Architecture of Mosques: Combination of Canons and Regionalism

The article analyzes the architecture of the mosque from the point of view of combining the canonical and actually regional. Unlike a Christian temple regardless of denomination, which is interpreted as the house of God, a mosque is not a house of God, but only a place of group prayer of the faithful. That is why there are significantly fewer restrictions in mosques compared to Christian churches, where each element carries a specific sacred meaning. accordingly, the architectural image of mosques was much more strongly influenced by local architectural and artistic traditions. The relevance of the research topic was determined by the growth of the volume of Islamic construction in the world, and therefore the need to understand the degree of combination of canonical and regional in the architecture of historical and modern mosques in different countries. In fact, this question is debatable, because in the conditions of globalism, the proper regional features of mosques are lost. These processes are intensified in those cases when the construction is conducted by architects and builders invited from abroad, which is observed, for example, in Algeria. That is why the authors decided to raise the issue of canon and regionalism in the architecture of Islamic sacred buildings. Among the terms used to describe mosques are those that have their own sacred meaning and those that are characteristic of regional architecture. So, among the terms that describe the architecture of the mosque, there are two main groups - canonical names and regional names