Video: Kishwar Rizvi on Islamic Architecture and Historical Memory

In The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East, Kishwar Rizvi draws on the multifaceted history of the Middle East to offer a richly illustrated analysis of the role of transnational mosques in the construction of contemporary Muslim identity. As Rizvi explains, transnational mosques are structures built through the support of both government sponsorship, whether in the home country or abroad, and diverse transnational networks. By concentrating on mosques—especially those built at the turn of the twenty-first century—as the epitome of Islamic architecture, Rizvi elucidates their significance as sites for both the validation of religious praxis and the construction of national and religious ideologies.

In the following video, Rizvi talks with Marilyn Wilkes about The Transnational Mosque in an episode of The MacMillan Report, produced by the MacMillan Center at Yale University. (Running time 22:24)

Kishwar Rizvi is an architect and associate professor of the history of art at Yale University. The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East is now available. Her previous books include The Safavid Dynastic Shrine: Architecture, Religion and Power in Early Modern Iran and Modernism and the Middle East: Architecture and Politics in the Twentieth Century.