Labelle Prussin, “The Architecture of Islam in West ... - David Rifkind

The Architecture of Islam in West Africa
Author(s): Labelle Prussin
Source: African Arts, Vol. 1, No. 2, (Winter, 1968), pp. 32-74
Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3334324
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(4) Mosque at Djenne: Interior
32
Labelle Prussin
The mosque expresses
the crystallization in
three dimensions of the
unique synthesis between
Islamic cultural features
and the cultures of
indigenous West African
societies.
THE ARCHITECTURE
OF
ISLAM
IN WEST AFRICA
L'architecture a 4et l'art le plus neglig6 de 'Afrique: elle a ete
etudiee par les anthropologues et les archeologues qui ne la considerent
pas sous son aspect artistique.
A cette disaffection s'ajoute la supposition superficielle que l'usage
de l'argile, parce qu'elle est une matiere qui manque de permanence,
rend la construction trop eph-mere pour justifier des recherches serieuses.
Les mosquees de 'Afrique occidentale, en fait, d6ploient une variete
de styles et de formes dont la parfaite harmonie entre la beaute structurelle
et la conception fonctionelle donne naissance A une forme d'art
digne d'un grand interet.
Le developpement de leurs styles peut etre suivi au travers de la
chronologie (par exemple, la penetration islamique) ou des conditions
geographiques (par exemple, le climat). II aboutit a une monumentalite
qui est bien un caractere propre a l'architecture.
Labelle Prussin analyse la mosquee soudanaise qu'elle divise en cinq
varietes: Timbouctou, Djenne, Bobo Dioulasso, Kong, et Kawara. Du
point de vue socio-politico-g6ographique, les caracteres architecturaux
de chaque type refletent les caracteres distinctifs de la r6gion. En depit
des variations qui modifient l'aspect de la mosquee du nord au sud,
on peut cependant aisement identifier son style. La mosquee est une
expression concrete du symbolisme, le reflet d'une culture a un moment
particulier dans le temps-bref, tout ce qui contribue a definir les
canons de 'architecture.
The presence of Islam is immediately demonstrated by the mosques,
simple or elaborate, set against the skylines of many West African
towns. Miss Prussin, an architect who has lived in Africa for several
years, here analyzes the stylistic features characterizing these buildings.
She argues for their importance both as an art form and as evidence
of the synthesis which results when man seeks to achieve monumentality
as a testimony of his faith.
Numbers within parentheses refer to illustrations.
O f all the arts of sub-Saharan
Africa, architecture has remained an
orphan child. Sculpture, music, the
dance, have come into their own, but
architecture has remained, with rare
exception, an unrecognized art, relegated
to the realm of anthropology
or archeology; even in these disciplines,
references are in the nature of
fleeting glimpses, tangential
to the
main focus of their concern. This lack
of attention to African architecture
cannot be surprising when one considers
the reasons which account for
such a lacuna in the African Arts.
First, perhaps, is the almost complete
absence of field studies with an architectural
orientation. Ethnographic fieldwork
in Africa has been carried out
on a micro-level, anthropologically
oriented and geographically localized.
A researcher may see and record the
building activity of a particular ethnic
grouping in the area of his concentration,
but either current disfavor towards
studies in material culture or
the researcher's own lack of architectural
perceptiveness will prevent him
from noting the subtleties which announce
the presence of an architectural
motif. Ethnographic provincialism, the
result of in-depth study, has deprived
him of a spatial perspective. Not since
the aerial framework of Frobenius'

(1) Sankore mosque at Timbucktoo
,c -~ -' . L -? ~ ~ *i-.-.
(2) Tomb of Askia Muhamed at Gao
.(10) Mosqu?...e ,at Kawara. -- . -
(10) Mosque at Kawara
(3) Mosque at Djenne
i
.
33

(7) Mosque at Bobo Dioulasso
Monumentality is
achieved through a sense
of verticality.
(5) Mosque at Mopti
34
Kulturkreise, albeit theoretically unfashionable
today, has consideration
been given to the geographic or stylistic
extensiveness of architectural
forms in sub-Saharan Africa.
Secondly, the building technology
of sub-Saharan Africa is based on materials
of short durability: the life-span
of building structures is comparatively
short. Mud is not considered a respectable
architectural medium, since historically,
in the architectural perspective,
monumentality is associated with
permanence. Stone construction is almost
non-existent today, and what re-
I.-
I
mains of stone monuments from past
centuries has scarcely been uncovered
by the limited resources devoted to
African archeology.
Third, and perhaps most important
is the attitude, shared by architect and
layman alike, that building in sub-
Saharan Africa is not architecture at
all, but at most, building technology:
shelter is seen only in terms of the
techniques which its builder commands,
and not in terms of its aesthetic
value. The most generous critic will
award it the term Urarchitektur, the
less generous critic, the term primitive

shelter. Such an attitude is reminiscent
of early approaches to African sculpture.
Imbued with an aesthetic sense
socially conditioned by Western philosophy,
the critic viewed the examples
of African sculpture which had found
their way to the ethnographic mu-
seums of Europe, as immature attempts
to represent nature. Failing to
realize that the bases of reference in
Africa differed greatly from those of
Europe, the critic failed to place these
examples in their proper perspective.
As a consequence, a penetrating anal-
ysis and study of African aesthetics
was, until recently, impossible. Unfortunately,
such Victorian attitudes
still prevail with regard to African
architecture.
The savannah belt of West Africa,
an area paralleling the equator, travels
east to west and extends from the
ancient emporia strung out along the
bend of the Niger River to the periphery
of the rainforest. Within this
belt, the Western Sudan and more
specifically the boucle du Niger and
the Voltaic Basin are of particular
concern to us here. This area is associated
with three important historical
sequences: the diaspora of the Mandespeaking
people, the northwestern
trade routes linking the Niger emporia
to Kumasi and the Guinea Coast, and
the activities related to the jihad of
Samori in the late nineteenth century.
It is here that a particular type of
mosque abounds which Frobenius,
Marty, Trimingham, and others have
termed Sudanese, so called simply because
it was found in the former
French Sudan. From an historical point
of view, this area is to be distinguished
from its eastern counterpart where
Hausa state formation, the Fulani
jihads, and the consequences of the
northeastern trans-Saharan trade routes
gave rise to a different kind of architectural
expression.
In any savannah environment, and
the West African savannah is no exception,
mud is used almost exclusively
as an indigenous building material by
sedentary peoples. But mud can be
used in many ways, and indigenous
building, diverse in both its forms and
in the functions it serves, evidences a
wide range of types. The circular
roundhouse clusters, capped by their
thatched roof bonnets and dispersed
over the arid landscape, are at one end
of the range. At the other end are the
flat-roofed, rectangular houses replete
with pierced parapet walls, crowded
into tightly nucleated villages which
appear in the distance as small, fortified
medieval towns. Intermingled with
this range of sedentary buildings are
the various nomadic transient shelters
of thatch, woven mats, or skins, whose
Continued on p. 70
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Continued from p. 35
THE ARCHITECTURE OF ISLAM
occupants live in symbiotic relationship
with their sedentary mud-building
neighbors.
Whether this broad range of building
types, each with its attendent technology,
constitutes architecture, is still
open to question. However, the Sudanese
mosque, appearing as a singular,
unified form throughout the area,
seems to evidence many of the currently
prescribed canons of architecture.
It pervades the area, dominating
a wealth of ethnic building diversity.
Stylized and symbolic, it is immediately
identifiable visually. While some degree
of modification occurs in the form as
it disperses across the savannah belt,
the basic form remains, recognizable
and distinctive.
When discussing almost any topic
relating to the Western Sudan, one fact
must be kept in mind: the presence of
Islam-a force which pervades all aspects
of the community in which it is
found. It is Islam as a force that gave
rise to the mosques, palaces, and tombs
found there. In recent years, what can
be referred to as the Architecture of
Islam has been studied in great detail
by such authorities as Creswell, Terrasse,
and others; however, their extensive
fieldwork was concerned with
the Near East, North Africa, and
southern Spain, not with sub-Saharan
Africa. A scholar interested in the architecture
of Islam in this part of the
world must comb through available
material contained in Arabic sources,
in accounts by eighteenth and nineteenth
century explorers and travelers,
in archeological reports, and in microethnographic
descriptions. Further, in
order to understand the Islamic architecture
of the Western Sudan, it is
necessary to become familiar with the
history of Islamic penetration into
West Africa, i.e., the processes of synthesis
which took place between the
evangelists of Islam and the indigenous
cultures they encountered, as well as
with the nature of the cultures themselves.
Only then does it become Although elsewhere Islamic architecture
generally includes palaces and
tombs as well as mosques, in West
Africa it is the mosque which embodies
Islam. Palaces and tombs are prominent
only during the span of the Islamic
empires of Ghana, Mali, and
Songhai. They appeared only
possible
to comprehend architecturally not
only the mosque, but the tomb and
the palace. Only then is it possible to
trace the impact of Islam on indigenous
building forms.
While the architecture of the Sudanese
mosque derives from North
Africa, Islamic architecture in West
Africa is nevertheless unique. It is a
corruption of neither Egyptian nor
North African form but expresses in
its essence the adjustments and modifications
to the highly ritualized character
of Islam, which specifically prescribes
both the floor plan of a mosque
and the activities relevant to its use.
when
commercial development fostered the
growth of urban centers and generated
the emergence of class groupings.
These in turn subsumed the preceding
network of kinship relationships and
permitted the establishment of an incipient
state structure, at whose seats
in the urban centers the sites of palaces
and tombs were to be found. On
the other hand, the mosque as an
architectural feature is omnipresent,
both spatially and temporally, despite
the formal variations which may occur
in its diaspora from north to south.
The spread of Islam into the western
savannah falls into a number of
historical phases. These phases each
represent, in turn, a new cultural
pattern, varying with the process of
acculturation to Islam. If an architectural
style is a manifestation of a culture
as a whole, representing the crystallization
of a number of cultural
dimensions-not only those of environment
and technology, but those of social,
political, and economic spheres as
well-it should be possible to relate
the qualitative variables, which the
mosque evidences, to the historical
phases through which Islam passed. It
is, in fact, this interplay between the
various cultural dimensions, changing
over time and space in their physical
expression, that constitutes the fabric
of architectural history.
Formal modifications, which take
place in the mosque as it travels from
north to south, pertain to size and scale,
structure itself, finesse of construction
and detail, definition of plane surfaces
and the degree of verticality, as well
as to the deviations from the prescribed
plan layout which Islamic orthodoxy
demands. This gradual formal transformation
results from many factors,
of which the changes in climatic conditions,
the present and available building
materials, and the techniques and
skills of construction are but a few.
Equally important are the location of
the mosque in an urban or rural milieu,
the method by which it was established
in the area-whether by a single
marabout, by a migrant people, or the
result of state-building activity-and
the degree of acceptance or rejection
of Islam and the related cultural attributes
of Islam by a host group.
The architecture of the Sudanese
mosque is, like its substrata of savan-

nah building technology, essentially
mud architecture. While mud as a
building material permits great flexi-
bility and fluidity in the treatment of
plane surfaces, it imposes great limita-
tions upon potential structural form.
Thus, within the discipline of the ma-
terial, a number of basic variations
emerge. These variations group them-
selves into five categories: the Tim-
bucktu, Djenne, Bobo Dioulasso, Kong,
and Kawara types. This classification
relates not only to alteration in the
formal arrangement of minarets, stairs,
and inner courtyards, which are the
result of deviation from prescribed
practice and politics of orthodox Islam,
but to stylistic and qualitative dimen-
sions as well. In turn, these five types
find correlation with the historical pe-
riods of Islam's penetration into West
Africa and with the changing cultural
character of each period.
The first phase in the spread of Islam
into the Western Sudan began with
the influx of Arabized Berber traders
and clerics from Mauretania, reaching
its apex in the adoption of Islam as
an imperial cult. This expansion, per-
sonified in the fame of Mansa Musa
and Askia Muhamed I, was centered
in the great urban trading capitals of
first, Timbucktu (see Illustration 1) and
then, Gao. Islam as an imperial cult
was an urban phenomenon, limited to
the immediate trading community.
Here it existed side by side with a
mosaic of indigenous African religions.
The lack of both a rural base and con-
flict with traditional rule lent a dualist
character to Islam. It is to this phase
of Islamic history that the Timbucktu
type, exemplified in both the Djingue-
reber and the Sankore mosques, as
well as in the tomb of Askia Muhamed
at Gao (2), corresponds.
Its appearance is limited to a few
major urban centers, at that time entre-
pots of trans-Saharan trade and the
seats of precarious empires. The massive
scale and the pyramidal minarets gen-
erate an extreme feeling of heaviness, a
heaviness further accentuated by the
lack of plane definition. The minarets
are built up solidly of mud, permitting
only a shaft-like access to their roofs.
The exterior surface of the minarets
are pierced by projecting timbers
which, while appearing haphazard,
nevertheless provide permanent scaf-
folding for the maintenance of mud
wall surfaces-a requirement imposed
by climatic conditions. They also trans-
mit the stresses which are set up when
a mass of mud is subjected to rapid
changes in humidity and temperature.
The timbers thus serve to concentrate
the resultant cracking along prescribed
lines.
Tradition credits the introduction of
the Sudanese building style as a whole,
and the Timbucktu type in particular,
to an Andalusian poet, Es-Saheli, who
was brought back by Mansa Musa on
his return from a grand pilgrimage to
Mecca. However, the tradition has
been questioned by a number of au-
thorities. Architectural style is rarely
set by a single designer functioning
out of his milieu. The adaptation of a
style requires a supporting technology
and skills derivative of the cultural set-
ting into which it is introduced, both
of which were lacking at Timbucktu.
Timbucktu never developed as a
center of Negro-Islamic learning, de-
spite the existence of a university center
there. It never became a true city-state,
and its peoples remained heterogene-
ous, never constituting a unified group.
The city was kept in a continual state
of insecurity by its own disunity and
by the continual harassment of no-
madic Tuareg tribes. Thus the architec-
ture of its mosques, while massive and
powerful in scale, remains heavy and
crude. Nonetheless, these Great
Mosques do represent the most ancient
prototype of Islamic architecture in
West Africa, a prototype which has
persisted in time. Although the recon-
struction of the Sankore mosque is of
recent date, it continues to embody
the earlier form.
Contrary to general impression, it
was Djenne rather than Timbucktu
which developed not only into a more
stable center of trade, but became the
intellectual seat of Negro-Islamic learn-
ing. As a city-state, Djenne was sup-
ported in its hinterland by a strong
agricultural foundation, and its posi-
tion on the Bani River protected it
with an admirable network of water-
ways. As a consequence, it was not
subject to the same ravages which be-
leaguered Timbucktu. Djenne marks a
second phase in Islamic history, a
phase in which Negro-Islamic culture
flourished over a number of centuries.
With the growth of a stable, urban
milieu, there developed the skilled
craftsmanship so essential for the
growth of an articulate architecture.
Djenne's cityscape is characterized by
a distinctive, carefully articulated ar-
chitectural flavor, a flavor which be-
comes crystallized in its mosque. Since
climatic restrictions placed upon mud
construction within the Niger flood
plains are no different than those fur-
ther north, contrast with the Timbucktu
type can only be explained culturally.
The Djenne type of mosque (3),
paralleling the apical role and position
of Djenne in West African history, ap-
pears as a quintessence of architectural
form. Formal elements are carefully
and sharply defined in the interplay of
wall surfaces, in parapet construction,
and through the use and placement of
wooden dentils obtained by cutting the
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trunks of the fan palm. The symmetry
of its fagade, composed of three major
minarets rhythmically interspersed
with absolutely vertical buttresses,
competes with the best traditions of
the Beaux Arts. Above all, it achieves
a sense of verticality-one of those
canons of architecture-unrivalled in
this part of the world. In contrast to
the Timbucktu type which possesses
only a feeling for mass, the Djenne
mosque achieves a remarkable sense
of spatial enclosure. The minarets are
not built up of a mass of solid material,
but rather enclose an ample set of
spiral mud stairs which leads upwards
to the roof from where the muezzin
calls the faithful to prayer: the minarets
are thus an expression of their
true function. The incorporation of the
minaret as an integral element of the
facade itself marks an innovation in
mosque design. The mosque interior
with its rhythmic definition of space
might, with a bit of imagination, easily
satisfy the criterion of loftiness with
which Gothic architecture endows the
cathedral(4). Its setting, conforming
to the classic tenets of urban design,
provides a formal approach which permits
the viewer to marvel at the magnitude
of its scale and structure, a
magnitude enhanced by the residual
architecture which serves as its backdrop.
The Djenne prototype can be found
in a number of large towns bordering
the Niger flood plains, such as at
Mopti(5) and San(6). The mosques at
Mopti and San, although reputed to
have been built by Djenne craftsmen,
do not retain the qualitative level of
the Djenne mosque. The one at Mopti,
while retaining the finesse of detail and
an equally sharp delineation of surfaces
in its buttressing, is deprived of some
of its monumentality by both the absence
of a plaza-type approach and the
lack of a strongly defined facade symmetry.
The mosque at San, while very
much a replica of Djenne in regard to
symmetry and approach, suffers in the
articulation of its detail, the sharpness
of delineation, and in its verticality.
While the mosques at Timbucktu,
dating back many centuries, have been
(6) Mosque at San
72
continuously modified as a result of
annual maintenance, the mosque at
Djenne and its replicas are of recent
vintage, dating from the turn of this
century. It would seem that the persistence
of a constant form over such
a great span of time provides one of
the keys to an understanding of their
unique quality. They remain a testimony
to the early centuries of Islamic
penetration into West Africa, marking
a period of expansive state-building
activity.
The Djenne and Timbucktu types
eventually merge, giving rise centuries
later to two new variations: the Bobo
Dioulasso(7) and the Kong(8) types,
both found in the southerly savannah
reaches of the Western Sudan, in an
area encompassed by the activities relevant
to the Samori jihad. Both types
relate to the dispersion of and the colonization
by Mande peoples moving
down from the northwest, a diaspora
initiated and led by their trading
classes. Although the Mande immigrants
into the southern savannah
zones were pagan, the trading classes
among them were Muslims. It was the
Muslim Mande traders who, extending
their commercial activities over vast
areas of what is now the northern
Ivory Coast, northwestern Ghana, and
the southern Upper Volta, created the
commercial centers around which Muslim
communities grew. However, these
centers were in large measure autonomous,
their solidarity reinforced through
isolation. Where their commercial activity
enabled them to increase their
influence over the surrounding pagan
communities, they were able to gain
political control and to form small
village-states. Thus, Bobo Dioulasso
and Kong types are an expression of a
politico-religious structure vested in a
village-in contrast to the earlier large
mosques which were symbolic of an
imperial organization. As a consequence,
they are much smaller in scale
and lack the monumentality which
characterize both the Timbucktu and
Djenne types. They appear as small,
modified scale models of their northern
counterparts. Distinctions between
the Bobo and Kong types rest primarily
on an adaptation to climatic conditions,
rather than on distinctions in
cultural tradition.
At Bobo Dioulasso, the vertical buttressing
so sharply delineated at Djenne
is still discernible, as are the dominating
minarets derivative of Timbucktu.
However, the flaring out and thickening
of the buttress elements at their
base detracts from the quality of vertical
rhythm, a quality still evident but
rapidly disappearing under the onslaught
of reduced scale and climatic
accommodation. Projecting timbers,
particularly from the two minarets,
still manage to retain a semblance of
regularity, but their multiplicity, cou-
pled with the introduction of horizontal
bracing between the dominant buttress
forms, detracts further from verticality.
Both innovations are a function
of the increased humidity of the southern
savannah. Despite these modifications,
however, the classic mosque
floor plan with its enclosed prayer hall,
its mihrab, its interior courtyard, and
internal stair spiraling within the minaret
to the roof, all remain.
Kong, another one-time capital of a
village-state, was an important Muslim
Mande center of commerce, lying
much closer to the rainforest. Timber
here is both more plentiful and available
in greater lengths. But it is nevertheless
savannah timber, characterized
by gnarling and distortive growth, in
contrast to the straight grain of the
fan palm which is available further
north. The increased rains require even
heavier buttressing and increased annual
maintenance, as well as additional
horizontal reinforcing. The result is an
architectural form which uses and reflects
a second material: wood. However,
this now extensive use of timber
reinforcing, while creating an interesting
contrast of media, at the same time
introduces horizontality as a major design
feature. There is a further decrease
in buttress definition, and a more bulbous
minaret emerges. The minaret,
now a solid mass of mud, no longer
houses the access stair. It has lost its
function, remaining only as a symbolic
link to Mecca. One almost feels as if
the mosque at Kong does not quite get
off the ground.
The use of timber for horizontal
bracing in the proximity of the rainforest
is a function of the size of the
mosque. The size of the mosque is
itself a function of the urban milieu.
As a consequence, the use of horizontal
timber bracing in the southern savannah
prevails only in the larger mosques,
those found in the centers of what
were once village-states. As one moves
out into the rural landscape, the scale
of the mosque, such as that of Larabanga(9),
diminishes further, a result
not only of size, but of the broader
based buttressing which the lack of
building skill demands. Islam comes to
the rural scene in the person of a
single marabout, and he builds from
memory a replica of a mosque seen
elsewhere, without benefit of either
supporting skills, technology, or commitment
to Islam by the host population.
The mosque gradually loses any
resemblance, in its plan, to either its
northern counterparts or to the rigid
prescriptions of Islamic orthodoxy. En-
trances, losing their human scale, become
diminutive, so that it becomes
Continued on p. 74

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necessary to stoop in order to enter.
The minaret loses its dominant position
in the design and is hardly distinguishable
from the bulk of buttressing.
Finally, as if to complete the cycle,
the Kawara mosque stands as the
epitomy of a rural mosque(10). Al-
though absolutely fluid in its three dimensions,
the Kawara type is totally
lacking in either verticality or monumentality.
It no longer possesses any
architectural feeling for spatial enclosure,
remaining rather with only a sculptural
feeling for mass. Architectural
form has dissolved into sculptural
form. The use of the mosque interior
has been abandoned-it no longer has
an architectural function. Its plan bears
no resemblance to the classic mosque
form, and Friday activities take place
in a demarcated open space adjoining
the symbolic structure. It is this type
of mosque, not as well executed, not as
striking, not as consistent in its sculptural
fluidity as the Kawara example,
which prevails on the rural savannah
landscape.
Thus, although there exists a singular
architectural style in West Africa, various
factors have entered into its alteration
and modification as it traveled from
the bend of the Niger River to the
periphery of the rainforest in the wake
of Islamic penetration. The modification
was explained only in part by
attempts to maintain a form arising
out of one set of environmental conditions,
in areas where physical conditions
were less conducive to its maintenance.
A major part of the explanation
lies rather in the less rigid adherence
to the dogma and forms prescribed by
Islamic doctrine. If it is true that architecture
is a conscious expression of
commitment, that it is a physical expression
for symbolism, that it is an
intellectualization of material elements
arranged in three dimensions, that it
is actually a reflection of culture at a
given point in time, then any changes
which take place in that particular
culture are also reflected architecturally.
The modifications witnessed in
(9) Mosque at Larabanga
74
the mosque form support the above
hypothesis, for indeed the basic revisions
to, and the relaxations of, Islamic
dogma, are reflected in the architecture
of the Sudanese mosque.
Architectural expression involves a
constancy of form which gives rise to
a style, an accompanying emotional
involvement by the viewer and the
user, and a monumentality through
which symbolism is achieved. Where
these qualities exist, one can speak of
architecture as being present.
Architecture, unlike the other fine
arts, deals with the problem of use/
utility/function alongside the problem
of symbolic expression. A piece of architecture,
in addition to being of direct
physical service to man, becomes an
expression of his social and cultural
aspirations. When, as in the case of an
arc de triomphe, the symbolism itself
is its function, the structure created
moves over into the realm of sculpture.
When architectural forms become a
style, they act as a vehicle of expression
for group identification. However,
certain requisites should be fulfilled before
this emotional involvement can
be attached to a physical manifestation:
an institutionalization of that
expression into a system of constant
elements, forms, and qualities within
a society, and the visual identity of a
particular structure through a unity
of formal elements.
As one traces the Sudanese mosque
from its northerly-most Timbucktu
site to its southerly-most Kong site, the
consistency of its form is striking. De-
spite the modifications which occur,
this constancy of symbolic form is so
strong that no matter where one travels,
no matter what the indigenous
ethnically defined building patterns
may be, the mosque is immediately
identifiable by its distinctive architectural
features.
The use of architectural form to
achieve explicit symbolic statements of
the nature of a society is not unique
in history: the pyramids, the feudal
castle, St. Peters, Versailles, or Brasilia,
as well as the Great Mosques of Kairouan
or Cordova are all illustrative of the
cultures which created them. The Sudanese
mosque is no different. It, too, is
a symbolization achieved by emotional
response which a visual identity evokes.
The mosque embodies the role of islam
in West Africa as a religious, political,
and an economic force.
It is also necessary to distinguish the
symbolism of an ancestral shrine from
the symbolism involved in the expression
of a range of socio-political rela-
tionships within society. The shrine
has a symbolic value only for the allinclusive
role which kinship plays in
a particular society; but when the society
becomes more differentiated and
(8) Mosque at Kong
the ruling powers are desirous of
maintaining their position, symbolism
achieves permanence through monu-
mentality. Dwellings are not monumental
nor are the shrines within them.
Only those edifices which express the
prevailing dominant theme running
through the fabric of a society can
achieve monumentality. In the history
of West Africa it is the mosque, and
not the pagan tribal head's "palace,"
which has achieved architectural monumentality.
The mosque becomes an
expression of the multiple role which
Islam played in subsuming the kinship
function and in creating an incipient
state structure. Indigenous cultures
were, in the main, acephalous or polycephalous
societies with little political
differentiation. Hence the residences
of tribal rulers, while boasting superb
sculptural appendages, never achieved
the level of architectural definition or
distinction which might lay a base for
monumentality.
Monumentality is achieved formally
through a sense of verticality-both
symbolic and accessible-whether it
be the Sumer ziggurat, the Gothic
spire, the U.N. Building or the Islamic
minaret. One is tempted to use the
prevalence of a vertical quality in the
Sudanese mosque as a measure of
Islam's efficacy within a particular in-
digenous culture as one follows the
basic form in its journey from Djenne
to Kawara.
Architecture has been defined as a
physical expression involving a constancy
of form and an accompanying
symbolism. Such symbolism, when allencompassing,
is embodied in monumentality
as a qualitative dimension.
Verticality is one of the means by
which such monumentality is achieved.
All the above noted qualities are present,
in varying degree, in the Islamic
architecture of West Africa, as embodied
in its mosques. Singular and
distinctive, the Sudanese mosques are
three-dimensional crystallizations of
the unique synthesis between the kind
of Islam which penetrated from across
the Sahara and the indigenous cultures
of West Africa-a synthesis nutured in
U
the savannah environment.