Word: intentions
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...whole world is a mosque, the Prophet Muhammad once said. With pious intent, a faithful Muslim can conjure a mosque almost anywhere, transforming a desert sand dune, airport departure lounge or city pavement into a sacred space simply by stopping to pray. The first mosque was Muhammad's mud-brick house in Medina, where a portico of palm-tree branches provided shade for prayer and theological discussion. As the young religion spread, Arabs - and later Asians and Africans - developed their own ideas of what made a building a mosque. But that innovative spirit has slowed in recent decades, leaving most...
...West, where laws on noise levels mean they are rarely used for the call to prayer? What should a mosque attended by Muslims from different parts of the world look like? The boldest of the new mosques try to answer such questions but are also powerful statements of intent. "Islam wants to proclaim itself," says Hasan-Uddin Khan, an architecture professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. "These new mosques are saying, 'We are here, and we want it to be known that we are here...
...Paul Böhm, a German architect behind a new mosque planned for Cologne, minarets are a crucial part of designing a proud and honest building. "We believe this building should show its intent, and the minarets can help it do that," he says. "The Muslims of Germany have, over the last 40 or 50 years, been hiding in basements and [abandoned] manufacturing areas to pray. [Many Germans] have never recognized that they are part of society. Giving them a building which brings them up to the same status [as other faith groups] can help us understand and accept them...
...Obama even risked accepting the invitation of one British hack to give election advice to Prime Minister Brown, subverting the mischievous intent behind the question with a thoughtful response. "Over time, good policy is good politics," Obama said. Moreover, "you can wake up in the morning and look in the mirror." From a President only 73 days into his job to a politician who has served, respectively, as Chancellor and Prime Minister since 1997, such a response might have seemed presumptuous. Instead Brown smiled, apparently happy to bask in the reflected glow of Obama's optimism. Hope, as Obama continues...
...might entice that country away from so close an alliance with Iran. He also made a direct approach to the Iranian people, taping a New Year's holiday message of peace to the "Islamic Republic" - calling Iran by its formal name was a crucial signal that he was not intent on regime change - which forced the Supreme Leader into an embarrassing display of weakness, "rejecting" Obama's advance. Gelb believes that the way is clear for productive negotiations, with "a real possibility" that Iran's nuclear ambitions can be limited to peaceful uses...