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Places For Worship
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PLACES for WORSHIP
Question:
What do you mean by places for worship?
Answer:
The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (God’s blessings and peace be upon him and his progeny) says: “The ground has been made for me a place of prostration (masjid) and its earth [made] pure for me”[37].
Therefore, in the view of Islam the ground everywhere is suitable for worship, and thus worship has no particular place. Moreover, in Islam, there is no place assigned for the worship of one group of people, and another set up for another group. God Almighty states:
“And turn your faces [to Him] in every place of prostration (masjid)”[7: 29].
However Islam has established certain places specifically for worship called mosques (masajid, sing. masjid) and encourages worship and the gathering of people in them and has promised a great reward for building them, lighting them and looking after their affairs. Praying in a mosque is preferable to praying elsewhere.
Places for worship are divided into:-
1. Places which are in the highest category of importance such as the al-Haram Mosque at Makka, the Mosque of the Prophet (God’s blessings and peace be upon him and his progeny) at al-Madina, the Mosque of Kufa, (near the city of Najaf), the Mosque of Basra in the city of Basra, and the Sakhr al-Sharif (the Dome of the Rock) at Jerusalem in Palestine.
2. Places that are in the second category of importance such as the Sahla mosque near Najaf and the Baratha mosque[38] between Kadhimayn and Baghdad.
3. Places at the third level of importance which are all the other mosques which Muslims have built throughout the world. They vary one from another in status as has been explained in Islamic jurisprudence.
Question:
Are there special injunctions relating to mosques?
Answer:
Indeed there are. For instance, it is forbidden to defile them and arbitrarily to demolish them. It is also forbidden for a person in a state of janaba or a woman in menstruation or who is in a state of lochial discharge after childbirth to sit in a mosque, and it is forbidden for those in a state of janaba even to pass through the al-Haram Mosque at Makka and the Mosque of the Prophet (God’s blessings and peace be upon him and his progeny) in al-Madina.
