Kobe Mosque

Listen for a moment. On this sloping street in Kitano, you may hear car tyres on the hill, a shop door sliding open, and, from somewhere nearby, the low murmur of a city going about its day. Then look up. Two slender towers rise above the rooftops, pale against the sky, with a rounded dome sitting between them. In a neighbourhood of Japanese homes and Western-style villas, the shape feels unexpected, and that surprise is a good place to begin.

This is Kobe Mosque. It is widely recognised as the first mosque built in Japan, completed in 1935. The two towers are minarets. In much of the Islamic world, these towers were traditionally used to call the faithful to prayer. The dome crowns the prayer hall below. Together, they form a silhouette that many visitors connect with South Asia or the Middle East. Few expect to see it on a hillside street in a Japanese port city.

So why here? The answer lies in the harbour below. Kobe opened to foreign trade in 1868, and merchants from around the world soon settled on these slopes. Traders came from Europe and America, and also from China and India. By the early twentieth century, Kobe was one of the busiest ports in Asia. Its streets carried many languages, many faiths, and many kinds of food. This hillside became the place where foreign families built their homes.

Among these newcomers was a community of Muslim merchants. Many were traders from British India. They were joined by Tatar families, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who had left the former Russian Empire after the revolution. These two groups shared a faith but came from very different places. For years, they had no proper building for communal prayer. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, they began to gather funds for a mosque of their own.

The design came from an unexpected hand. The architect was Jan Josef Švagr, a Czech architect who worked in Japan and was known mainly for designing churches. A European Christian architect drew up the plans for a mosque for Indian and Tatar Muslims in a Japanese city. That single fact shows how mixed and international this port once was. Švagr combined elements often linked with Indian and Turkish mosque architecture, and he built the structure in reinforced concrete.

Take a close look at the facade. Notice the arched windows and the way the minarets narrow as they rise. Notice how the dome sits slightly back from the street. The building is not large compared with the great mosques of Istanbul or Delhi. Its scale is closer to a neighbourhood place of worship. Even so, the proportions are careful. The vertical lines of the towers balance the soft curve of the dome.

Now comes the part of the story that surprises most visitors. In 1945, during the final months of the Second World War, Allied air raids destroyed large areas of Kobe. Fire swept through whole districts, and much of the city burned. This mosque survived. Its concrete walls stayed standing while many wooden buildings around it were lost. Local accounts say that people sheltered in its basement during the raids. Some of the outer walls still carried marks from the fires for many years.

The building faced a second test half a century later. In January 1995, the Great Hanshin earthquake struck the Kobe region. It killed more than six thousand people and damaged or destroyed a huge number of buildings. Once again, the mosque came through with relatively little damage. Engineers have pointed to its solid foundations and strong concrete frame. For many people in Kobe, the image of the towers still standing became a quiet symbol of endurance.

Today the mosque is an active place of worship. It is not a museum. The community that gathers here is far more varied than the founders could have imagined. You may see students, workers, and families from Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as Japanese Muslims. On Fridays, the main day of communal prayer, the hall can fill with people. On a quiet weekday, you may see only a few worshippers.

Visitors are generally welcome, but this is a working mosque, so a few courtesies matter. Dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered. Women are usually asked to cover their hair before entering the prayer area, so it helps to carry a light scarf. Shoes come off at the entrance. Speak softly, and do not photograph people while they pray. If a prayer is in progress, wait outside, or come back later.

If you step inside, notice the change in the light and the sound. The prayer hall is mostly open space, with carpet underfoot and no pews or chairs. Muslims pray in rows facing toward Mecca. A niche in one wall, called the mihrab, shows that direction. Look up toward the inside of the dome. Look also at the upper gallery, which has traditionally been used as a prayer space for women.

When you come back out onto the street, look at the neighbourhood with new eyes. A short walk away are the Kitano foreign residences, the old Western-style houses that are now popular with tourists. Within this small area, you can also find churches, a synagogue, and a Jain temple. Halal grocery shops and restaurants serve the Muslim community. Few places in Japan hold so many faiths so close together.

Before you go, stand for a moment across the street and take in the whole building once more. The towers that rose over a growing trading port in the 1930s are the same towers you see now. They outlasted war and earthquake. As you walk back down the hill toward the harbour, you are following the path of the merchants who built this place. They looked at the same sea, and they hoped to make a home here.