Islamic Community Architecture

In Assam, there are some indigenous Muslim communities, whose socio-cultural life exhibit assimilation of certain indigenous folk cultural traditions. Thus, the Sayed, Sheikh, Mariyas, and Gariyas are the prominent Muslim communities of Assam, held as Assamese Muslim Community. Descendents of different origin, these communities settled in this region long ago and gradually imbibed different indigenous cultural elements of religious counterpart. The community architecture of the indigenous Muslim population is consist primarily of Mosque (Majid) and Mazar, which display the influence of local vernacular architecture styles. Though occasional Persian architectural influence is discerned in the architecture of Mosque, its architecture initially imitated the form and style of Namghar (Ahmed:2015). Initially, the influence was so much that the Muslim villages used to have Namghar not Mosque, where people used to make sacrifice and sing jaheli (prohibited) nam-prasanga (Phukan:2003). Gradually when the Mosque began to come up, the indigenous material and vocabulary of the vernacular architecture was the readily available stock. So, gable roofed, Assam type style, as well as elements like kalashi, chora- ghar are also noticed in Mosques. Like the Sattras of Assam, the Mosque also contains structures such as Moktab, Ojukhana, Imamkhana, Guest House etc within its campus. The western wall of the Mosque contains a “U” shape protrusion, which is called Mehrab. The Imamkhana of the Mosque is comparable to Manikut of Namghar (Haque:2015). However, gradual change in the architecture of Mosque is noticed and Mosques are consciously imitating the Persian and Arabian style in construction.