Jewish and Moslem Places of Worship- Mutual Influences

The architectural study of synagogues is partly based on a comparison with the places of worship of other religions. A comparison is often made between synagogues and churches, because they came into existence at more or less the same time and for similar reasons. It is consequently often difficult to determine the initial direction the influence went: whether it was the churches that inspired the synagogues, or the opposite.

This, however, is not the case with regard to the relationship between synagogues and mosques. Here there is, of course, no question of which came first, or if there was an influence. In the early days of the mosque, the direction of influence was clear, but thereafter a fixed pattern emerged and there continued to be a great similarity between the places of worship of the two religions. an influence was also apparent in the other direction: that is to say, synagogues which were influenced by mosques.

Very little has been written about synagogues in the Islamic world, either those in the regions around the Mediterranean or those in Central Asia and the Far East. In contrast with the western world where the predominant architecture is stone which lasts for generations, building in the east and in North Africa is based on wood, bricks and soft binding materials which cannot stand the test of time, with the result that synagogues were destroyed and rebuilt. The builders often encountered opposition on the part of the religious authorities, particularly in Moslem countries, to the restoration of synagogues and especially to their rebuilding. Yet, despite this, there was nearly always a liberal ruler or a sympathetic judge who found a way to circumvent the official prohibitions, and the Jews built and repaired their synagogues in almost all periods.

Unlike in Europe, where the synagogues, some of them very ancient, were constructed, as we have noted, from durable materials and have survived until the present, in eastern countries the great majority of synagogues are not more than a 100 or 150 years old. However, oriental culture, unlike the west, sees nothing wrong in the construction of a new building which copies an old structure which was demolished; the buildings, even if rebuilt, remain relatively faithful reproductions of the structures which have disappeared.

Many of the eastern countries have a particularly hot climate. This is the case in Iraq, parts of North Africa and some of the countries of Central Asia, and for that reason we encounter in these places a phenomenon unknown in the west: synagogues open to the sky.

Already in the period of the Mishna and the Talmud we encounter such synagogues in these regions. The synagogues have various origins and the reasons for their adoption of the open-sky concept are likewise various. In subsequent generations, they sprang up throughout the Mediterranean area and Central Asia. In addition to climatic reasons, there were reasons connected with halachic (Jewish law) considerations and with Islamic prohibitions imposed upon the Jews. Whatever the reason, this phenomenon which constantly reappears in different places, different periods and different climatic conditions, is not found outside the Mediterranean region and Central Asia.

Such a design feature indicates different uses for the synagogue than those usual in Europe, but because the institution not only served religious purposes, but also public, social, educational and cultural purposes, the way of life characteristic of these countries was also reflected in the synagogues and their design.

Ezra the Scribe returned to Eretz-Israel from Babylon in the 5th century bce, bringing with him customs prevalent in Babylon at that time. In Babylon, the land of rivers, with its hot climate, it was accepted from ancient times that public gatherings could be held in the open air or in open buildings.

In the Book of Nehemiah, chapter 8, verses 1-3, we read: "and they spake unto Ezra the Scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses... and he read therein before the street that was before the water gate... "

The main city square in front of the water gate seemed to Ezra to be the most suitable place for reading the Books of Moses before a large public gathering. Thus a liturgical significance was bestowed on the street, perhaps in consequence of practices the Jews had already seen in their Babylonian exile. The same idea is expressed in the Mishna, Megilla 3:1-3: "If the people of a town sell their open space, they must buy a synagogue with the price thereof; if they sell a synagogue, they must buy an Ark..." Here, too, we see that the open city square possesses a certain sanctity: less than that of the synagogue, but some sanctity nevertheless. In early synagogues in post Second Temple times in Eretz-Israel we often find an attached courtyard, a kind of atrium adjoining the synagogue. Had this open space a kind of sanctity too?

Nabatean temples built in northern Transjordan from the 1st century bce to the 3rd century ce, like the temple at Ziah in the Hauran or the temple at Zayar in Lejja in Bashan, or the temple of Baal-Shamin at Kedesh in Upper Galilee, had a large courtyard surrounded by a roofed colonnade, with the rest of the courtyard left open to the sky.

This courtyard stood in front of the temple, which was a relatively small structure with a central opening giving on to the courtyard, and which sometimes, as at Kedesh, had two side doors reserved exclusively for the priests, who had sole access to the inner sanctum. The ceremonies, which were accompanied by food and ritual elements, took place in the courtyard, and only certain priests were allowed to enter the Holy of Holies within the shrine.

The Second Temple in Jerusalem, which stood from the 5th century bce to the 1st century ce, was also surrounded by enclosures, which increased in sanctity as one approached the Holy of Holies; around the enclosures were colonnades with sloping roofs, described in oral sources as "resembling a basilica." There is no doubt that they were used for rituals and ceremonies connected with the work of the priests in the Temple. Thus, religious ceremonies in the open air were also an established custom in Jerusalem.

The ancient synagogues in Eretz-Israel from the first to the eight centuries ce were mainly basilicas, and the courtyard front of the synagogue or next to it constituted a sort of peristyle leading up to the basilica. The courtyard was also characteristic of the places of worship of other religions, and its use was not purely functional, but also institutional and liturgical.

In the Babylonian Talmud, (Baba Bathra 3b), we read. "Meremar and Mar Zutra pulled down and rebuilt a summer synagogue in winter and a winter synagogue in summer."

Here we have a clear concept of one place of worship for the summer and another for the winter. In the Babylonian Talmud, (Brachot 8), we read that two sages, Rav Ami and Rav Asi, despite the fact that there were 13 synagogues in Tiberias, would pray between the columns in the place where they used to study. "Between the columns" seems to refer to the peristyle, which was open to the heavens and permitted prayer and Torah study for a few more hours until the sun went down completely. In the town of Dura Europos in northern Babylonia, on the river Euphrates, there was a large Jewish community which had existed from the time of the flowering of Babylonian Jewry. The town and its magnificent synagogue was destroyed in the middle of the third century ce.

Here, too, we come upon the phenomenon of a courtyard facing the hall of prayer, but there we also find a sort of painted alcove in the synagogue, a niche indicating the direction of prayer: a sort of mihrab (if we may anachronistically use a concept taken from Islamic architecture, which developed 400 years later). Next to this alcove was a kind of raised bima (pulpit), reached by stone steps. With a similar anachronism, we would call it a minbar, once again using a later feature to describe an earlier one.

The idea of summer and winter synagogues might not have been comprehensible had there not been a synagogue with an arrangement of this kind which functioned from the sixth-seventh century ce until recent times.

In Aleppo, Syria, a synagogue still survives which is very similar to the synagogues excavated in the Galilee dating from the period of the Mishna and the Talmud, and which was apparently built at the end of the sixth century ce. A Christian traveller who saw it in the year 1625, described the synagogue, "known for its beauty and antiquity," as follows: "The synagogue is a square courtyard open to the sky... To the right there is a large hall used for prayers in winter when it is cold and rainy, just as the large courtyard is used for prayers when the weather is pleasant..."

The two areas are called the "summer synagogue" and the "winter synagogue" to this day; at the centre of the courtyard there is a bima, and at its southern end, three small niches situated under a roof, that function as holy arks for ritual purposes. The roofed part greatly resembles the basilicas used as synagogues in Eretz-Israel in the period of the Talmud.

In the Aleppo synagogue, there are certain features which are also characteristic of mosques, like the central bima in the courtyard resembling the structures erected above the cisterns in the courtyards of mosques, the beit ha-tekiya (a raised platform on which the shofar is blown) rising above the courtyard, which resembles the minbars of mosques, and the many altars, which also existed in mosques.

The first mosque dates from about the middle of the seventh century. In 635, the first mosque was created in Basra, Iraq. This consisted of a square space marked by stones on the ground, without any buildings whatsoever. In Kufa, a mosque was set up in a unique manner. A man stood in the selected areas and threw a spear in four directions: in the place where each fell, a line was drawn and the square space was thus fixed. Along each of the sides, rods were "installed," thus delineating the area of the mosque. Only later was a colonnade built around it, to which a roof was added, finally leading to the creation of the open courtyard surrounded by a colonnade.

In Damascus a pagan temple became a church under Theodosius, and after the Moslem conquest it was converted to a mosque.

In speaking of Islam, it is crucial to note that at its beginning, it was an itinerant religion, a desert religion, a religion of conquest which spread out northwards from the Arabian peninsula, branching eastwards to Jerusalem and later to Damascus, and branching north-west to Babylon (Mesopotamia). An itinerant religion does not stop to build permanent or splendid structures; it creates simple spaces and reuses structures originally constructed for other religions.

The area in which Islam spread had, by and large, a dry and hot climate. In Asia Minor in general and in Babylonia in particular, there was an ancient tradition of constructing residential and public buildings around courtyards and squares, and private and public gatherings took place in these same defined areas open to the heavens and surrounded by colonnades and small open cells.

The mosque was the forum of early Islam, the place of encounters and gatherings, and the place where the decisions and rules concerning Islamic society were made.

When Mohammed reconstructed the Kaaba in Mecca and built the first mosques in Medina, he used the expertise of master craftsmen in construction like the Copts or the Quraish, a Jewish tribe which specialized in building. He saw these local Jews as natural allies, and he hoped to draw them towards Islam. At that time, Moslem prayer was directed towards Jerusalem, towards the place of sacrifice el-Idha, the Sacrifice of Ishmael but when he realized that the Jews were not attracted to the new religion, Mohammed decreed from his house of prayer in Medina in 620, an additional qibla (direction) that towards the Kaaba in Mecca and from that time the mosque has been called el-Qiblatiyin ("of the two qiblas"). At the same time, the qibla a wall in the rear of the house of worship indicating the direction of prayer was institutionalized. In the same way, at the beginning of the eighth century, the mihrab a niche in the qibla determined the direction which the imam faced when he was preaching, and marked the direction of prayer even when the imam was not present.

The caliph Omar Ibn el-Aziz employed Coptic builders to rebuild Mohammeds mosque, and they introduced the gomha or prayer-niche, again indicating the direction of prayer. Unlike the equivalent alcove in synagogues and churches, the gomha remained empty, becoming a kind of receptacle for prayer.

The mihrab resembles the alcove which we find 300 years earlier in the synagogue of Dura Europos, indicating the direction of prayer towards Jerusalem. Next to this niche (which also seems to have served as a place for the Holy Ark), was the preachers pulpit. This combination of niche indicating direction and pulpit is reproduced in the combination of the minbar and the mihrab in the mosque.

Was this in fact an example of the influence of the ancient synagogues on the mosques? This is a question which is still unanswered.

In many mosques, there is a kind of wooden pulpit opposite the mihrab: the dikka. On this pulpit, there was a choir of cantors which responded to the pronouncements of the imam. We often find a wooden "tower" in synagogues, serving the same purpose. Next to the dikka, there is the kursi, the cantors seat, which includes a podium for reading the holy text. We may recall "Moses Seat" which, according to the New Testament, existed in the early synagogues.

The young religion of Islam, which saw the People of the Book as allies, did not fear copying the ritual aids of the houses of prayer of the Jews and Christians in its own places of worship.

The courtyard is often the main part of the mosque, and sometimes even the mosque itself. In the courtyard there are other distinctive features, like the well or water-spring in its centre which serves as a guard against impurity, similar to removing ones shoes as one approaches the area of prayer. We also find this well in some synagogues, and the removal of shoes is customary to this day among Yemenite Jews.

In some later synagogues, the structure in the centre of the courtyard, although it looks like the structure over the water-source in the mosque, serves as a bima. This is the case in the open synagogue in Aleppo and in certain synagogues in Iraq.

In the Aleppo synagogue, there are a number of alcoves serving ritual purposes. We find a number of mihrabs in certain mosques where sections of the wall of the kibla are set aside for important families and extra mihrabs are added along the wall.

The basis of Islamic architecture is the residential building. On the outside, it presents a front like a solid wall, and the structure develops inwards, towards the spacious inner courtyard. The "khan" or caravanserai is also based on the residential house: room after room, unit after unit built around a central courtyard serve for sleeping, while the camels and livestock are tethered at the back of the dormitory rooms.

This open space surrounded by units with an arched facade vaulted within is the basis of all Islamic architecture. This architectural scheme is used for mosques, madraseh, (religious academies), bathhouses and private residences. The synagogues in Islamic countries were also based on this principle.

Synagogues open to the sky recur in all the countries of the Near East, North Africa and Central Asia in various forms and for different reasons. In Iraq-Babylonia a particular model is repeated: that exemplified by the ancient Baghdadi synagogue Tsalaat el-Qabiri which, according to a common legend, has existed in the same spot from the time of the Babylonian exile, and is built from the shards which Jehoiachin, King of Judah, brought from Jerusalem. This synagogue, because it was made from bricks and clay, was destroyed from time to time and rebuilt. The last time this happened was in 1855, when it was rebuilt according to the original design.

According to Rabbi David Sasson, in his book Massa BeBabel ("Journey in Babylon"), most of the synagogues in Babylonia were based on the same pattern as Tsalaat el-Qabiri: a large square courtyard open to the sky, and in the middle of the courtyard a wooden Ark surmounted by an over shadowing roof supported by pillars. The courtyard was surrounded by small heikhalot (sanctuaries) units with vaulted stone ceilings. Each room had three closed sides, and the fourth one gave out onto the courtyard. Around the three sides was a stone bench on which the congregation sat next to the wall facing westwards. In each hall there were niches for storing Torah scrolls. In the central unit on the wall facing westwards was the main hall called Seder HaHeikhal or Knesset Ha-Heikhal, the seat of the president of the Baghdad Jewish community. There were three alcoves there, and these contained the most valuable scrolls.

Around the Ark, there were open seating-areas which were also called heikhalot; and the Ark was tall and large and its roof was supported by wooden pillars. On the few rainy days, mats were spread from the roof of the Ark to the roof of the halls as a protection.

The halls at the back (the eastern side) and the rear part of the northern and southern halls were divided into two storeys, the upper storey of which was the womens section. When this was too small to accommodate all the women, they went up on to the roof above the synagogue. The roofs of synagogues were utilized as early as the Talmudic period: "Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shemuel once stood on the roof of the synagogue of Shaf Ve-Yativ in Nehardea..."

Many synagogues in Babylonia were built on this pattern. The traveller Binyamin of Tudela in the 11th century described the "Synagogue of the Prophet Ezekiel": "In the courtyard of the synagogue there was an Ark, and behind the Ark Ezekiel was buried." The tomb of Ezekiel exists to this day and it corresponds closely to this description. It also resembles the Islamic tombs in mosques, and in fact the tomb of Ezekiel is also sacred to Moslems.

This was also the pattern of the khan for residential buildings; an ideal pattern for a hot country where the courtyard provides fresh air and room for large gatherings of people, or alternatively for small gatherings in accordance with the size of the hall, and also provides privacy for small groups. On holy days and festivals, each small minyan (the group of ten males required for a Jewish prayer service) would stand together around the bima and form one large group.

This general style is also repeated in Central Asia, especially in Kurdistan: a large courtyard with a covered Ark in the centre and niches around it. The heikhalot in Kurdistan take the form of porches with wooden roofs surrounding the courtyard; resting on wooden pillars. Here the niches are not cells as in Baghdad, but a continuous wall with alcoves containing the Torah scrolls.

The materials used in Kurdistan are light and in- substantial and can be easily changed, and thus these synagogues were constantly demolished and rebuilt, but to the ancient design, as we have already noted.

During the last hundred years, some of the courtyards have been roofed over, and only in the centre above the Ark is there an opening in the roof to give light to the pulpit. This opening is usually covered with a glass roof.

In Afghanistan, there are still ancient synagogues whose plan is basically Byzantine: four large arches standing perpendicular to each other, producing a square space surrounded by four arches on each side, with the space covered by a pointed dome. In other cases, the space is crossed by two flattened and pointed arches, and above them there is an elongated dome. This design recalls the baktisiya and the malawiya: monastic mosques which exist throughout the lands of Islam. The wooden bima is sometimes in the centre of the space and sometimes close to the "Wall of Zion," the wall indicating the direction of prayer where the Ark is situated. These synagogues were also fronted with a large courtyard which served various purposes. Here, too, there was generally a bima in the centre of the courtyard, which too appears to have been used for prayers in the hot summer days.

From distant Asia, we return to the west. For a long period, Sicily was under Moslem rule. In the 13th century, Frederick II expelled the Moslems and the mosques were no longer used. Jews who arrived in Sicily asked the emperor for permission to build synagogues. He did not allow them to construct new buildings, but he permitted them to take old places of worship and to adapt them to their purposes.

Consequently, it appears that the Jews took over the mosques and turned them into synagogues. This happened all over Sicily, and the description of two Sicilian synagogues by a Jewish traveller confirms this supposition.

The traveller, Ovadia of Bartenura, in his journey through Sicily, wrote as follows: "We came to Messina, and there they have a synagogue with an open court covered on the periphery and a well of living waters in the synagogue covered from all sides."

The same was true in Palermo, but there, in addition to the open vestibule and the central well, there was a large pillared hall, 23 metres square. On its eastern side was a small chapel in which the Torah scrolls were kept, and in the centre of the hall there was a wooden tower: the pulpit used by the cantor.

These two descriptions are in fact descriptions of two types of mosques: the completely open mosque at Messina without any closed structure, like the early mosques at Basra or Kufa in Iraq, and the Palermo mosque which resembles the mosques at Kairouan and Cairo in North Africa.

The earliest existing synagogue in North Africa is that in Fostat, Cairo, which appears originally to have been a Melchite church, and became a synagogue in the ninth century.

What one sees today is a synagogue in the form of a basilica, with a womens gallery surrounding the space of the synagogue on three sides, as in Coptic or early Christian churches, like the neighbouring Muallaka Church. This synagogue, however, is a replica dating from the beginning of this century of the ancient structure which stood on the same site. According to the descriptions of various travellers, it is very similar to synagogues and ancient churches in Galilee and its chronological proximity further supports this observation.

The synagogues in Tunisia also generally possessed a large peristyle in front of the main hall. The hall of the synagogue was in the form of a basilica with upper lighting from a clerestory, as in the El-Ghreiba synagogue in Hara Saghira in Djerba. Sometimes the columns and arcades in the synagogue did not run in the direction of the main hall, but ran transversally, as in the El-Ghreiba Synagogue. The large peristyle, which was also apparently used to seat the worshippers, was roofed over in the course of time and became a closed hall with a small courtyard for illumination a sort of patio in the centre.

In Tunisia and Algeria, the bima was generally at the back of the synagogue, close to the rear courtyard, which supports the contention that this courtyard was an addition to the synagogue. The purpose of placing the pulpit between this courtyard and the hall was to enable both the worshippers in the closed area and the worshippers in the courtyard to participate in activities at the Ark.

In conclusion, we can say that if, in the early days of Islam, there was an influence of Jewish places of worship on Moslem religious buildings, in the course of time, the influence worked in both directions. There were also cases where places of worship of one religion fell into the hands of another, so that the structures changed their purpose without changing their form or design.

There are great similarities between the Jewish and Moslem religions, notably in the abstract decoration and the avoidance of human and animal forms, even in the liturgy itself. All these facilitated exchanges of influence between the two religions.