Fourteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Mosques are often recognized as material and symbolic presences of Muslimness. In an exploration of three Mosques in three cities in Iran, one is surprised by the vitality of this identity as expressed in a world of materiality. There is firstly the remote, mud-mosque that stands for more than a century in a small town of Meybod, Yazd that expresses not only the simplicity of worship, but also the spirituality found in lineage and community interdependence as sites of the production of Muslimness. Secondly, there is the grand and elaborate designs of mirror mosaics on the ceilings of the Imamzadeh Saleh Mosque that sits adjacent to the famed Tajrish Bazaar. While the mirrors are broken into pieces, they shed light on the hopeful worshipers. There is also the majestic Naqsh-e Jahan Square courtyard in Isfahan that is home to the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque and Imam Mosque amidst a multitude of businesses, intermingling spirituality with transactional pursuits. While these three mosques are designed in very different physical qualities and positionalities, they shed light on how Muslim subjectivities are often created and re-created in the blurred thresholds between the material and supra-material worlds.