The experience of encountering a reality that transcends both sensory perception and rational cognition—a reality understood as “hidden” or “unseen” (al-ghayb)— is among the most complex and profound dimensions of religious life, particularly as it is mediated through the architecture of sacred spaces.
The Sacred Mosque of Jamkaran, understood in Twelver Shiʿi thought as an intermediate space between mosque (masjid) and shrine (ḥaram), transcends the function of a purely devotional site. Rather, it has been constituted as an ontological axis rooted in the profound belief in the hidden presence of Imam al-Zaman (the Twelfth Imam).
The phenomenology of Jamkaran Mosque, in which a lived encounter with the Hidden Imam lies at the core of the pilgrims’ experience, shares affinities with broader patterns observed in sacred sites throughout the world. At Jamkaran, al-ghayb is not merely a belief lodged in the minds of pilgrims; rather, it approaches the realm of lived experience through a sacred process.
This experience is shaped by the convergence of elements such as the orientation of the building, the absence of a zārīḥ, the interplay between collective supplication and silence, and the communal rituals of the pilgrims. Here, the presence of the Unseen is not manifested in material form; rather, it reveals itself as a felt presence within the atmosphere of the space, the movements of the pilgrims, and the sounds of ritual.
This research seeks to address the fundamental question of how the architecture of this mosque enables the pilgrim to experience the presence of the Unseen within a lived spatial encounter. Methodologically, the study adopts a descriptive-analytical approach informed by contemporary phenomenology, particularly the aesthetics of atmosphere.
It is based on library research and the documentary analysis of relevant scholarly and primary sources. These include Qurʾānic texts and theological exegeses concerning the concept of al-ghayb; Islamic philosophical and mystical (ʿirfānī) works, particularly those of Ibn ʿArabī, Mullā Ṣadrā, and Suhrawardī; and major theories in the philosophy of religious experience, including Rudolf Otto’s concept of the numinous, Mircea Eliade’s notion of hierophany, and Gernot Böhme’s theory of atmosphere as a sensory language for perceiving the Unseen.
The analysis is conducted through a phenomenological hermeneutics of meaning. Avoiding surveys, interviews, and quantitative measurement, this study seeks to access the existential structure of the experience of the Unseen at Jamkaran Mosque from within the phenomena themselves, and to articulate that structure within an integrated theoretical framework combining Islamic thought and contemporary phenomenological philosophy.
Within the theoretical framework of this research, the concept of al-ghayb is examined as a supra-empirical and non-sensory reality through four complementary and interrelated conceptual levels.
First, from within Islamic thought, where al-ghayb is understood not as mere absence or non-existence, but as a degree of reality whose apprehension requires an existential and epistemological journey. Second, from the perspective of the phenomenology of religious experience, particularly Rudolf Otto’s theory of the numinous, which describes the immediate, non-mediated apprehension of the Holy as mysterium tremendum et fascinans—a mystery that is at once awe-inspiring and captivating.
Third, within the domain of sacred space, drawing upon Mircea Eliade’s concept of hierophany and Victor Turner’s notion of liminality, which together present the sacred place as a liminal threshold between the seen and unseen worlds. Fourth, through Gernot Böhme’s theory of atmosphere, which elucidates the sensory language of the presence of the Unseen in architecture through elements such as light, silence, orientation, and the interaction between the perceiving subject and the environment.
This integrated framework makes it possible for al-ghayb—though in essence beyond sensory perception and conceptual representation—to be experienced as an accessible reality within the pilgrim’s consciousness, through the interconnection of these four levels of meaning.
Based on these theoretical foundations, Jamkaran Mosque was systematically analyzed. The findings reveal that the mosque is structured by three sacred atmospheres: the atmosphere of the sacred, understood as a space between mosque and shrine; the atmosphere of expectation (intizār), actualized through liminality; and the atmosphere of the Unseen (al-ghayb), manifested through the absence of a zārīḥ and related spatial elements.
The results show that the presence of the Unseen at Jamkaran Mosque is not produced through a material or tangible symbol such as a zārīḥ. Rather, it emerges through the Imam’s corporeal absence, the orientation of the building, its symbolic qibla-centered configuration, the rhythm of supplication and prayer, light, silence, and the synchronized movement of the pilgrims.
In essence, this spatial structure creates an architectural condition in which the pilgrim does not merely believe in the Unseen but experiences it as a living, direct, and deeply felt reality.
Drawing upon Böhme’s (2015) theory of atmosphere, the Sacred Mosque of Jamkaran was analyzed through three atmospheres—the sacred, expectation, and the Unseen—to show how each is perceived within the domain of lived experience.
Existentially, Jamkaran Mosque occupies an intermediate position between mosque and shrine. Among mosques in the Islamic world, it is regarded as having the closest spiritual proximity to al-Masjid al-Ḥarām. Its attribution to the Imam of the Age transforms it into a sanctuary of the living and present Imam, elevating it to the status of a ḥaram-ziyāratgāh, a shrine-place of pilgrimage.
This sacred place functions as a threshold that leads the pilgrim toward a mode of presence beyond sensory perception. The hidden presence of Imam al-Zaman at this site is constituted not through material manifestation but through absence. This bodily absence corresponds fully with the concept of tajallī al-ghayb (the manifestation of the Unseen) in Ibn ʿArabī’s philosophy and Mullā Ṣadrā’s Transcendent Theosophy (al-ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya), wherein it constitutes a necessary condition for the deeper theophany of the Absolute Essence.
The architectural space of Jamkaran, through elements such as the turquoise color of the dome (symbolizing heaven and hope), the simplified qibla-oriented spatial configuration (evoking the austerity of the Kaʿba), the rhythm of collective supplications (Duʿāʾ al-Nudba, Duʿāʾ al-ʿAhd, Duʿāʾ al-Faraj), and the silence accompanying the pilgrims’ movement, generates an atmosphere that, as Böhme (2015) explains, produces “spheres of presence” within material absence.
Within this atmosphere, the pilgrim’s experience is existential and felt. The “sorrow of separation” is no longer merely a remembrance of absence; rather, it becomes a living experience of a presence that, as Otto describes, is simultaneously awe-inspiring and captivating.
Consequently, it can be concluded that Jamkaran Mosque is not merely a place of worship but an “expanded zārīḥ”: a space in which the entire architectural body becomes the embodiment of the Sacred, housing within itself expectation and the unseen presence—the eternal theophany of the living and present Imam.
This finding is not a subjective proposition but a phenomenological insight arising from the intrinsic structure of the pilgrim’s experience in this space. Here, bodily absence provides the condition for spiritual presence, and non-seeing becomes the condition for true seeing.
Thus, the architecture of Jamkaran does not simply contain belief; it actively mediates, through spatial and ritual means, the pilgrim’s encounter with an unseen reality that remains irreducible to material representation within the horizon of sacred experience itself.
This is the very reality emphasized by Muslim mystics (ʿurafāʾ): that it is accessible only through direct experiential witnessing (al-shuhūd). By reconstructing the inner structure of that experience through a phenomenological method, this research has sought to approach its description as faithfully as possible.