Muslim Cities

by J. Dudley Woodberry

Scholars such as Joseph Ernest Renan and William Marcais have argued that Islam is essentially an urban religion (Abu-Lughod 1993:12). However, the institutions of Muslim society - such as the community, the state, the mosque, and the mystical (Sufi) brotherhoods - are not specifically urban. Nor is a majority of Muslims urban.

Nevertheless, cities have played a formative role in Islam since its inception. Muhammad began his preaching in the commercial and pilgrimage city of Mecca, and built the community in Medina. Cities with central mosques, courts, and schools created the Islamic ambiance that facilitated the conversion of conquered peoples in West Asia and North Africa. Military cities like Qairawan were built to launch territorial expansion. And Islam was further spread by traders and Sufi preachers through port and caravan cities in Africa and southeast and east Asia.

We shall consider three questions. First, to what extent may we speak of an "Islamic city"? Second, what are the major cities in the Muslim world, and what are their social problems? Finally, what are the missiological implications of the above?

The "Islamic City": Fiction and Fact
Based on his reading of the philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), Arab geographers, and legal works, William Mar ais in 1928 described the Islamic city as essentially a city clustered around a congregational mosque, a chief market (suq), and a public bath. Subsequently, Georges Mar ais in the 1940s adds the residential quarters, often differentiated from others by ethnicity, and then describes the suq based on his knowledge of Fez and Marrakech. Robert Brunschvig then quotes North African jurists and references to the physical structure of Fez to argue that the physical pattern of Islamic cities was based on customary law as applied by these jurists. Other characteristics were added from the studies of the Syrian cities of Damascus and Aleppo by Jean Sauvaget and Ira Lapidus of Berkeley (Abu-Lughod 1993:12-17).

Generalizations concerning Muslim cities were made from these studies and passed on by scholars, but they are based on too few cases. Many Muslim cities do not fit the stereotypes. Nevertheless, there are characteristics that, though not unique to Muslim cities, are quite common in traditional ones whose origins predate the colonial period. They are based on social forces that have impacted the spatial patterns.

First is a division into neighborhoods. This was partly a result of clustering around mosques which should not be farther apart than the muezzin’s call to prayer could reach, and the need for defensible space when there was little centralized government care and control. It was influenced by people’s relationship to the Muslim community (umma). Thus the traditional cities were divided into quarters for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. This segregation was often voluntary and not exclusive as in "Muslim" west Beirut and "Christian" east Beirut. In colonial North Africa where "European" and "Christian" were considered synonymous, an enclave for "Europeans" was automatically a "Christian" quarter. In the Indian cities with Muslims and Hindus, neighborhoods could be identified by such means as butcher shops in Muslim areas and by more women in public in Hindu areas. Even cities with non-Muslim majorities frequently have Muslim neighborhoods - for example, the Hui on Oxen Street in Beijing (Gladney 1991:171-227).

A second characteristic is gender segregation outside the extended family, which influences architectural and spatial design. This is essentially a visual separation, since a veil or shawl allows women to have personal contact with vendors in the bazaar without being observed by them. Architecture meets the requirement by lattice work on windows, introverted houses, and private doors and passageways. In densely populated poor neighborhoods (haras) in places like Cairo, the neighborhood becomes semi-private space.

Thirdly, educational, health, and religious institutions were supported by private religious endowments (waqfs), while property laws were left to customary law on the local level. Hence there was little need for central planning and administrative centers.

Modernity as expressed in the new nation states has challenged all these social forces that have been expressed in the spatial patterns of traditional Islamic cities. First, neighborhoods get broken up by wide streets for cars and by land cleared for office buildings or factories. Second, capitalism links production to world markets rather than the exchange of goods and services locally in the bazaar. Oil production and military needs lead to migration and the building of new cities. Third, cities are centrally planned with foreign designers on western models.

In summary, the concept of the "Islamic city" is largely a myth, though traditional cities in the Muslim world display many physical characteristics that reflect Islamic social values. These values, however, are sorely challenged by the demands of modernity.

Major Muslim Cities and Their Problems
Five of the twenty-five largest cities have Muslim majorities - Jakarta, Karachi, Cairo, Dhaka, and Istanbul. Three others have a very large Muslim presence - Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi. Five others have significant numbers of Muslims - New York, Los Angeles, Lagos, Paris, and Metro Manila. Furthermore, the average growth rate of the Muslim cities is significantly above the average of the other cities (United Nations 1995:132-39, 143-50). By the year 2015, two other cities with Muslim concentrations are expected to have populations of over 10 million - Lahore and Hyderabad (Myers 1996:46).

In the previous section, reference was made to the clash of social forces that modernity has brought to traditional Muslim cities. Here we shall explore the resultant social problems. First, we have seen the dislocation that the imposition of centralized planning can cause cities organized around decentralized neighborhoods - especially when there is normally little consultation by the planners with the local neighborhoods. This disruption includes the clearing of urban property to make room for roads, railroads, factories and office buildings.

Secondly, there is tremendous population growth. For example, the population of the Middle East and North Africa (which is predominantly Muslim) is expected to increase from 4.6 percent of the world in 1980 to 10.4 percent of the world by the year 2000. That is approximately twice the relative increase of the rest of the world (El-Shakhs and Amirahmadi 1993:234). This leads, thirdly, to housing shortages and overcrowding. Initially the older sections of town become overcrowded in cities like Cairo, Alexandria, and Casablanca. Then squatter quarters grow up on the edges of town - even in cities with a significant financial base like Riyadh. The growth of the population has meant that an increasing percentage of people are children and teenagers, hence dependent. The crowding has led, fourthly, to environmental damage.

In many countries - including OPEC nations because of the drop in oil prices - the economy has slowed. The population growth coupled with declining economics has led, fifthly, to unemployment or underemployment by the expanding labor force. This trend has, sixthly, increased the urban poor who are in a vicious cycle of little access to employment, education, health resources, and family planning, resulting in continued poverty. The increasing gulf between themselves and the rich leads, seventhly, to class conflict. This conflict feeds into the militant fundamentalists resurgence since lower class and lower middle class traditionalist Muslims make up much of the rank and file of the resurgence.

Missiological Implications
The question arises whether urban or rural Muslims are more receptive to the gospel. The large movements to Christ in Java and Bangladesh have been among rural, more animistic Muslims. There are only scattered cities between Casablanca and Jakarta that have congregations of baptized believers of Muslim background. In a few cases, groups of converts from rural movements have moved to the city for work, but we have yet to see major movements to Christ in the cities or a significant utilization of the potential for reaching rural people groups through their members in the city.

The overview of Muslim cities, however, suggests a number of missiological implications. First, the fact that the major institutions of Muslim society - the community, the state, the mosque, and the Sufi brotherhoods - are common to city and country alike indicates that the specifically Islamic barriers and bridges to gospel communication are similar. Secondly, the observation that Muslim cities are often divided by their ethnicity suggests the church growth principle that the gospel spreads most easily among the natural web of family and friends and raises the challenge of how best to express that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.

Further, the fact that migrants to the city normally keep contact with their relatives in the country underlines the potential for reaching most people groups through their members in the city. When one Muslim ethnic group has felt suppressed by another - as the Kabyles in Algeria and the Kurds in Iraq - experience has demonstrated the heightened receptivity of the suppressed group.

Thirdly, the emphasis on gender separation poses the challenge of sensitivity to their mores while communicating that in Christ there is neither male nor female. Fourthly, while the impact of modernity leads to some Muslims grasping more tenaciously to their religious roots - as in the fundamentalist resurgence - it has led others to re-evaluate their roots and be open to new ideas as expressed in the gospel.

Fifthly, the observation has been made that large numbers of Muslims are migrating to the cities, and many are settling in growing shanty towns on the edge of the city. When these observations are coupled with Evertt Huffard’s research, which noted that a majority of converts in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt were new migrants to the city (Matheny 1981:5), we may conclude with him that these transitionals will be most receptive, and the places where they are settling would have increased potential for church planting.

The growth of the urban poor highlights, sixthly, the need for holistic ministries of compassion among them. The stimulating of cottage industries among Kurdish converts in Iraq was a means of self help and social uplift and allowed converts to benefit their families rather than be pariahs to them.

Finally, the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism and conflict in urban society has actually increased receptivity to the gospel, as has been borne out in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Sudan, and Nigeria (Larson 1996). Therefore, the urban missionary can look for people and groups who have become disillusioned with these expressions of their faith. By this path our Lord is once again entering the cities of the east as he entered Jerusalem many years ago.

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Janet L., "The Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance," Urban Development in the Muslim World, Hooshang Amirahmadi and Salah S. El-Shakhs, eds. (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1993), pp. 11-36.

El-Shakhs, Salah, and Hooshang Amirahmadi, "Population Dynamics, Urbanization, and the Planning of Large Cities in the Arab World," Urban Development in the Muslim World, Salah El-Shakhs and Hooshang Amirahmadi, eds. (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1993), pp. 233-52.

Gladney, Dru C., Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Larson, Warren F., "Islamic Fundamentalism in Pakistan: Its Implications for Conversion to Christianity." Unpublished dissertation. Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, 1996.

Matheny, Tim, Reaching Arabs: A Felt Need Approach. Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1981.

Myers, Bryant, The New Context of World Mission. Monrovia, CA: MARC/World Vision, 1996.

United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Projects, 1994 Revision. New York: United Nations, 1995.

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