page_title: Mosque
section_title: Prayer hall
hierarchical_section_title: Mosque / Architecture / Prayer hall
caption_attribution_description: Српски / srpski: Чаршијска џамија,&#160;? и сат
context_page_description: A mosque is a place of worship for Muslims. Any act of worship that follows the Islamic rules of prayer can be said to create a mosque, whether or not it takes place in a special building. Informal and open-air places of worship are called musalla, while mosques used for communal prayer on Fridays are known as jāmiʿ. Mosque buildings typically contain an ornamental niche set into the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca, ablution facilities and minarets from which calls to prayer are issued. The pulpit, from which the Friday sermon is delivered, was in earlier times characteristic of the central city mosque, but has since become common in smaller mosques. Mosques typically have segregated spaces for men and women. This basic pattern of organization has assumed different forms depending on the region, period and denomination.
  Mosques commonly serve as locations for prayer, Ramadan vigils, funeral services, Sufi ceremonies, marriage and business agreements, alms collection and distribution, as well as homeless shelters. Historically, mosques were also important centers of elementary education and advanced training in religious sciences.
context_section_description: The prayer hall, also known as the muṣallá (Arabic: مُصَلَّى‎), rarely has furniture; chairs and pews are generally absent from the prayer hall so as to allow as many worshipers as possible to line the room. Some mosques have Islamic calligraphy and Quranic verses on the walls to assist worshippers in focusing on the beauty of Islam and its holiest book, the Quran, as well as for decoration.
  Often, a limited part of the prayer hall is sanctified formally as a masjid in the sharia sense (although the term masjid is also used for the larger mosque complex as well). Once designated, there are onerous limitations on the use of this formally designated masjid, and it may not be used for any purpose other than worship; restrictions that do not necessarily apply to the rest of the prayer area, and to the rest of the mosque complex (although such uses may be restricted by the conditions of the waqf that owns the mosque).
  In many mosques, especially the early congregational mosques, the prayer hall is in the hypostyle form (the roof held up by a multitude of columns). One of the finest examples of the hypostyle-plan mosques is the Great Mosque of Kairouan (also known as the Mosque of Uqba) in Tunisia.
  Usually opposite the entrance to the prayer hall is the qiblah wall, the visually emphasized area inside the prayer hall. The qiblah wall should, in a properly oriented mosque, be set perpendicular to a line leading to Mecca, the location of the Kaaba. Congregants pray in rows parallel to the qiblah wall and thus arrange themselves so they face Mecca. In the qiblah wall, usually at its center, is the mihrab, a niche or depression indicating the direction of Mecca. Usually the mihrab is not occupied by furniture either. A raised minbar or pulpit is located to the right side of the mihrab for a Khaṭīb, or some other speaker, to offer a Khuṭbah (Sermon) during Friday prayers. The mihrab serves as the location where the imam leads the five daily prayers on a regular basis.
  Left to the mihrab, in the front left corner of the mosque, sometimes there is a kursu (Turkish kürsü, Bosnian ćurs/ћурс), a small elevated plateau (rarely with a chair or other type of seat) used for less formal preaching and speeches.
caption: Kursu in Čaršija mosque [sh] in Zenica
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