamic tradition<ref name="Esposito1998">{{Cite book |last=Esposito |first=John |title=Islam: The Straight Path (3rd ed.) |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-511234-4 |pages=9, 12}}</ref><ref name="Esposito2002b">Esposito (2002b), pp. 4–5.</ref><ref name="Peters2003">{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=F.E. |title=Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians |year=2003 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-11553-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/islamguideforjew00fepe/page/9 9] |url=https://archive.org/details/islamguideforjew00fepe/page/9 }}</ref> and passages of the Quran,<ref>{{qref|2|7-286|b=y}}</ref><ref>{{qref|3|96|b=y}}</ref><ref>{{qref|22|25-37|b=y}}</ref> according to which Islam as a religion precedes Muhammad, and includes previous prophets such as Abraham.<ref name="Alli2013">{{Cite book |last=Alli |first=Irfan |title=25 Prophets of Islam |publisher=eBookIt.com |isbn=978-1-4566-1307-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5nRJK9sLjLsC |year=2013 |access-date=2019-06-30 |archive-date=2021-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414010428/https://books.google.com/books |url-status=live }}</ref> In Islamic tradition, [[Abraham in Islam|Abraham]] is credited with having built the ''Ka'bah'' in Mecca, and consequently its sanctuary, ''Al-Masjid al-Haram'', which is seen by Muslims as the first mosque that existed.<ref>{{harvnb|Kuban|1974|p=1}}</ref><ref name="Michigan C 1986">{{Cite book |author=Michigan Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies |editor1=Goss, V.P. |editor2=Bornstein, C. V. |title=The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange Between East and West During the Period of the Crusades |publisher=Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University |volume=21 |page=208 |isbn=978-0-9187-2058-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p44kAQAAMAAJ |year=1986 |access-date=2019-06-30 |archive-date=2023-12-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231228023032/https://books.google.com/books?id=p44kAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Abu Sway 2011">{{Cite news |author=Mustafa Abu Sway |title=The Holy Land, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Qur'an, Sunnah and other Islamic Literary Source |publisher=[[Central Conference of American Rabbis]] |url=http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Abusway_0.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728001911/http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Abusway_0.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-28 }}</ref><ref name="Dyrness2013">{{Cite book |author=Dyrness, W. A. |title=Senses of Devotion: Interfaith Aesthetics in Buddhist and Muslim Communities |publisher=[[Wipf and Stock]] Publishers |volume=7 |page=25 |isbn=978-1-62032-136-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=inJNAwAAQBAJ |date=2013}}</ref> A [[hadith]] in [[Sahih al-Bukhari]] states that the sanctuary of the ''Ka'bah'' was the first mosque on Earth, with the second mosque being [[Al-Aqsa]] in [[Jerusalem]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=55&translator=1&start=0&number=585#585|title=55. Prophets – Sahih Al-Bukhari – 585|website=www.searchtruth.com|language=en|access-date=2018-06-05|archive-date=2018-06-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180613062602/https://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=55&translator=1&start=0&number=585#585|url-status=live}}</ref> which is also associated with Abraham.<ref name="Michigan C 1986"/> Since as early as 638 CE, the Sacred Mosque of Mecca has been expanded on several occasions to accommodate the increasing number of Muslims who either live in the area or make the annual pilgrimage known as ''[[Hajj]]'' to the city.<ref>{{harvnb|Dumper|Stanley|2007|p=241}}</ref>

Either way, after the Quba Mosque, [[Muhammad in Medina|Muhammad went on to establish another mosque in Medina]], which is now known as ''[[Al-Masjid an-Nabawi]]'' ('The Prophet's Mosque'). Built on the site of his home, Muhammad participated in the construction of the mosque himself and helped pioneer the concept of the mosque as the focal point of the Islamic city.<ref name="chiu678">{{harvnb|Chiu|2010|pp=67–8}}</ref> The Prophet's Mosque is considered by some scholars of [[Islamic architecture]] to be the first mosque.<ref name="Petersen_p.195–6">{{harvnb|Petersen|1996|pp=195–196}}: "The first mosque was the house of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. This was a simple rectangular (53 by 56 m) enclosure containing rooms for the Prophet and his wives and a shaded area on the south side of the courtyard which could be used for prayer in the direction of Mecca. This building became the model for subsequent mosques which had the same basic courtyard layout with a prayer area against the qibla wall."</ref><ref name=":24">{{harvnb|Bloom|Blair|2009|p=549|loc=''Mosque''}}: "The first mosque, a building that Muhammad erected at Medina in 622, is usually described as the Prophet's house but was probably intended from the outset as a community center as well. Initially, it was a rectangular enclosure of unbaked brick, a little over 50 m square, but a portico of palm trunks supporting a roof of palm-frond thatch was quickly erected on the north side of the court, facing Jerusalem, the first qibla, or direction in which Muslims sent their prayers [...]. In 624 when the qibla was changed to Mecca, another such arcade was built on the south side, facing that city. Muhammad and his family lived in rooms built on to one side of the enclosure, and Muhammad was buried in one of these rooms in 632. During the 7th and early 8th centuries, Muhammad's mosque was repeatedly enlarged and rebuilt, becoming a flat-roofed hypostyle structure with a central court and a prayer-hall deeper than the three other porticos. [...] The form of the mosque of the Prophet was closely imitated in the early congregational mosques built in the Iraqi cities of Wasit, Kufa and Basra, and in the mosque built at Daybul in Sind (now Banbhore, Pakistan)."</ref> The mosque had a roof supported by columns made of palm tree trunks<ref name=":0522">{{Cite book |last=Tabbaa |first=Yasser |title=Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three |publisher=Brill |year=2007 |isbn=978-90-04-16165-8 |editor-last=Fleet |editor-first=Kate |location= |pages= |language=en |chapter=Architecture |quote=If Mecca provided the first Muslim shrine, the city of Medina, to which Muḥammad migrated in 622 C.E., may have provided the germ of the idea for the Muslim place of prayer, the masjid, in the form of the house of the Prophet himself. Descriptions of the house allow us to reconstruct it as a mud-brick rectangular enclosure consisting of an open courtyard, a three-aisled roofed space to the south, a one-bay space inside the northern wall, and eight separate rooms annexed to the eastern wall. The eight rooms housed Muḥammad's wives; the northern vestibule was a waiting area; the southern space served various residential, official, and ritual functions. The roof was supported by palm trunks and its southern wall, after 6/628, contained a three-stepped platform (minbar), from which Muḥammad spoke and adjudicated. Despite its rudimentary form and construction, Muḥammad's house would provide the basic model for the first mosques. |editor-last2=Krämer |editor-first2=Gudrun |editor-last3=Matringe |editor-first3=Denis |editor-last4=Nawas |editor-first4=John |editor-last5=Rowson |editor-first5=Everett}}</ref> and it included a large courtyard, a motif common among mosques built since then.<ref name="chiu678" /> Rebuilt and expanded over time,{{sfn|Petersen|1996|pp=182–184}} it soon became a larger [[hypostyle]] structure.<ref name=":24" /> It probably served as a model for the construction of early mosques elsewhere.<ref name="Petersen_p.195–6" /><ref name=":24" /><ref name=":0522" /> It introduced some of the features still common in today's mosques, including the niche at the front of the prayer space known as the ''[[mihrab]]'' (first added in the [[Umayyad period]]){{sfn|Petersen|1996|pp=182–184}} and the tiered pulpit called the ''[[minbar]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Cosman|Jones|2008|p=610}}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed">
File:After their time in Mina has passed, pilgrims head back to Mecca. - Flickr - Al Jazeera English.jpg|2010 Aerial view of the largest mosque in the world, [[Great Mosque of Mecca|The Sacred Mosque (''Al-Masjid Al-Ḥarām'')]] of [[Mecca]] in the [[Hejaz]] region of [[Saudi Arabia]], with the [[Kaaba]] in the center
File:Madinah, Al haram at night (2512058060).jpg|Islam's [[Holiest sites in Islam|second holiest site]] [[Al-Masjid an-Nabawi]] (The [[Muhammad in Islam|Prophet]]'s Mosque) in Medina
File:Jerusalem-2013-Temple Mount-Al-Aqsa Mosque (NE exposure).jpg|Islam's [[Holiest sites in Islam|third holiest site]] Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
File:Umayyad Mosque (2020-01-07).jpg|Inside view of another holy site, the [[Umayyad Mosque]] built by the Umayyad Caliphate
File:Quba Mosque (2).jpg|The [[Quba Mosque]] in [[Medina]], Hejaz, [[Saudi Arabia]]
File:Al Sahaba Mosque, Massawa.jpg|The [[Mosque of the Companions, Massawa|Mosque of the Companions (''Masjid As-Sahabah'')]] in [[Massawa]], [[Eritrea]], [[Horn of Africa]]
File:Main entrance of Masjid al-Qiblatayn.jpg|''[[Masjid al-Qiblatayn]]'' (Mosque of the two [[Qiblah]]s) in Medina
File:Kerbela Hussein Moschee.jpg|One of the holiest sites in [[Shia Islam]], the [[Imam Husayn shrine|Imam Hussayn Mosque]] in [[Karbala]]
</gallery>