Mosques around the world have been serving the Muslim community for religious and social purposes since the beginning of Islam. Mosques have played an important role to educate and create a peaceful yet proper cosmos for its visitors. However, nowadays, mosques are not only used for its educational component, but on occasion have been transformed into places to serve multi-ethnic and multi- religious communities during natural disasters. This paper is an attempt to surf through the recent publications that discuss natural disas- ters and the containment of such incidents. Four case studies have been presented to draw a picture of a mosque’s role before, during and after natural disasters. Although many researchers have investigated this role, there still is an urgent need to understand the several ex- amples of cases globally and the issues the researchers have dealt with in such incidents. Selected papers have been reviewed to study the conclusions found in the most recent publications in this field. The aim of this paper is to find out the missing aspects and the gap in the literature for the purpose of future studies and designs.

1. Photo retrieved from bodybuilding.com
MOSQUE AS A TRANSFORMING
SPACE TO CONTAINMENT NATURAL
DISASTER; BROWSING THROUGH
THE RECENT PUBLICATION
Hayder Jawad Shakir Haraty, Presenter
Dr. Mohammad Yazah Mat Raschid
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nangkula Utaberta

2. Introduction
❖ Environmental hazards such as Hydro-meteorological ones (floods, typhoons, droughts etc.)
are increasing in many countries Asia and several other countries
❖ Those natural and frequent hazards have caused many deaths between people, earthquakes
have also caused much damage on the infrastructure and buildings in many cities (Mulyasari
& Shaw, 2017)
❖ Floods ratios are increasing as one of the fatal disasters and affect lots of people that
especially the one in urban areas (EM-DAT 2016
❖ It is extremely important to reduce the number of those deadly hazards and building disaster
resilience among the communities
❖ There have been different stages to deal with such incidents, starts by early warning or
prediction, knowledge and education, and reducing the underlying risk factors, and finally
preparedness and response (UNISDR 2005a)

3. Phases of The Disaster Management Cycle
ROLE DURING THE REACTION
AND HELP
ROLE DURING RECOVERY,
RECONSTRUCTION AND
REHABILITATION
• Benchmark early warning
• space and forum for coordinating
the response
• Rescue aid
• Ensure the inclusion of vulnerable
groups
• Able to integrate community
• Appoint volunteers and Spiritual
Support
• The main center for providing
information to the public
• Support for life
• Support psychosocial, spiritual
• Healing and creating resilience of
society
• Space for community activities (eg,
schooling, work together)

4. Rule of Mosque in Natural Disaster
❖ Utaberta & Rahayu, (2016) stated that since the existence of mosque by the Prophet Mohammad
(pbuh), the role of mosque has been limited to religious purpose only and worship. It first
appearance was a symbol of the Islam greatness until today, Masjid Nabawee which was built by the
Prophet, was a center of various activities but the time has changed and also the role of mosque.
❖ Mosques, following the Islamic teachings, must always be a reflection that promote harmony, peace
and goodwill among people. Therefore, during the time of tragedy, Muslims should not ignore the
most active institutions within societies and always step up to assist who need.
❖ Mosques, must always be a reflection that promote harmony, peace and goodwill among people.
❖ Therefore, during the time of tragedy, Muslims should not ignore the most active institutions
within societies and always step up to assist who need.
❖ Mosques can be transformed to accommodate vulnerable communities for those seeking shelter
and be a centers of aid coordination (IRI et al., 2011)
❖ Mosques around the world have been serving the Muslim community for religious and social
purposes since the Islam existence, it has played an important role to educate and create a peaceful
yet proper cosmos for its visitors

5. Role of Mosque Before and After Disasters
Before Disaster Coordinating Role
• As a place of worship
• As a place of prayer, especially the
Friday prayers congregation
The role of the mosque in
Emergencies
• Most of the mosques in the report
submerged during the flood disaster
occurred
• Set up a disaster management
committee members
After Disaster Coordinating Role
• - Made as a temporary center
• As a disaster relief collection center
• As a spirit after the flood disaster
recovery (where counseling)

6. Kelantan’s flood
❖ It is one of the states in Malaysia that
have had several encountered flood
disasters represented in flash flood and
monsoon floods
❖ In December 2014, the occurrence of
heavy rains that descended above
normal, caused flooding which was
recorded the highest in that year.
❖ The main issue is that the volunteers
from the people did not have the
experience to rescue in such incidents.
❖ Other issue like communications and
preparedness from the authorities were
not enough.
Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc

7. ❖ It was proposed that the area of mosque could work as a
place of relief during disasters situations (Mortada,
2003)
❖ It was suggested by YM Raja Samri is the first step
during floods is to clean up the mosque and using it to
coordinate and assist the victims of the flood disaster
❖ Using the mosque as a center of activity could unite
people to go through these tragedies with less lose as
possible

8. Sri Lanka Tsunami
❖ The Indian Ocean tsunami happened on 26
December 2004 that causes many deaths and
property losing
❖ Some might see it as a paradigmatic case of gift
which transformed the world into a large and
unprecedented level of donation from all around
the world (Korf, Habullah, Hollenbach, & Klem,
2010)
❖ According to many sources, in addition of the
many death cases, more than one and half
millions persons were displaced and had no
home to stay (BBC NEWS, 2005)
❖ Korf et al., (2010) have published the effort of
many around the world in helping out with this
tragedy. The publication further explained that
Muslims on the south coast suffered major
devastation.
Source: edition.cnn.com

9. ❖ Korf also showed that after the disaster, mosque became a place
for refuge and many displaced, it became a center for material
and spiritual relief
❖ Hospitals and schools or public buildings had their part in
providing a temporarily shelter
❖ Those spaces received different donations from many sources and
they insured to distribute the aid equally between people, the
mosque was a place to guarantee the purification of gift from
donors
❖ The tsunami and mosque role showed no exception for those who
in need for help, people rushed from various cultures and religion
to find the peace under the mosque’s roof

10. Pakistan’s Earthquake
❖ A major earthquake shook Pakistan on
Saturday, October 8, 2005, at 8:50 a.m
❖ 150000 were the number between killed
or injured from citizens, three million
people lost their home while the winter is
coming.
❖ Volunteers from Turkey, Jordan,
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan rushed
to assist people for this massive tragedy
with aid and medical help (Foundation,
2010).
❖ Islam is the main religion in Pakistan,
people tend to trust in religious
institutions and regularly donates to
mosque
Source: BBC.com

11. ❖ In the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan,
mosques continued to raising funds and sending
volunteers to help out (Rehman & Kalra, 2006)
❖ Mosque can play a part in the reconstruction and
recovery after such incidents
❖ Religious institution can have a role during natural
disaster by offering spiritual and physical help for
displaced people

12. Afghanistan flood disaster
❖ The natural hazard of flood disaster in
Afghanistan occurred in the spring of
1965 in the city of Nimruz (Sistan).
❖ The heavy quick snow following by the
air temperature during the spring caused
massive flow of water through the newly
built dam which was meant to protect the
province Zabul from floods
❖ The flood tragedy left around 1000 of
people homeless and waiting the new
location for their new city.
❖ It can be empathized that there was no
such shelter for displaced people after
the tragedy happened and most people
stayed in tented
Source: outlet.historicimages.com

13. ❖ In 2009, a research book published pointing out the role
of mosque during one of the flood disaster incidents
where the mosque was able to warn people of the city of
Adrasskan before the arrival of the flood. Citizen of the
city were able to escape and no one died (ICIMOD,
2009).

14. Conclusion
❖ Hazards are driving by the force of nature, it could happen anytime,
therefore; people should be prepared and aware before any natural
disaster and preparedness in priority
❖ The mosque in the studied cases showed it effectiveness in sharing
awareness between citizens, educating and offering help for those in
need
❖ Despite the fact that the importance of mosque, some have failed to
propose an effective way to deal or transformed the mosque into an aid
space which can be used after any disasters
❖ The role of mosque was and will continue to be a center of knowledge
and help, spiritually, culturally and physically for all kind of societies

15. Thank you