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Abstract
The mosque occupies a central position in the social as well as religious life of Muslims. It is not only a place of worship where rituals are performed, but also serves as a social space where Muslims take part in welfare activities. The design and architecture of the mosque have local as well as global influences, representing religious, economic, and esthetic dimensions of Muslim social organization. Therefore, Muslims' association with the mosque has much significance from social, political, and economic perspectives. Based on an ethnographic example, this report aims to highlight the use of mosque space in the cultural context of rural Pakistan. In addition to discussing the sociospatial relationships around the mosque, I discuss how Muslims' beliefs about the world and the afterlife shape these relationships.
Acknowledgements
The research leading to this report is part of my doctoral project at the University of Durham. I am very thankful to Dr Stephen M. Lyon and Dr Iain R. Edgar for their guidance and support during this research as supervisors. I am grateful to the people of Lodhran, particularly of Jhokwala Village, and the staff of Agriculture Department of Lodhran for their cooperation during fieldwork. I am also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on this report.
Notes
1. In addition to these studies on Pakistan, there is a great deal of literature on Pakistani diaspora that deals with similar issues (e.g. Shaw and Charsley Citation2006; Bolognani and Lyon Citation2011; Werbner Citation2013).
2. Most of the Arabic and Persian words in this report have used the spellings that are closer to their pronunciation in Pakistani languages or as used in anthropological writings.
3. Sunni Muslims follow four jurisprudence schools or interpretations of the religious law based on the Qura'n and hadith. Each jurisprudence school is known as maslak or mazhab/madhab, and is named after the four imams who founded these schools centuries ago. While Sunnis consider all of these schools of thought as righteous ones; a Sunni has to follow only one of these. Although the definition of imam and the rules of jurisprudence differ between Sunnis and Shias, a similar kind of approach is followed by the latter as well. By following the rules of jurisprudence, Muslims can interpret or adapt to new situations in the world. Salafis or Wahabis do not follow any imam specifically and believe in the literal interpretation of the Qura'n and hadith.
4. Most names are pseudonyms.
5. Before the widespread use of clocks, people in rural areas used an indigenous time measurement system in which a unit of time, called pah'r, was roughly equal to three hours (cf. Mughal Citation2014a).
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Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal
Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal completed his PhD in 2014 in social anthropology from the University of Durham, UK. He is currently affiliated with the Department of Anthropology at the same university. His research interests include time, space, social change, and Pakistan.