Houston mosques: Space, place and religious meaning

Abstract

In thinking about space/power/knowledge intersections, we offer a rich and descriptive account of the urban mosque, which has far too long been neglected. Our account reveals a descriptive language as a basis for aesthetic syncretism and the creation of an American Muslim leitmotif. The leitmotif can be identified as “a thing of space;” therefore, the community “determines its [aesthetic] choices, draws its figures [plans], and [informal] translations. It is in [urban] space that it transports itself” (Crampton and Elden, Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and Geography. Ashgate, Hampshire, 2007). Also Foucault’s Heterotopias helps us to deconstruct the xenophobic commodification of political propaganda, but to address the urban mosque as an American leitmotif we draw the attention to the characteristics of its physical adaption within Houston.