What is the best method for building a mosque in accordance with the Prophetic Sunnah?

The Shaykh: Go ahead.

The questioner : What are the characteristics of building a mosque from the Sunnah, and I ask for clarification?

The Shaykh : This is something you cannot do today. What is the benefit?

The questioner : Some of the brothers want to build a mosque.

The Shaykh : They cannot, no, because the Ministry of Islamic Endowments is putting a stumbling block in the way of applying the Muhammadan Sunnah.

The questioner : ... architectural design.

The Shaykh : For the Salafi mosque, I had drawn a plan in a book I had started long ago, and I had made a short progress in it, which I had named "The Desired Fruit in the Jurisprudence of the Sunnah and the Book." When I reached the book on mosques and the Prophet's prohibition of decorating mosques, and among the hadiths is one in Sunan Abu Dawud that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) entered his mosque one day through a gate, when he had gates. He entered through a gate and said: That is how he said it. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was with Abdullah ibn Umar entering the mosque. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said this hadith and Abdullah ibn Umar picked it up. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: meaning we men do not enter from it. Naafi, the client of Ibn Umar, said: So Ibn Umar never entered the mosque from this gate again after that.

The questioner: Allahu Akbar.

The Shaykh : I took from this hadith that it should be that in the Salafi mosque there is a special gate for women that men do not share with them. It so happened that I visited Egypt ten years ago, and we visited a large village or town named Sohag.

The questioner : Yes, correct.

The Shaykh : And there is a group of supporters of the Sunnah who are called there, so they said to us, "We are building a mosque, do you want to see how it is..." and so on. We went with them. They said to me, "Here is the gate and here is the qiblah," and so on. After they described it to me, I said to them, "So where is the women's gate?" They benefited from it, and I hope they applied it, meaning. The point is that the mosque indicated by the athar and authentic hadiths should first not have a pillar column; it should be a single piece of plaster so that it does not cut the rows. Then it should not have a mihrab, and it should not have a minbar that cuts the rows. The minbar should be three steps, and it fulfills the duty of the minbar and the duty of the mihrab. And there is a practical refutation of those who say the mihrab is to indicate the qiblah. We say to them, the minbar indicates the qiblah, and this minbar indicates the qiblah to the blind person more than the mihrab... and so on. But these are false excuses to facilitate this religious innovation that people have been afflicted with since approximately the first century, even though the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) mosque was devoid of a mihrab. And to the contrary, he said to them: because this is from the custom of the Christians in their churches. And so some of the Salaf, among them Abdullah ibn Masud, disliked to pray in the taq, and the taq means the mihrab. He avoided praying in the mihrab because this is from the habits of the Christians, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prohibited us and ordered us to avoid them.

The questioner : Meaning, after Abdullah ibn Masud, they entered the taq in the mosque?

The Shaykh : Am I not telling you it has been from long ago?

The questioner: Allahu Akbar.

The Shaykh : So the point is that the mosque should first be like this, with no columns, and it should have a minbar with three steps, and no mihrab, and it should have a gate for women to enter and exit from which men do not share. And there should be a place for women to pray, but this place is not necessary to be separated from men by a curtain or a wall, because the Shari'ah clothing that is supposed to be among women's attire is the hijab, and because it is good for women to participate with men in seeing the imam and the movements of the followers behind him. And all of this is from his (peace and blessings be upon him) guidance and biography. Today people leave important things and bring unimportant things. Among these unimportant things is that they separate women from men with concrete. There is no necessity for this separator, but what is the necessity that suggests to them? That they see that most women are tabarruj (displaying adornment), so if they want to pray like this exposed, it means the men's eyes fall on what is not permissible. So then we say: "O Sa'd, you have led the camels, and Sa'd is wrapped up. This is not how, O Sa'd, you lead the camels."
You do not treat errors with errors. It is said to the women who want to attend the mosque, and this is permissible for them and may sometimes be better for them, contrary to the rule: It is said to them, "Wear the Shari'ah clothing and attend the mosque as you are. No one sees any forbidden 'awrah from you at all." They cannot direct the women, so what do they do? They hide the women from the men, despite the noses of both men and women. So this is what comes to my mind regarding the mosque. I say that this is not possible for you because the Ministry of Endowments imposes a condition on you that there must be a mihrab, there must be a minaret that pokes the clouds, while this minaret is, in my opinion, from the mursal masalih (unrestricted public interests) and not a worshipful Sunnah. The minaret is from the mursal masalih, meaning its purpose is...

The questioner : Even if it is from their private money?

The Shaykh : This has no place in the grammar. If it is from his private pocket or the sum of all this is a waste of money. So the important thing is that the minaret is from the mursal masalih, the purpose is to convey the mu'adhdhin's voice to the farthest possible place. At that time, the invented means present today, such as loudspeakers, did not exist. And so they used natural, easy means at that time and built what? Minarets. Then with time, they excelled in building minarets. I was given the opportunity to travel to Morocco, meaning you may have seen it in pictures, what is the name of the capital of Morocco? Rabat. There is a minaret, meaning you would say its width is six or seven meters, a house, meaning you could make it, up, up, you go up and see the whole town. Why this extravagance, why the waste of money? They said: We want to convey what to the people, the mu'adhdhin's voice. In the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), there was no minaret, but in some of the authentic narrations we have, the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) mu'adhdhin would appear on the roof of the mosque, and in a high place in this place, and he would call to prayer there. And one of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) mu'adhdhins, Amr ibn Umm Maktum, was blind, so he would climb to that place while blind, and he would call the Fajr prayer and not call until the people pass by and see him, not hidden in this minaret that the seer does not see. So it is said to him: "You have risen, you have risen," and he calls to prayer based on the information of the people passing on the road. So the minaret was not in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but there was climbing to a high place.
And so it came in Sahih al-Bukhari that between the iqamah of the prayer and the suhur, I think the amount of time it takes for this mu'adhdhin to climb up and that one to come down, the first and second mu'adhdhin, there are two adhan calls, so it means there is climbing and there is descending. So this makes us feel that the mu'adhdhin's appearance and his climbing to a high place is a deliberate matter concerning the conveyance of the voice to the people. Despite this, people made the minaret the goal, when it is only a means, because they went beyond it being a means. The means is that you go up and convey to the people. But they exaggerated in raising its building and constructing it, and they exaggerated in carving its cell and so on, even in the time of the existence of loudspeakers. We see, for example, the Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi mosque, you see one floor, a second floor, a third floor. What is the purpose of this cost? What is the purpose? Waste of money? And no one goes up now at all to call to prayer in the middle of the mosque. If the building of minarets in mosques means like the electric one, it has no meaning, neither rational nor transmitted.
For this reason, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) warned against it by saying: The clever one is the one who builds a mosque with no equal, builds a minaret with no equal... and so on. This is from the signs of the establishment of the Hour, by the text of the hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).

The questioner : (Peace and blessings be upon him).

The Shaykh : As for the decoration of the mosque, we have not mentioned it at all. It should be simple, without any decorations. That is why 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), when he was compelled to expand the Prophet's Mosque in his time, said to the architect, who is called an engineer today, "Protect the people from the heat and the cold, but do not paint it red or yellow." What is the purpose of the mosque? It is to shelter people from the heat and the cold, without red or yellow... Yes.

The questioner : "It will test the people" by adding to...?

The Shaykh : I do not remember this, "do not paint it red or yellow." Why? Because this is part of the decorations, and the houses of Allah must be kept free from the matters of this world. This is the house of Allah. Today, unfortunately, concepts have been reversed because people have strayed from following the guidance of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Today, if you criticize people for these decorations, they confront you with two excuses:
The first excuse, which is the worst of the two, is that they say to you, "The Christians are better than us. Look at how the Christians exaggerate in decorating their churches, so our mosques are more deserving of decorations." Some of them say to you, "What? The house of Allah is less than our own house? We decorate and tile the house we live in... and so on. The house of Allah is more deserving of what? This is from the inspiration of Satan, because when Ibn 'Abbas narrated from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): A hadith that Ibn 'Abbas heard from the Messenger: Ibn 'Abbas said, "You will decorate it just as the Jews and the Christians decorated it."
All the hadiths and reports agree that the mosque must be in a humble state, without decorations that occupy the hearts of people. The person must be in an atmosphere that helps him to obey Allah (Mighty and Majestic). As for these decorations and engravings, they distract him. What can we say about ourselves if we do not remember the hadith of our Prophet that he (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed one day in a khamisah, a garment with patterns? In our region in Syria, this is called a sayyah, with green, blue, white, and red lines... and so on. So he prayed one day in what did we say? In a khamisah. He had barely finished praying when he removed this khamisah, took it off, and said: Who is this? This is the Messenger of Allah. Where are we then? We add to the decorations as if they bring us closer to Allah.
When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) entered the Ka'bah, he prayed inside the Ka'bah. There were the horns of the ram of Isma'il inside the Ka'bah, so he ordered them to be covered, meaning to be veiled, because they distract the one praying. So we have reversed all these directives.

The questioner : Are they present?

The Shaykh : Allah knows best. We did not enter, and it did not reach us. Yes.

The questioner : Are we finished?

The Shaykh : We are approximately finished.

The questioner : The tea is cold.

The Shaykh : Just the tea, and these people want more...