No minarets? No dome? Tehran's modern mosque draws the ire of conservatives

2017-10-24T15:48:00-04:00

But the Vali-e-Asr mosque, designed by the Iranian architects Reza Daneshmir and Catherine Spiridonoff, is stirring controversy in a country that hosts some of the world’s most glittering places of worship. Iranian hardliners are refusing to recognise it as a mosque, complaining that it does not have a minaret or proper dome, and that it is dwarfed by the theatre. [...] The conservative Mashregh News said: [...] It was “an insulting, postmodern design” that is “empty of any meaning”, it said.

Designed by Iranian Fluid Motion Architects and nearly 10 years in the making, the modern appearance of the almost completed Vali-e-Asr mosque in Tehran is facing harsh opposition from Iran's conservative establishment.

"The Vali-e-Asr mosque doesn’t have a minaret, nor a dome; neither did the first mosque," the design architects Reza Daneshmir and Catherine Spiridonoff tell the Guardian. "A mosque is a place for worship, and the Qur’an doesn’t dictate a special structure for it. It’s what it contains that is important."

Are US Muslims abandoning domes and minarets out of fear?

2012-02-02T11:05:00-05:00

"You can have a grand dome and grand minaret, but if it doesn't really serve the purpose, if it only has a large prayer space and nothing else, then you're not really fulfilling the needs of the community," he says.

In post 9/11 America the construction of new mosques in the US has sometimes sparked controversy and even confrontation. Is that why some new Muslim houses of worship are being built without the most recognisable features of Islamic architecture - minarets and domes?

Archinect - News

No minarets? No dome? Tehran's modern mosque draws the ire of conservatives

Are US Muslims abandoning domes and minarets out of fear?