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Discovering America's hidden Islamic Architecture!

Sun, 30 Jun 2008 22:57:05 GMT

posted by moinansari

Finding the Islamic architecture in the USA is not that hard. Finding documentation on Muslim architecture is more difficult. Some of it is hidden The Architecture digs are hidden. That is understandable, but the architecture is in plain site.

Why is America hiding its Muslim past?

Hawaii: Aloha Islam (+photos)

Shangri La, Doris Duke's home in Hawaii, is an astonishing mix of Middle Eastern and Western modernist styles. Photo / Graham Reid

5:00AM Tuesday July 01, 2008
By Graham Reid

View Photos

Islamic architecture in America can be divided into three distinct types, buildings for Muslim Americans, Orientalist buildings built by non-Muslims to evoke the spirit of the Orient, and buildings in the Spanish-American style which recalls the Mudejar architecture of Spain.

Definition

American cities with large Muslim populations include New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles, all of which have several mosques. The architecture of these mosques generally reflects the ethnic origin of the main Muslim group in the area, thus there are Albanian mosques in the four cities with large Albanian populations.

In recent times the influx of students from oil-rich countries into colleges in the United States has led to a number of mosques being built on campuses. One of the most ambitious projects is the headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) at Plainfields, Indiana, begun in 1975. Although not yet complete, the centre will eventually include a mosque, accommodation for 500 students, a refectory, a library for 100,000 volumes and recreational facilities. Another notable Islamic student centre is that of the University of Arkansas at Johesboro financed by a patron from Saudi Arabia. The main building of the centre is a mosque with a small courtyard and a square-shafted minaret. There is a separate women's section or gallery on the upper floor which is reached by external and internal staircases. The building is faced in dark and light coloured brick and the facade is decorated with a calligraphic brick frieze. Both the Arkansas and the Indiana centres are undoubtedly modern buildings which reflect traditional Islamic architecture. By contrast the Dar al-Salam centre at Abiquiu in New Mexico, designed by the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, is built with traditional materials and techniques. The complex consists of a mosque, madrassa and several accommodation blocks, all built out of mud brick known locally as adobe (from the Arabic al-toub). The building is covered with barrel vaults and domes and decorated with crenellations and carved woodwork. As well as being a religious centre Dar al-Salam will also function as a centre for traditional architecture and technology.

Orientalist architecture in the USA is primarily a feature of the early twentieth century and is a product of the incredible wealth of America combined with cinema-inspired fantasy (e.g. The Thief of Baghdad). This can be seen in the numerous cinemas built in the Moorish palace style with names like the Alhambra. The most complete examples of this Islamic fantasy architecture is the city of Opa-Locka conceived as 'the Baghdad of south Florida'. The buildings have horseshoe-shaped windows, minarets, domes and crenellations. The most important building is the city ha. I built as a fortified citadel with thick crenellated enclosure walls. This building is covered with five large domes and framed by four minarets (three small cylindrical towers and one huge octagonal tower). Other Islamic-style buildings in the city include the railway station, the archery club, the archaeological museum and the Opa Locka hotel.

The discovery of the New World and the expulsion of Muslims from Spain occurred in the same year, 1492. The result was that a large number of Muslims converted to Christianity and emigrated to the New World where their skills were used in the development of New Spain. Mudejar (forced Muslim converts to Christianity) style architecture in America is found mostly in Mexico and Central America, although it can also be seen in the south and west of the USA in Texas, New Mexico and California. [hide description]

Further Reading

N. Ardalan, 'Architects in America design for Islamic cultures'. Arts and the Islamic World 3(3); 46-50, 1985.

F. S. Fitzgerald Bush, A Dream of Araby (n.d.). C. Hotchkiss Malt, 'Opa-Locka: American city with Islamic design', Arts and the Islamic World, 1(3): 33-6, 1983.

A, Schleifer, 'Hassan Fathy; a voyage to New Mexico', Arts and the Islamic World 1(1): 1982/3.

At the end of her sometimes scandalous life, American heiress and socialite Doris Duke was unlikely to go into that great good night without some attendant controversy - and she didn't disappoint.

When she died in 1993, aged 80, at one of her homes - the so-called Falcon's Lair in Beverly Hills, which had belonged to Rudolph Valentino - she left her billion-dollar fortune to her charitable found ation. The catch was that it would be administered by her loyal butler, Bernard Lafferty, a gay Irishman often described as a drunkard and semi-literate.

Duke's was a singular life. When she was 12 she inherited a fortune and was dubbed by the press the Million Dollar Baby. She had two brief, high-profile marriages and serial lovers, and in 1988, at 75, she adopted a 35-year-old former bellydancer and Hare Krishna devotee, with whom some believed she was in a lesbian relationship. Always conscious of her looks, she had a facelift at 79.

With colourful locations, money to fritter and the cast of 20th-century public figures, Duke's life could be read as a script for a brash movie.

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And indeed there has been a film made about her final days, Bernard and Doris starring Ralph Fiennes and Susan Sarandon.

Aside from gossip, lovers and a fortune, Duke left a more publicly tangible legacy - her home on the Hawaiian island of Oahu near Waikiki Beach, which she built in the late 1930s and has now opened to small groups of visitors. Few tourists who hit the bars, beaches and aloha-shirt shops on Oahu make it to Duke's ocean-front house. It is under-publicised and only 12 visitors at a time are allowed entry on four days a week.

Shangri La, as she called it, is all but invisible as you come down the driveway to the main entrance, which is simply wooden doors in a white, windowless wall.

Duke - who owned homes and apartments in New York, Rhode Island and Los Angeles, as well as a farm in New Jersey - considered the 2ha property her retreat.

Duke liked her privacy, says Charles, the guide who is showing just two mainland couples and myself around on this typically warm day.

Even when glimpsed from passing boats, little of Shangri La reveals itself. Its discreet low lines offer no hint of its inner opulence.

What makes Shangri La so interesting is that it is a monument to unconstrained wealth, eclectic taste, restless acquisition and eccentricity.

However, Duke's ocean-front home has a more singular focus in its elegant mix of Islamic art and design. Stepping through that wooden door - inscribed in Arabic: "Enter here in peace and security" - you walk into a world which is lavish yet minimal.

Over there are 17th-century ceramic tiles from Turkey, down there in the inner courtyard around the fountain are some from 13th-century Iran, here are light fixtures from Syria, and over there, a mosaic made by Duke in 1938 based on Iranian arabesques.

But in the enormous living room Duke used the modern technology of her time - a glass wall, 12m wide and 5m high, slides into the floor at the push of a button.

Now you have an unimpeded view of Diamond Head beyond the Olympic-size pool, where Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller once swam.

Duke bequeathed this place to her foundation to promote the study and understanding of Middle East art and culture.

Duke saw what she liked, bought it, then placed it where it suited her. Although it draws on Islamic art, there is no consistency.

A beautiful 13th-century mihrab - a wall niche indicating the direction of Mecca - is on an east wall rather than facing northwest. To Duke, it simply looked better there.

Elsewhere, separate centuries and styles are juxtaposed. And in its heyday, Duke had Hawaiian knick-knacks - hula-girl glasses, surfboards - around the place. This was a home to be lived in.

Her collection of 3500 items is where the real treasure for a scholar might lie, but to peruse those you need special permission.

Shangri La rewards a visit on its own terms - and Duke had a bottomless well of money to create it. Her father, James Buck Duke, made his money from tobacco, property and energy companies and when he died in 1935 she inherited most of his estate - more than $1 billion in today's money.

The young Doris was by all accounts a smart and intelligent child, and although her wealth allowed her to indulge various passions such as a love of animals, the arts and travel, she was far from frivolous with her money.

As her third cousin Pony Duke noted, she didn't have hobbies, she had obsessions and she turned all her interests into businesses.

She made large donations to charities, but also took care of her own increasingly rapacious desires.

She married James Cromwell in 1935 and a lengthy honeymoon took them to India where Duke fell in love with the Taj Mahal.

She immediately commissioned a marble bedroom based on the designs of that exotic tomb.

The final stop on their 10-month honeymoon was Hawaii, where she began to conceive a retreat on the picturesque property at Kaalawai.

So, with more than 100 local workers and using designs by architect Marion Sims Wyeth, 100 workers started building the home, and it was occupied by 1938.

Duke used Shangri La - named for the Utopian kingdom in James Hilton's pre-war escapist novel Lost Horizon - as a seasonal retreat, more so after she and James divorced in 1943.

Although she was busy with the house Duke also had time for life.

She was briefly married to the notoriously well-endowed playboy-cum-diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa, entertained herself with travel, alcohol and drugs, played jazz piano, and enjoyed numerous lovers, parties and famous guests.

When she was on the island she surfed competitively and for pleasure - and pleasure, especially of the sexual kind, was something she knew well, as a few salacious biographies attest.

Charles, our guide, is circumspect when I ask whether there is a thorough biography of Doris Duke.

He leaves us in no doubt that any bad press and innuendo about Duke remain outside those wooden doors.

At the end she was left with Lafferty, her beloved dog and the house, with its strange collision of eclectic Islamic decor set on the Pacific island.

In 1938, a reporter for the Honolulu Star Bulletin wrote: "On all the face of the globe there is no other place like it, nor is there likely to be".

- Detours, HoS

Founding Fathers Return from Grave, Pissed

Thu, 4 Jul 2008 17:54:00 GMT

posted by thadsta
SPECIAL REPORT ... SPECIAL REPORT ... SPECIAL REPORT ... SPECIAL REPORT ... SPECIAL REPORT

Independence Day Special Report by Mirton Howard, DC Chapter
A small but incredibly irritated group of America’s Founding Fathers returned from the grave today on this 232nd anniversary of our nation’s birth. The emissaries from the Great Beyond reportedly started the day by throwing a blanket party for current President George W. Bush. A White House source revealed that Bush awoke from a drunken stupor with the help of four undead figures pinning the President to his bed with his blanket, while four others repeatedly beat Bush with tube socks full of spare change; all-the-while the deceased dignitaries loudly belittled the Commander-in-Chief for his role in trampling the U.S. Constitution underfoot.
The coterie of living-impaired Founders, which included George Washington, Thomas Paine, and John Hancock held a press conference on the steps of the Nation’s Capital, mid-morning, shortly after giving Bush a thorough ass-whipping. Revolutionary Statesman Patrick Henry, of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame, told the gathered crowd, “When the Constitution was first presented, I thought it gave the central Government too much power, yet never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that you idiots would let the Federal boys completely shut out the states. What the hell were you thinking when you passed the 17th Amendment?” Former President James Madison interjected by saying, “I thought we were pretty clear about granting power to the States, and separately to the People in the 10th Amendment. How do you expect States to protect that granted power if they, as a singular entity, don’t have a voice in Washington? ... Morons!”
Sons of Liberty founder Samuel Adams continued the discourse by questioning if anyone had heard the axiom “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Adams continued by wondering aloud, “Why would anybody vote to ratify an amendment giving the Federal Government more power ... it’s like you want them to be more corrupt ... congratulations you succeeded!” Adams finished by admonishing the citizenry, “I don’t know what you poor stupid bastards are being taught in school these days, but your obvious ignorance is destroying the country me and the boys here worked so hard to establish!”

Following more commentary on various constitutional issues currently facing the country, such as the government’s abuse of citizen’s fundamental rights, and the extraordinary exploitation of the Commerce Clause, Thomas Jefferson reminded the audience what he said long ago about watering the tree of liberty. Benjamin Franklin closed the press conference by telling the onlookers, “We’ll be back in a couple years, get your [excrement] together!”

World Review discusses Islam on We the People Radio with George Butler

Tue, 31 Oct 2007 01:05:28 GMT

posted by HotConflict

This Sunday I had a long conversation with George Butler. I was invited to discuss the concepts of American Democracy and the Constitution after 9/11 from an Islamic point of view. George Butler, God Bless him is like one of the original Pamphleteers! He is on a mission to remind and expose to the American people the efforts of the Founding Fathers who left religious persecution.

We the People Radio Network
American was founded as a place of Freedom and Liberty for All. It is important for all of us as Americans, and Muslims who are in this society to express ourselves in a way that makes our beliefs clear. Taking the responsibility of our people in our own hands by being out front in the limelight. To take a stand and be vocal. We talk about the US Constitution, the Patriot Act and Global Terrorism.

This is the essence of the meaning of "We The People"

The World Review Commentary is a Sunday Call in Show that I was invited as a guest to speak.

Listen to the show here. Recorded October 28th 2007

Hour 1 Download

Hour 2 Download

George Butler - Mr. Butler spent three years in the U.S. Army, the last year in West Berlin, Germany, he witnessed the vulgarities and cruelties of the Berlin Wall. Today he speaks out about preserving our rights. His concerned about America's slide toward Statism motivated him along with Charlotte Littlefield to launch this radio talk show program "The Secret Truth", as well as his show "We the People."

Please check out our other series of articles.

Alternative Careers for Muslims To Stop Terror and Win the War of Ideology in Islam

Using Technology Internet Social Networks Trends To Understand People, the World

Saleem Siddiqui is a Political Commentator, Public Speaker, Actor and Consultant. He is a trained Mediation and Conflict Resolution Specialist. He conducts sermons and training for various religious and Nonprofit organizations. Working with effort to increase Muslim and Islamic awareness in Communications, Public Relations (PR), Public Speaking, Political Strategy, Media, Marketing, and many other fields as they relate to the integration of Muslims in the United States of America and around the world.

Saleem Siddiqui has undergrad degrees in Arabic and religion from the Middle East and attended Law School in Houston,Texas. He has consulted with the FBI and testified on behalf of the District Attorney of Virginia on cases relating to National Security and “The War on Terror”.

Muslim Nightly Call In Radio Show.

Listen to our special Halloween Episode.

Listen to our Past Shows: Archive of HotConflict Radio Podcast

Welcome to our blog about United States Constitution

Thu, 22 Dec 2006 00:43:56 GMT

posted by The_Zimbio_Team
This is our group blog, which is unique because any Zimbio member can post an entry to it. Some members blog about recent news and trends related to the portal topic, others recount relevant personal stories. You can also comment on and rate existing blog entries, to voice your opinion and to help the community identify which members and entries on the portal are must-reads. Got an interesting idea or story to share with other members of this portal? Well, then put on your journalist's cap and add your own blog entry!

America: Where are you?

Sat, 17 Feb 2008 21:43:50 GMT

posted by dkewatson
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” I open with the [...]