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Conclusion

Looking to the Future: The Masjid as a Space on the Edge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2021

Michelle Moore Apotsos
Affiliation:
Williams College, Massachusetts
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Summary

Throughout this volume, masjids have been positioned not only as space but also as an interpretive lens through which to view Islam not only as a condition of being but also a mode of place-making and in fact interpreting the world. This has not only allowed diverse communities to come together in ways that were not previously thought to be possible, but it has also allowed communities to expand outwards, creating satellite societies that are physically separated yet nonetheless intimately connected and thus contained within a spiritual community, creating a “highly variegated ecology of Muslim experience” (Mandel 1996, 147). The volume has covered numerous masjid spaces in Africa that have either existed over a significant period of time or are just beginning to make their presence known. As representative mechanisms, these masjids not only actively reproduce diverse iterations of Islamic identity in Africa over time and space, but also adapt within these contexts in response to an evolving spectrum of influences, ideologies, and interventions that have each played important roles in shaping the contours of Islamic identity and practice within specific regional contexts. Importantly, these spaces challenge established ideas of space and architecture by generating progressive discussions of the masjid in terms of what it is and how it manifests in contemporary Africa as well as around the world. Such conversations are just beginning and will progress into the future as social, political, cultural, and spiritual identities continue to evolve. Thus, masjids must be seen, read, interpreted, and privileged as contextually embedded structural manifestations of the ways in which time and transformation have been allowed to act upon the environment, as well as spatial strategies and/or solutions to the problem of performing Muslim identity within the diverse contexts of Africa both now and moving in the future.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Conclusion
  • Michelle Moore Apotsos, Williams College, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Masjid in Contemporary Islamic Africa
  • Online publication: 05 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108573931.007
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  • Conclusion
  • Michelle Moore Apotsos, Williams College, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Masjid in Contemporary Islamic Africa
  • Online publication: 05 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108573931.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Michelle Moore Apotsos, Williams College, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Masjid in Contemporary Islamic Africa
  • Online publication: 05 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108573931.007
Available formats
×