FACTORS INFLUENCING PUBLIC ATTACHMENT TO MOSQUES IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Place is formed by people’s relationship with the physical environment, individual and group activities, and meanings. Sense of Place, Place Identity, and Place Attachment are some concepts that could describe the quality of the people’s relationship with a place. Place attachment is described as an affective bond that develops between people and their environment or setting. In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in the studying of people’s attachment to places, including the religious places as of the most important and attended places in human lives. In this realm the published literature shows that not only the religious concepts but also the architectural features and attributes of these places could play an important role in forming people’s attachment. This research investigated Malaysian people’s attachment to the contemporary Malaysian state mosques focusing on the three predominant architectural styles, namely Modern, Post Modern, and Vernacular. This paper reports on a conducted qualitative study to identify the indicators that could be used in evaluating people’s perception to the aforementioned mosques. To accomplish this, in-depth interviews were conducted with 23 participants in the 5 selected mosques. The study revealed that Malaysian people have strong emotional attachment to all studied mosques. The research showed that this attachment was due to the studied mosques’ significance as religious and cultural symbols. Finally, the research identified the key indicators to investigate Malaysian public’s perception to the contemporary Malaysian state mosques.