The act of prostration is a ‘part’ of the Islamic formal prayer service which is known as Salaat. It is curious that the Islamic house of wor-ship is not generally known as Bait us Salaat or Bait ul Ibaadah (re-spectively, house of formal prayer or house of worship) and that the more utilitarian term masjid, derived from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, became current. This would seem to suggest a more ‘humble’ architectural characterisation of this building type than that to which we have become accustomed, a suggestion that history seems to bear out. The first masjid built under the supervision of the prophet Muham-mad at Medina shortly after his flight from Mecca, was a rudimentary enclosure of earth and rock walls, built around a small grove of date palm trees and roofed by their canopies. When it rained heavily, this tree canopy roof leaked profusely, literally turning the earth floor of the mosque into a ‘mud bath.’