ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two case of “monumental mosques” from Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula – the Hazret Sultan Mosque in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, and the Education City Mosque in Doha, Qatar. Monumental mosques are those designed to have a special role within social, cultural, political and religious life. Rather than a bottom-up iconicity that might occur organically, theirs is imposed top-down by political leaders and their architect-allies. To understand these mosques and the nature of cities and Islamisms today, this chapter advances a critical perspective on “interAsian Islamism” that highlights divergent nationalist narratives, but which are unified across borders through understandings of “modernity” and efforts to inscribe it in religious landscapes. The two monumental mosques analyzed, situated in Kazakhstan and Qatar, exemplify how specific actors unite multiple ideological repertoires materially, rhetorically and aesthetically to forge common narratives across the urban landscapes and lives of today’s rich patchwork of Muslim-majority countries.
