Mosque in the context of "Synagogue architecture"

Bir Lehlou (also transliterated Bir Lahlou, Bir Lehlu Arabic: بئر الحلو) is an oasis town in north-eastern Western Sahara, 236 km from Smara, near the Mauritanian border and east of the border wall, in Polisario Front-held territory. It has a pharmacy, a school and a mosque. It is the head of the 5th military region of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and was the factual temporary capital of SADR until Tifariti became the temporary capital in 2008. It is also the name of a Daïra of the Wilaya of Smara, in the Sahrawi refugee camps.

The name "Bir Lehlou" is transcribed from Maghrebi Arabic, and means "the sweet (meaning palatable or non-salty) water well". The Modern Standard Arabic transcription would be "bir al Halū" (بئر الحلو).

A community centre, community center, or community hall is a public location where members of a community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may be open for the whole community or for a specialized subgroup within the greater community. Community centres can be religious in nature, such as Christian churches, Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues, Hindu temples, or Buddhist temples; though they can also be secular and in some cases government-run, such as youth clubs or Leisure centres.

A musalla (Arabic: مصلى, romanized: muṣallā) is a space that is not a mosque, mainly used for prayer in Islam. The word is derived from the verb صلى (ṣallā), meaning "to pray". One use is for the twice-yearly Eid prayers (ʿĪd al-Fiṭr and ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā) and sometimes for funeral prayers as per the Sunnah.

“Musalla” may also refer to a room, structure, or place for performing salah (canonical prayers), and this is also translated as a “prayer hall” when smaller than a mosque. It is often used for conducting the five mandatory daily prayers, or other prayers in (or without) a small congregation, but not for large congregational worship such as the Friday Prayers or the Eid Prayers (the latter is done in congregational mosques if there is no available musalla, in the original sense of an open space). Such musallas are usually present in airports, malls, universities, and other public places in Muslim-majority countries, as well as in some non-Muslim countries for the use of Muslims. A musalla will usually not contain a minbar.

Sulejman Pasha Bargjini (also known in Albanian: Sylejman Pashë Mulleti, Turkish: Berkinzâde Süleyman Paşa) was an Ottoman Albanian general, nobleman, Governor of the Ottoman Empire and founder of the present-day Albanian capital of Tirana. He was originally from Bargjin, but he settled in the village of Mullet (present-day Albania) and probably served as a Janissary, he was given the title Pasha. He had fought for the Ottomans against the Safavids in Persia. After that he had built a mosque (the Sylejman Pasha Mosque), a bakery and a hammam (Islamic sauna). He founded the settlement of Tirana, now the capital of Albania, in 1614 as an oriental-style town of those times. According to some local legends, he named the town he founded after Tehran, the capital of Persia (nowadays Iran). This, however, is a folk etymology without basis in fact, as Tirana was already mentioned in Venetian documents as early as 1418.

With Sulejman's foundations, Tirana soon became the center of Albanian art, culture and religion (especially with the Spread of Islam and the Bektashi Sufism), it became famous because of its strategic position at the heart of Albania. During the harshest decades of Albania’s Communist era, the regime didn’t just seek to destroy physical monuments—it targeted bloodlines. Sulejman Pasha Bargjini, once honored as a founding figure, became a symbol of everything the regime sought to uproot: nobility, religion, legacy. His name, once carved into Tirana’s identity, was blacklisted. His family was systematically erased from official records, stripped of titles, land, and dignity. They were branded with the stigma of a “feudal past,” and became targets of suspicion, silence, and surveillance. His resting place, the Suleyman Pasha Tomb, got destroyed by the Communist government.

The Sulejman Pasha Mosque (Albanian: Xhamia e Sulejman Pashës), also known as the Old Mosque (Albanian: Xhamia e Vjetër), was the first mosque in the city of Tirana, in Tirana County, Albania. Completed in 1614 CE during the Ottoman era, the mosque was partially destroyed in November 1944, during World War II, and razed the following year during the Communist rule of Enver Hoxha.

The former mosque, together with a hammam and a bakery, were founded by Pasha Sulejman Bargjini, with the mosque named in his honour. The city developed in the surrounding streets. In the mid-20th century, the mosque and surrounding streets were razed to make space for the Communist-era Statue of the Unknown Soldier, completed in 1949.

Masjid al-Haram (Arabic: المسجد الحرام, romanized: al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, lit. 'The Sacred Mosque'), also known as the Sacred Mosque or the Great Mosque of Mecca, is considered to be the most significant mosque in Islam. It encloses the vicinity of the Kaaba in Mecca, in the western region of Saudi Arabia. It is among the pilgrimage sites associated with the Hajj, which every Muslim must perform at least once in their lives if able. It is also the main site for the performance of ʿUmrah, the lesser pilgrimage that can be undertaken any time of the year. The rites of both pilgrimages include circumambulating the Kaaba within the mosque. The Great Mosque contains other important sites, such as the Black Stone, the Zamzam Well, Maqam Ibrahim, and the hills of Safa and Marwa.

As of 2025, the Great Mosque is both the largest mosque in the world, and the most expensive building in the world. It has undergone major renovations and expansions through the years. It has passed through the control of various caliphs, sultans and kings, and is now under the control of the King of Saudi Arabia who is titled the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is sometimes called a house of worship. Temples, churches, mosques, and synagogues are main examples of structures created for worship. A monastery may serve both to house those belonging to religious orders and as a place of worship for visitors. Natural or topographical features may also serve as places of worship, and are considered holy or sacrosanct in some religions; the rituals associated with the Ganges river are an example in Hinduism.

Under international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, religious buildings are offered special protection, similar to the protection guaranteed hospitals displaying the Red Cross or Red Crescent. These international laws of war bar firing upon or from a religious building.

Religious activities generally need some infrastructure to be conducted. For this reason, there generally exist religion-supporting organizations, which are some form of organization that manages:

• the upkeep of places of worship, such as mosques, churches, temples, synagogues, chapels and other buildings or meeting places.
• the payment of salaries to religious leaders, such as Roman Catholic priests, Hindu priests, Protestant ministers, imams and rabbis.

In addition, such organizations usually have other responsibilities, such as the formation, nomination or appointment of religious leaders, the establishment of a corpus of doctrine, the disciplining of leaders and followers with respect to religious law, and the determination of qualification for membership.

Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Islamic world encompasses a wide geographic area historically ranging from western Africa and Europe to eastern Asia. Certain commonalities are shared by Islamic architectural styles across all these regions, but over time different regions developed their own styles according to local materials and techniques, local dynasties and patrons, different regional centers of artistic production, and sometimes different religious affiliations.

Early Islamic architecture was influenced by Roman, Byzantine, Iranian, and Mesopotamian architecture and all other lands which the early Muslim conquests conquered in the seventh and eighth centuries. Later it developed distinct characteristics in the form of buildings and in the decoration of surfaces with Islamic calligraphy, arabesques, and geometric motifs. New architectural elements like minarets, muqarnas, and multifoil arches were invented. Common or important types of buildings in Islamic architecture include mosques, madrasas, tombs, palaces, hammams (public baths), Sufi hospices (e.g. khanqahs or zawiyas), fountains and sabils, commercial buildings (e.g. caravanserais and bazaars), and military fortifications.