Building Sciences
Building as a Basis of Civilization
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12 April 2012
Based on his free will, awareness and imagination, man builds edifices in various shapes and sizes and with various function patterns in order to facilitate, nurture and motivate his copious life activities. In fact, that is one of the fundamental things that distinguish man from other animate creatures that share this earth with him. The existence of man cannot be imagined without the existence of a built environment. The relationship between the two is causal, man always being the cause and built environment the effect. So therefore, no phase of man’s presence on earth could be imagined to be devoid of building activities, irrespective of their scale and sophistication.
The Universe as a “Mosque”
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04 January 2012
Islam is a religion that inevitably leads to the creation of a virtuous comprehensive culture and civilization which benefits not only Muslims, but also non-Muslims and all the other worldly creatures as well. Islam also creates individuals who through a complex hierarchy of institutions and establishments are organized in a community (ummah) which is well equipped to meet the challenges of its and its members’ earthly mission. This is so because life in its totality is seen as both the field and a form of worship (‘ibadah) in Islam. Every life activity believers effortlessly transform into an act of worship. Every part of the earth where they live, believers, as a result, turn into a vibrant place of worship as well. They turn it into a mosque (masjid). Thus, Islam, believers, worship as a lifestyle, and the notion of the mosque, one originating from the other and each one needing the others for its functioning and continued existence, are inseparable.
