Conclusion

Summary

Throughout this volume, masjids have been positioned not only as space but also as an interpretive lens through which to view Islam not only as a condition of being but also a mode of place-making and in fact interpreting the world. This has not only allowed diverse communities to come together in ways that were not previously thought to be possible, but it has also allowed communities to expand outwards, creating satellite societies that are physically separated yet nonetheless intimately connected and thus contained within a spiritual community, creating a “highly variegated ecology of Muslim experience” (Mandel 1996, 147). The volume has covered numerous masjid spaces in Africa that have either existed over a significant period of time or are just beginning to make their presence known. As representative mechanisms, these masjids not only actively reproduce diverse iterations of Islamic identity in Africa over time and space, but also adapt within these contexts in response to an evolving spectrum of influences, ideologies, and interventions that have each played important roles in shaping the contours of Islamic identity and practice within specific regional contexts. Importantly, these spaces challenge established ideas of space and architecture by generating progressive discussions of the masjid in terms of what it is and how it manifests in contemporary Africa as well as around the world. Such conversations are just beginning and will progress into the future as social, political, cultural, and spiritual identities continue to evolve. Thus, masjids must be seen, read, interpreted, and privileged as contextually embedded structural manifestations of the ways in which time and transformation have been allowed to act upon the environment, as well as spatial strategies and/or solutions to the problem of performing Muslim identity within the diverse contexts of Africa both now and moving in the future.