The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical
Memory in the Contemporary Middle East

Kishwar Rizvi
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. 253 pages.

This catchy title, The Transnational Mosque, is timely and implies an analysis
of global Islam and the multiplicities of mosque construction today. The prem-
ise promises to contribute to the scholarship on Islamic architecture, and yet
there are some issues with the argument’s structure and even greater ones with
the analytical depth with respect to architecture.

112 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33:4



The book’s structure highlights the attempt to separate itself and “builds
upon” (p. 7) established texts on the subject of contemporary Islamic archi-
tecture. However, its relatively small format, dense with text, is populated
sparely with uneven visual representation. The photographs vary in quality
and vantage, and not all of the mosques discussed have images and architec-
tural drawings – serious omissions in a field that is so visual, systematic com-
parative analysis requires analogous efforts with visual representation for the
argument to sustain itself. The book contains an introduction; one chapter
each on Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE);
and an epilogue that serves as a conclusion. But this four-fold argument,
which focuses on the patron countries, is flawed because it inherently sets
up a hierarchy of influence that situates equally the relatively minimal works
of the UAE with the far-reaching impact of Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
It also ignores the “transnational” quality of those mosques not patronized
by any of them.

The introduction, “Agency of History: The Symbolic Potential for the
Transnational Mosque,” begins with an italicized brief first-person narrative
that describes Beirut’s Muhammad al-Amin Mosque followed by a long ac-
count of patronage and political climate. Rizvi promises an interdisciplinary
approach with field work, architecture and photo documentation, interviews
with architects and patrons in a “study [that] interrogates multiple agents and
diverse agendas behind the construction of transnational mosques” (p. 5). She
defines “trans” as “beyond and across time of history and spaces of nations,”
but nevertheless frames the book in terms of nations. 

After explaining the meaning and importance of mosque and including
shrines in her argument as part of the network of devotional spaces, she crit-
ically addresses arguments of postmodern architecture in mosque design and
critiques the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA), which “scarcely ac-
knowledges their [mosques] existence” (p. 26). However, this award and the
Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) have documented dozens of con-
temporary mosques in their publications and online. Ironically, she references
no less than fourteen of those featured in the AKDN’s documentation and uti-
lizes seventeen images from the AKAA and the AKDN in this book. The in-
troduction closes with the book’s framework: a three-fold focus on nationalist
and religious ideologies, transnational architecture and political networks, and
the role of the architect in transnational mosques.

Chapter 1, “Turkey and a Neo-Ottoman World Order: History as Ethno-
Imperialism,” begins with a narrative of her arrival at Berlin’s Türk Şehitlik
Mosque followed by various segments: “Diaspora and Turkish Patronage

Book Reviews 113



in Germany,” “Islam and the Turkish Republic,” “Mosque of the People,”
“Competing Discourse of the Nation,” “The Royal Architect,” “Architecture
of Diplomacy,” “Conceptualizing the Diaspora,” and “ Histories of the New
Present.” Case studies of Berlin’s Wilmersdorf Mosque, Ankara’s Grand Na-
tional Assembly Mosque and Kocatepe Mosque, and Japan’s Tokyo Camii
and Turkish Cultural Centre are presented. Architect Hilmi Şenalp’s work is
featured as a modern day “royal architect” who explicitly references the work
of the prolific Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1489-1588) in his historicist
designs. The discussion’s framework was promising, but the images used were
inconsistent in vantage and quality (at least one mosque discussed had no im-
ages at all), and there were several broad, unsupported statements and an im-
plied advocacy for the explicit repetition of historical forms in contemporary
mosque design.

Chapter 2, “Global Islam and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Archi-
tecture of Assimilation,” begins with an anecdote of approach to Jeddah’s
Amir Juffali Mosque and is divided into “Cosmopolitan Roots,” “The Mosque
Strategy,” “The Visual Aesthetic,” “The National Mosque,” “Controlling the
Minds of Believers,” “Patronage and Propaganda,” “Diplomacy through Ar-
chitecture,” “Asserting a Sunni Presence,” “Diplomacy East and West,” and
“An Iconography of Belief.” Several mosques are featured: the Juffali
Mosque, Riyadh’s Great Mosque, and several government-supported mosques
built abroad, including Islamabad’s Faisal Mosque and Rome’s Islamic Cul-
tural Centre, both of which are clearly contemporary, and Beirut’s Muhammad
Al-Amin Mosque, which is a historicist neo-Ottoman building. Rizvi criticizes
Riyadh’s systematic destruction of historical sites and “fear of monuments”
(p. 84) that, she argues, has resulted in conflicting approaches to mosque pa-
tronage – strict and iconoclastic with minimal decoration at home and elabo-
rate design for a “new brand of Sunni Jihad” abroad (p. 103). However, the
examples used are not completely consistent with the argument. 

Chapter 3, “Iran and Shi’i Pilgrimage Networks: A Postrevolutionary Ide-
ology,” opens with an anecdotal description of the sounds, smells, and imagery
experienced by the author during a primarily female pilgrimage to the tomb
of Ruqayya in Damascus. This chapter, which focuses on Shi’a devotional
spaces (e.g., tombs) in addition to mosques in “transnational” argument, is
subdivided into “The History of Shi’ism and the Centrality of Shrines,” “Al-
ternate Sites, Other Religiosity,” “Tehran, the Modern Capital,” “Mosques
and the Revolution,” “Ayatollah Khomeini Grand (Tehran) Musalla,” “Spaces
of Messianic Authority,” “The Princess of Damascus,” “An Incision into the
Urban Context,” and “The Contested Landscape.” 

114 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33:4



National mosques discussed specifically include the Husayniyeh Ershad
institution, Tehran’s Ayatollah Khomeini Grand Musalla, the Isfahan Musalla
in Takht-i Fulad cemetery, Qom’s Shrine of Fatima Ma’suma, Tehran’s Tomb
of Ayatolla Khomeni, and the Jamkaran Mosque and Shrine. International
patronage discussed included the Shrine of Sayidda Zaynab and the Sayidda
Ruqqayya Shrine and Mosque, both of which are in Damascus. The chapter
concluded with a critique of these shrines, both of which have an “un-
abashedly Iranian look” (p. 146). The architectural analysis skims the surface
with a pale descriptor of the pastiche of “styles” used in the examples. The
chapter ends with a summary statement that in many ways, the large com-
plexes in Iran represent Tehran’s overcompensation to establish its strength
and growing religiosity.

Chapter 4, “Grand Mosques in the United Arab Emirates: Domesticating
the Transnational,” opens with an anecdotal, as opposed to a personal, de-
scription of the Jumeirah mosque with its colors, context, and dualities (of en-
trances and signs). Value-laden descriptors betray her bias when commenting
on the pastiche of historical architectural motifs, which elicited no such cri-
tiques in previous chapters, including her assessment of the use of historicist
elements as “anachronistic” and that in this mode “meaning was manipulated”
for a “fabricated sense of the city” (pp. 151-52). The chapter is divided into
“Oil Wealth and New National Narratives,” “Creating Indigenous Histories,”
“Architecture as Negotiation,” “The Jumeirah Mosque and the Egyptian Con-
nection,” “A Cosmopolitan Aesthetic: The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque,”
and “Global Ambitions at Home and Abroad.” After a brief history of the
country, several mosques, including the Imam Husayn Mosque with a “Persian
look” (p. 160), Dubai’s Grand Mosque, the Bastakiyya Mosque, the Abu
Dhabi Mosque, the Mariyam bint Sultan Mosque, the Jumeriah Mosque, and
the Shiekh Zayed Grand Mosque. 

However, the accounts are minimal and contain little analysis. Not only
was the discussion brief, but the analysis was reduced to the repeated tropes
that the mosques were government-created visions of Islam. The lack of images
for several examples and the inconsistent quality of photographs and drawings
also made for a disconnected read. She launched into some discussion with the
Jumeirah mosque, noting that the Egyptian “connection” was a result of the
large Egyptian presence and their participation in the cities’ development (p.
174), but provided no analysis of the specific neo-Mamluk forms used or their
meaning. Frustratingly, an image of Cairo’s fourteenth-century Umm al-Sultan
Sha’ban madrasah was shown with no commentary connecting it back to the
argument. The majority of this chapter focused on national mosques. 

Book Reviews 115



In the last section, four more were introduced: two in Sharjah, Jeursalem’s
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Mosque and Kazakhstan’s Khalifa bin Zayed
Al Nahyan Mosque. Like other case studies, basic facts describing costs, area,
and materials were outlined without any mention, let alone analysis, of the
meaning of “transnational” mosque expressed in the architectural language.

The epilogue, “The Mutability of History,” begins with a quote about the
importance of the architectural critic (from a western source). Sections in-
cluded “Architects and the Rhetoric of Post Modern City,” in which the author
focuses on four architects: three from the Islamic world who have “authority”
and “vision,” and the fourth from Europe and who, being “foreign,” relied
upon “orientalist fantasies and fairy tales” (p. 202). Instead of supporting these
assertions with an argument of architectural analysis, she summarizes their
resumes. The “foreign” architect, Helmut Borcherdt, is discussed for the first
time via a caricature critique of his designs of three mosques in Qatar built
during the 1980s. The following section, “A Corporate Modernity,” focused
on the work of London-based Halcrow Engineering consulting and argued
that this multinational firm with the British government “has been a key ally
and developer of UAE” (p. 203) with a “corporate aesthetic.” 

The final section, “Weathering and Historical Contingency,” summarizes
the cultural and historical aspects of Islamabad’s Faisal Mosque with little men-
tion of its architecture and reiterates arguments supporting the study of trans-
national mosques. Surprisingly, two new mosques are introduced here, both
winners of past AKAA cycles: Pakistan’s Bhong Mosque and Bosnia’s Šeref-
udin White Mosque, which, she states, responded to the clients’ needs and
tastes. Aside from misidentifying the architect of the latter mosque (p. 209),
ending with these two examples was puzzling because neither one fits into the
book’s four-patron-country argument of the “transnational” mosque.

So who is this book for? For those interested in the region’s politics, there
are certainly many brief references to timely issues of the day (e.g., recent
politics, terrorism, and some political history and power of the four coun-
tries). Those who have some background understanding of architecture will
be immediately frustrated with the surface examination and broad strokes
used to examine the architecture with respect to the political and cultural con-
texts. Those who possess a specific understanding of architecture in the Is-
lamic world will be disappointed, for the premise’s enticing potential was not
fulfilled.

Tammy Gaber
Assistant Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture

Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, Canada

116 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33:4