Gardens of the righteous: sacred space in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Cross Currents, Fall, 2002 by Akel Ismail Kahera

Fathy's architecture helps us to experience our environment and to see its transparencies. By making us aware of God as a Necessary Being, the Prime Mover and the Supreme creator his architecture speaks to the profound meaning of existence as reflected in the way we dwell. Hence, in the mosques he has built we see that the task of the architect, like the task of all humankind in general, is to return to our origin or at least to acknowledge our origin. For when we understand our origin, we are able to return to the One, who has created us from natural clay not reinforced concrete.

Seven Lamps into Three Religions

The seven lamps are all significantly related to each other. While the design conceptions for the synagogue, the church, and the mosque may differ in the estimation of the role and meaning of sacred space, the description of each edifice suggests a number of correspondences. It is tempting to ask to what extent are these seven lamps equally valid. But a larger question remains to be answered. How are aesthetics and belief related? Is there a relationship to the work of art proper? In either case "sacred space" embodies the search for an understanding, which renders the aim and the discovery purposely significant.

The aesthetic features of the synagogue, the church, and the mosque an exceedingly rich in a symbolic sense, sometimes beyond analogy Each edifice is an actual expression of a collective desire to "congregate" to find solace and to acquire a greater understanding of the sacred and the profane.

This is perhaps what these three Abrahamic faiths have in common; they al seek to understand or explain the divine, and above all, they honor the sacred laws, which govern our existence in this world.

The events of September 11 have reminded us of the existence of the dark side as well. These evil and sinful human acts are intended to take away our humanity which God, the Almighty, the Creator of the universe has given us and with which we are endowed with the fellowship to produce beauty.

We are spiritual beings we are the noblest form of creation, we possess human virtue, truth, the capacity to decide good and evil, and we are endowed with tem perance. Good always prevails over evil and coercion will never exist if virtue is paramount. Finally, the very substance of the spiritual life--what we call religion, has been probed in this essay with an objective inquiry to discover the mythic and symbolic aspects of primordial existence. Mircea Eliade demonstrates in numerous instances that primordial man irrespective of his religious belief, reveals his deepest source of organic, natural or "primordial" life. It is a life rich in myth, imagery and symbolism.

Notes

(1.) John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, (New York: Dover Publication, 1989).

(2.) Chapel for the the Capuchinas Sacramentarias del purisimo de Maria at Tlalpan, Mexico, see Emilio Ambasz, The Architecture of Luis Barragan, (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1976), 45.

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) Ibid.