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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

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Generally defined as a 'pulpit' featured in the mosque. However in Jean Sauvaget 'The Mosque and The Palace' describes the minbar as originating from Ethiopian where the original meaning was not of a pulpit but of a 'seat,' or 'throne.' Minbar therefore could be defined as an 'honourary seat' and not reserved for the caliph/imam alone. The importance of this evolved eptimology is explored by Sauvaget - features of the mosque do not seem to be as inherently 'reliigous' in nature as the terms evolved to suggest. Sauvaget links many items of the mosque and Islamic architecture to the Umayyad palaces, not to an intrinsic religious nature. Links to question of whether Islamic architecture is approached as a 'religious' culture or as a culture in and of itself.