• sahn: Central court of a mosque.
• imaret: A type of hostelry for the accommodation of Muslim pilgrims and other travelers in the Turkish empire.
• khanaqah: Hostel for Muslim mystics, usually in the form of a court with individual cells around three sides of the perimeter, with an assembly-hall on the fourth side…
• Koran: The sacred text of Islam, revered as the revelations made by Allah to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel and accepted as the foundation of Islamic law, religion, culture, and politics.
• madrasa: Islamic theological/legal place of instruction, usually with a court with iwan, accommodation, and study-cells. The grandest madrasas resembled four-iwan mosque plans, with cells on two story’s arranged around the court…
• madraseh: Islamic theological/legal place of instruction, usually with a court with iwan, accommodation, and study-cells. The grandest madrasas resembled four-iwan mosque plans, with cells on two story’s arranged around the court…
• madrassa: Islamic theological/legal place of instruction, usually with a court with iwan, accommodation, and study-cells. The grandest madrasas resembled four-iwan mosque plans, with cells on two story’s arranged around the court…
• medreseh: Islamic theological/legal place of instruction, usually with a court with iwan, accommodation, and study-cells. The grandest madrasas resembled four-iwan mosque plans, with cells on two story’s arranged around the court…
• medresseh: A college of Moslem law, often a mosque so used.
• khanka: The Muslim equivalent of a monastery; a retreat for dervishes. Also see khanka.
• mosque: The building which for Moslems takes the place of the church among Christians and the synagogue among Jews; that is to say, a specially appointed place for prayer and exhortation. Attendance there is enjoined by the law of Islam. An Islamic building used for communal prayer.
• musjid: A Muslim building or place of public worship.
• ch’ing chen ssu: An Islamic temple in ancient China; follows designs similar to such temples in the Near East, but assimilated into the Chinese style since the Yan dynasty (14th to 17th century); usually constructed of wood but many are masonry.
• gami: Same as jami.
• jami: A mosque intended for large congregations.
• jumma musjid: In India, the principal mosque of a town. That of Delhi, of red sandstone with cupolas of marble and standing on a high terrace, is of the Mohammedan epoch, finished in 1648…
• masjid: A Muslim house of worship; a mosque. Also see masged.
• haram: A temenos or sacred area in Muslim architecture.
• keblah: Also see kiblah.
• kibla: The wall in a mosque in which the mihrab is set, oriented to Mecca.
• kiblah: In Islam, the required orientation of the prayer niche, toward Mecca. Also see keblah, qibla.
• kibleh: Also see keblah.
• maksoorah: In a mosque, an area which is enclosed by a screen or partition and which is reserved for prayer or surrounds a tomb.
• maqsura: An enclosure in a mosque which includes the praying niche, made usually of an openwork screen; originally meant for the sultan during public prayers.
• musalla: A place of Muslim worship; a prayer hall.
• dikka: Islamic architectural term for the tribune raised upon columns, from which the Koran is recited and the prayers intoned by the Imam of the mosque.
• qibla: In Islam, the required orientation of the prayer niche, toward Mecca.
• almimbar: Also see minbar.
• mimbar: A pulpit in a mosque, recalling the three steps from which Muhammad addressed his followers.
• minbar: The pulpit in a mosque.
• mehrab: Also see mihrab.
• mida’a: Also see midha.
• midha: A place for ritual ablutions in a mosque. Same as mida’a.
• tecassir: In Mohammedan architecture, a gallery in a mosque, especially for the use of women.
• ziyada: A court or series of courts around a mosque which serves to shelter it from immediate contact with secular buildings.
• zone of transition: That part of the interior surface of an Islamic building lying between the vertical walls of a square or polygonal room and the dome over: it may be covered with muqarnas.
• zulla: A covered colonnade in a mosque.
• maqsurah: In Islamic architecture, the sanctuary or praying-chamber in a mosque, sometimes enclosed with a screen of lattice-work; occasionally, a similar enclosure round a tomb.
• mashad: A Muslim shrine.
• kutub minar: In Moslem architecture, a tower; usually, in English, equivalent to minaret…
• minaret: A tall, slender tower attached to a mosque with one or more projecting balconies.

Also see Architecture index.