The Function Of the Mosque (Masjid) In Islam

The Function Of the Mosque (Masjid) In Islam

 



The prophet muhammad once remarked, I have been given by God some distinctions which my predecessors did not have, one of these being that the whole expance of the earth has been made a masjid (mosque) for me". The place where Muslims offer these prayers is called masjid.

The word masjid literally means any place in which one performs the act of sujud (prostration) and acts of worship or devotion, similarly jam'i is a congregational mosque or the mosque in which a congregation assembles to perform the friday prayers.

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Mosque is called musquee in French, moschee in German. The arabic word masjid derived from the word sajada, meaning " he became humble or submissive or he bent himself down on the ground before God"it is prostrating oneself in prayer by dropping gently upon the knees,  placing the palms of the hands on the ground a little before the place of the knees, and then putting the nose and the forehead on the ground the former first, between the two hands.

In other words masjid or mosque is the place of the public religious service. The word masjid is used in the Qur'an especially in connection with meccan sanctually, al-Masjid al-Haram or the secred Mosque of Mecca. In the Qur'an the same word has been for the places of worship belonging to the cristian and jewish people as well. The Qur'an declares:

If God had not taken man under his protection, then monasteries, churches and the places of prayer and Masjid (mosque) would have been destroyed.

Every Clean Place Can Be Used As A Mosque

When the prophet preached his message in the fortieth year of his life, there was not any specific building for offering prayers. The early muslims used to perform their prayers in the narrow alleys of mecca or beside the ka'abah, under the leadership of Umar in other word any place of prostration before God was considered as a masjid (place for sujud). In the teaching of prophet Muhammad, a sanctually is not a fundamental necessity as every place in the same to God. A Muslim can bow down to God in all humility any where as a prayer is the expression of the submission of the created to the creator.

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