the Mosque

Mosque: its essence, its role and its link to the failed modern state
Abstract
This chapter is an attempt to read the mosque in a phenomenological manner, by that meant: the study of structures of consciousness as experienced by the visiter and beliver in the Arab Middle Eastern society. it also attempt tries to outline the role of this significant and permanent institution. After establishing the nature of the mosque the chapter also aims to pose questions about the role of the institution and its link to the failed modern state. Is mosque a civil society institution, if not, so what is it.
Despite its important role in the societal and political sphere, mosque as most permanent institution has not been studied in details. This lack might be the result of, absence of phenomenological study among Muslim societies, on one hand on the other hand the taboo that accompanies question such a holy place. In addition of all that, mosque is visible and part of the daily life, thus, the urge of studying it is never emerged.


What is a mosque?
Mosque is not an ordinary building (place) by any standard. This is not only in architectural wise. It is an extraordinary place: like any other religious temple. If the language tells us about the nature or the essence of a thing (Heidegger, 1993: 383), then to demonstrate clearly the true meaning of such an institution, one has to return to the related original language.
Mosque is called in Arabic masjid. Masjad is a location where the act of sjod occurs. Sjod is bowing in front of a holy figure. Such act, in Islam, is only permitted to Allah. Therefore, mosque is a place for submission to Allah. It is also called bet allah al haram i.e. Allah’s holy abode or place. This does not designate that Allah is dwelling there. But it is a place or a space belongs to Allah, among his abd slaves or worshippers. Therefore, mosque is a place that belongs to Allah in the middle of the community.
The building, in term of verticality and size is dominant and visible. Through its tall and high minaret one can see everywhere in the surrounding area. With the emergence and the arrival of technology the power of mosque became greater. Through the loudspeaker no one can ignore the call and also the Friday prayer, especially the speech, which follows after.
While, in most places, the state is the main builder, there are other mosques, which are built, by individual and named after them. However, this does not indicate that there are private mosques; the name is rather for recognition and personal pride in the society, than ownership.
It is a space that is there and belongs to elsewhere. It is an exceptional space: belongs to the community without being part of it. Muslims goes or obliged to go five time a day for prostration. They engage is particular act and practice. This practice called salat i.e. prayer, but the Arabic word also indicates contact. The Prayer salat is an essential ritual for Muslims. It is one of the main five pillars of Islam. However it can be conducted anywhere, but it is more rewarding if it is practiced in a mosque. Since the mosque is the point, where man can communicate with Allah, thus entering mosque is not permitted without ablution wodhu’ of oneself. One has to go through a particular cleaning ritual, commencing with ttaharat. This cleaning has to take place in the vicinity of the mosque i.e. before entering the actual space of worship. Prior to incoming into the mosque the shoes or the sandal has to be taken off. These rituals indicate that there is a clear line and a border between the two spaces: outside and inside. One is not sanctioned to take the dirt of the man’s world into the sacred house of Allah. It also emphasises that the praying is not merely spiritual exercises, it is also a body ritual. The importance of the practice, in regard to believe, was clearly demonstrated by Pascal “kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe” (Althusser, 2001:114).
Mosque is a location of purification, which can also play the role of reducing the stress and burden of living on the believer. Salat can be an act of escape. This very act of departure, this possibility, enables man to find a space beyond the world: a space to disconnect, to detach the self from the distress of the reality. Connecting to Allah through salat and complaining to him after the end of the practice: is an act of protest against real distress of the world. This act is significant in a way first provides a channel to diffuse the pain and oppression into somewhere beyond. Especially when outside the mosque is a place where “there is an increase in repression of reformists, human rights defenders and activists, the independent press and electronic media, leaders of protest movements, and of other forms of political action” (2008). In this regard the mosque becomes the alternative space to reality. It offers a “sigh to the oppressed creature, a heart to the heartless world, a spirit to the spiritless situation” (Marx, 1)
Therefore, the mosque and its outside are engaged in the dialectic of inside outside: inside Allah and outside the state. Thus the feeling of diversion, of support by almighty Allah, in the face of the cruelty of the world is a feeling, in the orthodox Muslim society, resulted in de politicisation of man, consequently into anti-political community. Once the believer is inside he has to surrender to the rule of the place. Like every other societal “segment” (Deleuze, 2006:93) it markets its clear boundary. When one in inside the mosque one is clearly in the mosque, thus one has to obey the rule of the place. Mosque regularly and repetitively trains the incomers to listen to only one speaker, to be silent, to not question, to not argue, to be thankful and eventually to be docile.
To put it in a nutshell:
Mosque is the most present and dominant institute in the Muslim society
It is the institution that holds truth, and more importantly seen and regarded as the truth holder.
It has a long and sacred narrative, which is used to set up hegemony
It is a machine of repetition especially in the moral sphere, which aims to establish a law, shar’a.
Since it has hegemony over the speech and the hegemony over the loudest voice, it can be used as a machine for silencing.


How mosque functioning as the ideological state apparatus
In order to establish the link a question about the nature of ideological state apparatuses has to be asked. What is an ideological state apparatus? After distinguishing it from the ‘repressive state apparatuses’ like (Government, administration, army, police, courts, prisons) Althusser (1971:143) defines Ideological State Apparatuses “as a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions”. These are like religious ideological state apparatus ISA (the system of the different Churches), The educational ISA (the system of the different public and private 'Schools'), The family ISA, The legal ISA, The political ISA (the political system, including the different Parties), The trade union ISA, The communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.), The cultural ISA (Literature, the Arts, sports, etc.) (1971:144).

If all Ideological State Apparatuses, whatever they are, contribute to the same result: “the reproduction of the relations of production” (Marx). Then in the failed modern state, mosque, among many other apparatuses, stand as the most dominant and the powerful apparatus contributing into the survival of the failed modern state. Failed modern state had a semi civilizational shift in which Islam is partially removed from the public domain, to make room for the emerging state, and incorporated (re-inscribed) under the control of the wazart alawqaf (Directorate of Religious Affairs). Here Islam is re-politicised to support the state's nation-building project. Islam, in this sense, truly becomes an official state religion. Article two in the Egyptian constitution states “Islam is the religion of the state……Principles of Islamic law (Shari'a) are the principal source of legislation”. While the article three in Syrian constitution states: “The religion of the President of the Republic has to be Islam. Islamic jurisprudence is a main source of legislation”. This sin-qua-non-relationship between the failed modern state and the religion is more apparent in the post Saddam’s constitution. The article three in the new Iraqi constitution demonstrate “Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation: no law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established”. Theses are the samples of most secular and modern states among failed modern states. Which indicates that Islam is the official religion of state. Its apparatuses are being funded and supervised by the state. The state supervises institutions (mosques) around the country through appointing mullahs for the mosques and paying salary to them. These institutions are overseeing various social and communal activities, which at the end enhance the roll of state in implementing its capture over personal and private area.

For instance the ministry of religious affaire Awqaf in Kingdome of Jordan, according to its official website, has objectives like:

1- Maintenance, development, preservation, and management of mosques and Awqaf funds
2. Development of mosques to deliver the message of Islamic education.
3-Nourish the spirit of sacrifice, strife and stability in the nation and strengthen morals through the teachings of Islam and guidance of the faith.
4. Nurture and solidify Islamic mannerisms in the private and public lives of all Muslims.
5. Support public Islamic functions and the scriptures; call for the establishment of religious institutes and schools to teach recital of the Holy Koran.
6. Spread Islamic culture and preserve Islamic heritage; reveal the role of Islam in the elevation of mankind and bring Muslims closer to their faith.

What is becoming apparent in this list of objective, of the ministry, is its complex function as a machine. For instance the idea of “nourishing the spirit of sacrifice, strife and stability in the nation and strengthen morals through the teachings of Islam and guidance of the faith” is a clear sign of the role that the religion, through this machine, plays as a mechanism of identity maker. So, Islam is a discourse, through which notion of ‘sacrifice’, which in itself is an act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, is being put through. Such a notion for instance indicate that the person, citizen, member of community has to abandon his individual being and become part of the ‘we’, the nation, for the sake of the state. In other word, it is demanded, from the inhabitant within the territory of the state, to giving up everything, even their basic need for the state. If all the State Apparatuses, according to Althusser, function both by “repression and by ideology”, mosque through the state power and its religious ideology possess both main elements.
The mosque has many direct and indirect links to the state, which provide the service through.
If the mosque is the house of Allah, it indicates that it is not a house of man. House of man is the place where man dwells. But dwelling has its conditions. The question here is, is there a place can be called dwelling within the territory of failed modern state. To answer the question, there is a need to define the dwelling and outline its characteristics. According to Heidegger (1993:383) “man do not dwell because they built”, i.e. not every building can be a place for dwelling and not everything what man builds is for dwelling. So “in what does the nature of dwelling consist” (Heidegger, 1993:384)? After posing the question, Heidgeer excavating the old meaning of the related words and pay attentions to what language says. After going through this rather rigorous linguistic exercises he states that dwelling is: “to remain, to stay in a place” (1993:384). But how this remaining is experienced. In another word what are the conditions, the first proviso is to be “at peace, to be brought to peace, to remain in peace” (1993:352).
The word for peace, Friede, means the free, das Frye, and fry means: preserved from harm and danger, preserved from something, safeguarded. To free really means to spare. The sparing itself consists not only in the fact that we do not harm the one whom we spare. Real sparing is something positive and takes place when we leave something beforehand in its own nature, when we return it specifically to its being, when we "free" it in the real sense of the word into a preserve of peace. To dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature. The fundamental character of dwelling is this sparing and preserving. It pervades dwelling in its whole range. That range reveals itself to us as soon as we reflect that human being consists in dwelling and, indeed, dwelling in the sense of the stay of mortals on the earth.


Enhancing Heidgger’s view Levinas (1991:152) says “the privilege role of the home does not consist in being the end of human activity but in being its conditions and in this sense its commencement”. As Chapman commenting on “for man to be active in the world he need some form of base and security” (1988:68).
Judging it on these criteria, and comparing it with the human right reports, it is hard to state that the home or house, the place where people live, within the territory of the failed modern state, could reach the threshold of real dwelling.
If home or house is not offering the condition of dwelling and dwelling being the essence of being, the point of commencement, the space that man can withdraw from the world and attempt to understand it, then in this circumstances mosque becomes the alternative. But, what an alternative. Mosque cannot become home. It cannot become a location for dwelling: neither physical nor spiritual. Mosque in this case can only become a remedy for the homelessness of the man in the failed modern state. As it explained above the mosque cuts the man from the world, consequently man becomes anti-political. Mosque, by essence, is an anti political space. If politics is in general embracing three things: “definition of social problems and conflicts, the elaboration of binding decision and the establishment of its own rule” (Schedler, 1997:3). Mosque is not tolerating a rational i.e. human and independent definition of social problems. Since the mosque is not part of the society, like Hegel’s state, is standing above the society. Therefore, the mosque is not, and incapable, to participate horizontally in rational argumentation in order to define the problems. The problem would not exist if one follows and abides the rule of mosque. Thus the man is advised, threatened: by the ending up in hell, and never been regarded and listen to. Hence mosque is antipoilitical because it does not permit ‘elaboration’ and ‘establishment’ of rules for each social problem.

The FMS and the state
Every form of social formation requires an ideology. Islam, not wholly, but makes a big part of the ideological apparatus of the failed modern state. The other part includes concepts and narratives that belong to modernity like nationalism, revolution, etc. while, over the time, the rhetoric, which originated from the western modernity, are rusting and worn out, Islam is filling the void. However both Islam and western rhetoric are but merely a thin veneer to mask the real identity of the failed modern states, which is a void.
There is little doubt about the powerful location of mosque in the geography of society. There is no community without a mosque. The institution has a significant role and impact on the consciousness of the people. It has power and unlimited desire to implement it. If the modern state in its Weberian definition would be “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”, then there is no doubt that the failed modern state, as a power hunger fragile machine, desire to hold its monopoly and use mosque for that purpose.
Mosque is a space, through it, the failed modern state, relates to the tradition. This gate by no mean is highly significant. The reason that the failed modern state is not attempting to separate the mosque and state, in line with the separation of church and state in the west, is that firstly the failed modern state has no identity own its on, secondly, it has fear and impotency in establishing any institution apart from army and other security apparatuses. While the failed modern state knows that the religion, in the society cannot be suppressed. Even if it’s attempted the religion is reasserting itself where it was formerly stifled or thriving where it was never held back. When the identity of the failed modern state is merely a void, and the religion through its institutions speaks to profound questions to which many millions of people seek answers; especially the transcendental questions in social and spiritual areas.
If the power in the failed modern state is taken as a production then for the sake of continuity and survival of that production, ‘to last more than a year’, ‘reproduction of condition of production’ is desperately required. In this regard mosque plays a big role.
States monitors and put surveillance on the mosques, appoints mullahs, and sensors the sermons: as the result mosques becoming apolitical and irrelevant to the challenges of life at the present moment.

Can mosque play the role of civil society?
If civil society refers to “the arena of un-coerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values, its institutional forms is distinct from those of the state, family and market”, as the definition would goes (LSE, 2008). Accordingly, mosque can and has potentiality to play the role of civil society, to mediate between the state and society. But this potentiality remains only as potential, since it has no chance to become actuality. The potentiality of the mosque to be a civil societal institution is rather apparent. Especially if one believes that mosque can be an independent institutional infrastructure for political mediation and public exchange. But as Hardt (2000:158) cautiously highlights, it is “also important to be aware of the functions of discipline and exploitation that are inherent in and inseparable from these same structures”.
However even in the modern societies as Michel Foucault's work has made clear that the institutions of civil society “constitute the paradigmatic terrain for the disciplinary deployments of power, producing normalised subjects and thus exerting hegemony through consent in a way that is perhaps more subtle but no less authoritarian than the exertion of dictatorship through coercion” (2000:158). The mosque in the failed modern state is producing normalised subjects and normalised condition or situation directly or indirectly service the state and its apparatuses. When the mosque is ignoring to link the text with the reality and reducing religion into recitation of yarns, the result is the gap between political and religion. The gap made the mosque and orthodox Islam in the eyes of modern political Islam to be regarded as a non-Muslim jaheleyaa. Thus according to the modern political Islam, which is an antitheses to the modernity and failed modern state at the same time, religion has to be recomposed, reformed, in Islamic sense purified. Therefore, to return to the origin, fundamental or salaf.


London School of Economic centre of civil society
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/what_is_civil_society.htm


Schedler, A. (1997), ‘The End of Politics: Exploration of Modern Anti-politics’, Macmillan Press LTD, Great Briton.