Architectural conservation in Islam : Case Study of the Prophet’s Mosque

Abstract

The Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, known to the Muslims as Masjid an–Nabawi, has gone through numerous enlargement and renovation activities within the span of more than 1,000 years. It was certainly an intricate task to preserve and protect the mosque as pristine as possible whilst accepting to the needs for expansion and in meeting differing situational or contemporary challenges. This book examines the attitude and approaches of the Muslims in their effort to protect and care for the Prophet’s Mosque as one of the three most sacred places in Islam. The underlaying and broad Islamic principles of conservation drawn from the Qur’an and as–Shari’ah, as usually applied to the natural environment, are elaborated and taken as the foundation to the attitude in architectural conservation. The author believes that significant building and conservation activities, exemplified mainly in the building process of the Prophet’s Mosque, should be able to provide an insight into the state of consciousness and approach of architectural conservation in the early period of Islam. Overwhelming historical precedents which are highlighted in this book can be used to draw our understanding of architectural conservation in Islam. Hence, it is hoped that the information and knowledge presented in this book and the understanding that is expected to arise from it could generate a discourse towards the formation of Islamic principles of architectural conservation.

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