# "Victory Mosques?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454 "2010-09-11T23:53:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/41 "2010-09-13T16:34:28Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Ever been to Cuzco, Peru? The Spaniards razed the Inca temple to erect their cathedral. Problem was, it was so well constructed they gave up before tearing out the foundation, choosing to just build on top of it instead. You can, today, go into the cathedral and see the Inca stonework foundation. > > Or is that somehow different because they don’t refer to it as the ‘Victory’ cathedral? The zocalo in Mexico City (where the cathedral is located) is also built on top of an Aztec temple. You can easily see the archaeological site over on one side of the zocalo. That’s Catholics for you. Always invading countries, killing off the people with their diseases, and building cathedrals on top of their temples. Fuck Catholicism! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/42 "2010-09-13T16:40:54Z")
[Answer here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12909175&postcount=18) ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/43 "2010-09-13T17:30:39Z")
Churches, mosques, and synagogues all serve a similar function. It shouldn’t be surprising that a good site for one would also be a good site for another, or that a building that was used for one could be used as another. In an ancient or medieval city, you want it in walking distance of the homes or workplaces of the people who are going to worship at it. These days, you want it convenient to transit and/or parking as well as convenient to people’s homes and workplaces. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/44 "2010-09-13T17:42:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Suspect of what? I didn’t realize that posting a question in GQ was subject to requirements of ideological purity. Oh, everything on this damned board is, you should know that by now. I knew to a moral certainty (even posting in GQ, even asking to keep it GQ, even using scare quotes around the phrase victory mosque to indicate my dubiousness about it), that more than a handful of the resident let-me-show-you-how-wonderfully-p.c.-I-am types wouldn’t be able to resist burnishing their self-regard by saying “but Christians are no better,” when there was not one iota of “Muslims are bad” in the letter or spirit of what I actually asked. I’m only satisfied that despite the noise (inevitable around here) I’ve also gotten some good facts about actual Islamic history, enough to allow me to reach a tentative conclusion on my GQ (said conclusion: eh, not really). ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/45 "2010-09-13T17:43:21Z")
> [@](#): > > I didn’t realize that posting a question in GQ was subject to requirements of ideological purity. And we didn’t realize that you’d been promoted to jr. moderator. Seriously, what do you care what we discuss in this thread? You’re not the OP. Who asked you? ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/46 "2010-09-13T18:34:14Z")
As I explained in the Pit thread where \*\*John Mace \*\*decided to place his reply to me: Ask a loaded question, get a complicated answer. You may certainly \*choose \*to ignore or disregard any additional, related information that people may wish to supply you with, in order to give you a better context for their replies or the source of your question. Whether or not it is \*wise \*to do so, especially on a board the stated goal of which is to _fight ignorance_, is another question entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/47 "2010-09-13T18:41:04Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Ask a loaded question, get a complicated answer. It’s not a loaded question. People are running around talking about “victory mosques” (as noted, I put it in quotes to indicate that while the meme definitely exists, I didn’t know if the underlying thing does – that’s why I asked if it did. Apparently, it doesn’t, really). See how easy that is? I mean, to those not filled with self-righteousness. Yet the first reply I got – not the second, or not down-thread as is tacitly accepted as okay around here, once the factual question is adequately answered – had **nothing** to do with answering my question, posted on Sept. 11 after reading a protesting WTC victim’s family member making the assertion that “Muslims build mosques to commemorate the site of military victories” – left me literally none the wiser on my actual, factual question – and went into a digression about . . . the Crusades, and how Christians are worse than Muslims on the historical track record? [Barcelona]“What’s that other thing besides the subtext?” “. . . you mean the text?”[/] ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/48 "2010-09-13T18:51:23Z")
I think the question is the same kind of loaded question as “Have you stopped beating your wife?” No short answer is going to express the full truth, or be satisfactory. Did Muslims build mosques in cities that they conquered? The answer is yes of course they did, and yet also, the fact that this does not set them apart from any other conquerors in the entire history of the world is hardly irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/49 "2010-09-13T18:59:37Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > I think the question is the same kind of loaded question as “Have you stopped beating your wife?” No short answer is going to express the full truth, or be satisfactory. > > Did Muslims build mosques in cities that they conquered? The answer is yes of course they did, and yet also, the fact that this does not set them apart from any other conquerors in the entire history of the world is hardly irrelevant. It’s exactly unliike that question you cite, which builds an answer into the question. My question (“do Muslims historically build mosques on the site of military victories to celebrate them?”) could (unlike the question you cite) be answered “no,” “yes,” “sometimes,” “not as such,” “they didn’t do that but they did something you might consider vaguely analogous when setting up mosques in newly conquered cities,” with citation of factual precedent, without any risk of misleading anyone. The proof is that many who recognize that this is GQ and not I’m-So-Much-Betterer-Than-You (the board that seems to be an overlay for all the actual boards here in the minds of an unfortunate minority of posters) _have actually provided answers and factual information along those lines, instead of attacking my question._ ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/50 "2010-09-13T19:17:54Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > It’s not a loaded question. I don’t think \*you’re \*the one who loaded it, but it \*is \*loaded. > [@](#): > > People are running around talking about “victory mosques” (as noted, I put it in quotes to indicate that while the meme definitely exists, I didn’t know if the underlying thing does – that’s why I asked if it did. Apparently, it doesn’t, really). And regardless of whether or not you acknowledge it, \*that \*is the context of your question, and it’s \*that \*context some of us are \*also \*addressing. > [@Huerta88](#): > > Betterer That’s not a word. _Wink._ ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/51 "2010-09-13T19:26:50Z")
Certainly, there have been mosques built on the site of, or incorporating, non-Muslim religious edifices. As has been pointed out often enough above, this practice is pretty common - Christians did this as well. There were generally three reasons for this: 1. the edifice was an impresive one, and so re-using it made sense after a conquest (such as the Hagia Sofia in what was Constantinople - the most impressive building in the dark ages world, still very impressive in the 1450s); 2. Sometimes, the site was holy to both the old and new religions (Dome of the Rock, built on a site holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam); and 3. To symbolize the triumph of the new religion over the old (Hagia Sophia again). What the Muslims did not do, as far as I know, is build mosques on battlefields to ceklebrate military victories or anything of that sort (Christians very occasionally did - example being the “Battle Abbey” built at Hastings. As far as I know, this lacks an Islamic counterpart). As far as I know, the term “victory mosque” is a modern invention, used solely by those fussed about the building of an Islamic centre in New York near “ground zero”. This does not fit any of the above historical categories - it is not re-using an impressive Christian edifice, it is not re-dedicating a Christian church to Islam, and it is not built on a site actually holy to any religion. In short, there appears to be nothing to it. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/52 "2010-09-13T19:35:42Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > 1. the edifice was an impresive one, and so re-using it made sense after a conquest (such as the Hagia Sofia in what was Constantinople - the most impressive building in the dark ages world, still very impressive in the 1450s); This makes a lot of sense to me. Any time you start reading about history or archaeology, you realize how at least historically, everything got reused, adapted, built over. Makes sense too when you hear about how long big buildings took to be completed (lots of churches were sort of built incrementally over centuries). > [@](#): > > As far as I know, the term “victory mosque” is a modern invention, used solely by those fussed about the building of an Islamic centre in New York near “ground zero”. AFAICT it is very recent in vintage (which wouldn’t mean the concept couldn’t have existed beforehand, I guess, but the facts posted here seem to say, nah, not so much) – Google turns up mostly/only a bunch of recent political sites on the Right, BB posts, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/53 "2010-09-13T20:32:06Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > I think the question is the same kind of loaded question as “Have you stopped beating your wife?” No short answer is going to express the full truth, or be satisfactory. > > Did Muslims build mosques in cities that they conquered? The answer is yes of course they did.. Except that’s not the question the OP asked. And the answer to the actual question in the OP, from what we’ve gathered in this thread, is “no”. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/54 "2010-09-13T21:51:55Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Oh, everything on this damned board is, you should know that by now. I knew to a moral certainty (even posting in GQ, even asking to keep it GQ, even using scare quotes around the phrase victory mosque to indicate my dubiousness about it), that more than a handful of the resident let-me-show-you-how-wonderfully-p.c.-I-am types wouldn’t be able to resist burnishing their self-regard by saying “but Christians are no better,” when there was not one iota of “Muslims are bad” in the letter or spirit of what I actually asked. You asked in your OP to keep it GQ, and I didn’t see any subtext of “Muslims are bad” in your question, but **rowrrbazzle** did make it political in [post=12904445]post 6[/post], and I believe that’s what people have been responding to. > [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Naming this new center the “Cordoba Center” is highly significant. That is what makes this a big deal. > > “Moderate Muslims oppose location of Cordoba Mosque — on religious grounds” [http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/18/moderate-muslims-oppose-location-of-cordoba-mosque-—-on-religious-grounds/](http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/18/moderate-muslims-oppose-location-of-cordoba-mosque-%E2%80%94-on-religious-grounds/) Of course **aruvqan** had already stepped out of strict GQ bounds, but you’d responded to her, trying to steer the discussion back. But as you yourself have admitted in your OP, this is a question that’s perceived as having great current political importance, so it’s understandable, if not desirable, that people will inject politics into their answer. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454/55 "2010-09-14T01:42:24Z")
In the NY Times yesterday they told the story of a Muslim taxi driver who opposed the mosque. “Have you seen the parking over there?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/victory-mosques/553454.md?page=2)