After Hajj and its connection to the architectural symbol of the Ka'aba, prayer is Islam's only other 'pillar' with a physical and spatial dimension. Prayer occurs on multiple scales: the individual, the congregation, the community and the city, each with its own spatial features. While praying at home requires a minimum of attributes (worshippers need a prayer mat and should face the qibla), prayer at the scale of the city is reflected in the mosque, which takes on a variety of scales to serve different purposes. The masjid jami' hosts Friday prayers, for instance, and the Bid masjid is the largest as it hosts Eid prayers.3 Today, mosques act as emblems of Islam, conveying messages and meanings that go beyond the religious rituals that occur within their walls. To serve the needs of diverse communities around the globe, mosque design has developed a range of architectural styles which depend on each building's location, scale and any additional services it might offer. The emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is no exception. Over the past half-century, the country's rapid transformation has affected the built environment on multiple levels. Sharjah evolved from a series of fishing and trade route villages to high-rise metropolises whose dominant corporate culture relies heavily on Western architectural typologies. In Sharjah as in the rest of the UAE, the rapid growth of the past 50 years is reflected in international populations and diverse urban developments. This notion of the 'global' extends to local mosque design too. Specifically, the heterogeneity of contemporary mosque architecture in the UAE speaks of its societies' diverse makeup, especially if contrasted with older, more homogenous expressions. A reading of the evolution of the mosque in Sharjah reveals how this type is both an apparatus of change and a reflection of societal and urban developments - ultimately, it opens up fundamental questions about the future of these communal spaces.
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