Cambridge Central Mosque: a walk through the Prayer Hall, the mosque’s innermost sanctum – by Michael Glover
Following the publication of the new book, Cambridge Central Mosque: The Sacred Re-Imagined, author Michael Glover takes us on an immersive journey through the building in this short reflective blogpost:
Light illuminates the hall in ever changing ways. It is forever dimming and brightening. One moment the room is relatively low lit, and then, without warning, the light intensifies, and the colour of the wood deepens and becomes a nuttier brown. It is as if light is putting on display a show of its own miraculous mutability. There is no need for artificial lighting of any kind – the light from the sky, the light of the Divine Presence made palpable here as a Muslim would express it, streaming down through one or another of the many sky lights, does as much as needs to be done. We think, immediately, of Monet’s great cycle of paintings of Rouen Cathedral made over a succession of days in the 1890s, and how changes of light throughout the progress of any single day caused the world visible to the human eye, which meant in that case the appearance of the facade of that great cathedral, to change too. Reality itself seems to change even as you experience it. And so it is here, in this Prayer Hall.
‘This is the "calm oasis," the place of quiet contemplation where we disconnect,’ my guide Ihsan remarks, ‘amidst all this King’s College Chapel fan vaulting reimagined and re-created in wood…’
The symbolic manifestation of the ceaseless, boundless creativity of nature does not begin and end with the upward movement of these trees, how they rise and then open out, as if both in support of the roof, and with a wish to travel further still. The fact is that there is no discernible end to yearning for the Divine, and so their spreading moves out across the ceiling above our heads in a kind of interweaving, intricate tracery of twisting beams – they resemble multiple arms which possess the kind of fluidity of movement to be seen in the Chola bronzes of Southern India, when Shiva dances for our delectation. And what happens when these beams reach the side walls? Do they merely stop? Not really. It looks to our eye as if they disappear into the walls, and then go on out into the world, still yearning to be in motion…
The Prayer Hall induces a mood of serenity that both calms the body and lifts the spirits. Its geometry and its symmetry remind us that we all crave some sense of order. Islam goes further, of course. It inserts the divine into the equation. ‘Art exists to remind us of what is just below the surface,’ Tim Winter, the man whose vision, diplomacy and determination was so crucial to the realisation of this project, explains to me in the cafe. ‘… Geometry and symmetry, those physical constants, the existence of order, are a calm reminder that the world itself is orderly, and under control. Otherwise, it would be pure anarchy…’ And Marks Barfield Architects’ choice of a grove of trees, shown off to such splendid effect in the Prayer Hall, as the building’s point of primary focus, is particularly apposite. ‘Trees include us in nature, they enfold us,’ Tim comments. ‘We feel at home when we are surrounded by it. Nature is a particular indicator of divine agency. We reactivate our presence as God’s agents…’
– Michael Glover
Find out more and get your copy of the book HERE
