The series
Our series
One subject, several chapters, a thesis demonstrated rather than told. Each series follows one precise problem from end to end instead of touring a monument.
The direction and its geometry
Qibla, the direction that built a world
Every mosque in the world points at a single spot. That constraint produced mathematical problems, instruments, errors left standing for centuries, and buildings deliberately set askew.
The enclosure and its engineering
Masjid al-Haram, the building that cannot stop
The one building in the world whose centre cannot move, around which a growing crowd must circle, and which cannot close for works.
The material, and what was replaced
Masjid an-Nabawi, what grew around a fixed point
A thousand and fifty square metres of mud brick and palm trunks at the start, over a million today. Six chapters on what changed, what never moved, and what the sources do not allow us to claim.