ABSTRACT
The author's object in this chapter is not defining the role of architecture of Muslim identity but rather the tension that the mosque reveals in the European city. The author argues that the reasons for this tension, although manifold, are as much to do with history and resistance to Islam as with a more generic fear of seeing the European city dissipate. Exotic religious buildings, some of exquisite beauty, have been built on unlikely inner-city sites. The largest Sikh gurdwara in the Western world has been built almost under the flight path of Heathrow Airport in suburban Southall. From the beginning, the mosque has been part of the ambivalence and fantasies of the European city. This cannot be properly understood without an analysis of the ways in which distinctions between the "Islamic" and the "European" city have been constructed, played out and reiterated through the erection of mosques across the continent.
