Menu Close

Video: A place for people to pray and birds to sing

A bird house on an exterior wall of the Yeni Valide mosque in Istanbul. Christiane Gruber / Anurag Papolu, CC BY-ND

“At the very core, the mosque is the sacred place of Islam. It is where men and women and children go to pray,” says University of Michigan art history professor Christiane Gruber. But, according to her research on bird houses at mosques, some make room for other, non-human creatures too.

Want to write?

Write an article and join a growing community of more than 181,000 academics and researchers from 4,921 institutions.

Register now