#nmenam

[leroibobo]

kruszyniany mosque in kruszyniany, poland. this is the oldest lipka tatar mosque in poland.

the town of kruszyniany was assigned to tatars who participated on the side of the polish-lithuanian commonwealth in their war against the ottoman empire. after lipka tatars settled in the city, they built this mosque, most likely in the late eighteenth century though there are documents which mention it going back to 1717. the village was settled by repatriates and belarusian muslims following world war ii.

[leroibobo]

the papier-mache walls of the shrine in kanqah naqshband sahib in srinagar, kashmir, built in its current form in 1633. the complex is dedicated to bukharan baha' al-din naqshband, who founded the naqshbandi sufi order, and is a mausoleum for one of his descendants. the shrine is a site for ziyarat as it contains what's said to be a lock of the prophet muhammad's hair.

[leroibobo]

the mosque in the village of larabanga, ghana. there's some differing theories over when exactly the mosque was built and by who, but it's thought to date back to 1421. this makes it one of the oldest in west africa.

one common story of its founding goes that it was built by a muslim trader named ayuba, who had a dream instructing him to build a mosque. when he awoke, he found the foundations were already laid, and he built the rest. his remains are thought to be buried under the baobab tree nearby.

the mosque is built in the sudanese architecture style, one of a few similar styles associated with grassland regions in west africa south of the sahara desert. the wood jutting out of the walls are support beams.

[leroibobo]

djinguere ber mosque is one of the three historic mosques/madrasas that make up the still-functioning university of timbuktu. this particular mosque was established in 1327 under the reign of songhai emperor askia daoud, and all three mosques flourished in the 15th-16th centuries as the city became more and more renown. natural factors have made the mud mosque vulnerable, but thankfully preservation efforts are ongoing.

[leroibobo]

around the great mosque of xi'an, originally built in 742, and one of the largest historical mosques in china. chang'an (xi'an's old name), then the capital of the tang dynasty, had a large west asian community to the point that emperor xuanzong permitted the construction of the mosque. unlike most contemporaneous chinese buildings, which are oriented north-south in accordance with feng shui, the great mosque is oriented to the west, towards mecca.

[leroibobo]

thazhathangady juma mosque in kottayam, kerala, india. like judaism and christianity, islam first reached present-day kerala via trade and migration from the middle east to the malabar coast from antiquity. the mosque dates back to the 9th-10th centuries.

[leroibobo]

pictures from the annual maintenance of the great mosque of djenné in djenné, mali. the mosque was first built in the 13th century but the current structure dates to 1907.

it (like much of the rest of djenné) is built with sun-baked earth bricks, and its smooth look comes from a coating of plaster applied over it. weather erodes the walls slowly over time, so a new coating of mud and plaster is required to be applied to it every year. the maintenance is also an annual festival which djennéans take part in.

[leroibobo]

details of the painted mosque in tetovo, north macedonia. the mosque was originally built in 1438, and later rebuilt in 1833. unlike other local mosques from the classical ottoman period, it bears byzantine influence.