Page - 31 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

Using Media to Teach Religious Studies | 31www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 17–35 mosque building could theoretically be, the architectural and artisanal splen- dour of many a mosque construction is all the more striking. in terms of symbolic references, it can be pointed out that the mih.rāb points not merely to Mecca but also to the Prophet Muhammad, as does the pulpit. the qibla-wall also indicates the Kaaba, traditionally considered to be the house of God built by abraham, and thus God himself. if we associate the lamp often suspended in the mih.rāb with the so-called verse of light (Q 24, 35), its light points to God and to God’s presence.32 the boundless ornamental embellish- ments that can be added to the structure all have similar referential functions.33 the spatial structure of the mosque, like the structure and practice of the s.alāt, can be read as the reification the mentifact of egalitarianism as conceived in the form of the Ummah. Accordingly, different mediated levels of reference exist: geographical, salient, social and theological. these can best be traced not in the classroom but in the mosque itself. oUtLooK: reLiGioUs Media stUdies? in the course of this discussion of forms of religious communication, that is, of first-order mediatisation, a shift from metaphor to metonymy has emerged on the semiotic level. that is to say, religious symbols can be viewed by actors not as merely an allegory for something but as a real physical embodiment of the extraordinary. this can also be found in the media and can be interpreted on the basis of at least two media theoretical aspects as a shift from tertiary and secondary media to primary media of perception and, thus, as a shift from the content to the form of religious communication. Both aspects perform an im- mediacy of the communication situation for the participation of the actors with the reality conceived by them as being religious. the recitation of the Qur’an is an appropriate example. in a kind of re-enactment, the primary medium of the recited word, which is perceived and valued especially for its aesthetic dimen- sion (materiality and form) and not its content, comes to the fore in place of the tertiary medium of the book (coupled with the secondary medium of the arabic language).34 this can also be seen in the mediatisation of other religions, whereby the somatisation of religious reality, and not its symbolisation, is the core of the performative framework.35 32 Quite often, the mih.rāb is brought into association with the throne verse (Q 2, 255), which indicates the omnipotence and omnipresence of God. 33 Cf. Korn 2008, 50–70; Korn 2012, 15–19; Schimmel 1990, 267–274. 34 Cf. Neuwirth 2010, esp. 124, 168–181. 35 Cf. Leach 1978, 24–26, 36–38, 88–90; Meyer 2011, 25–29; Wenzel 2004, 276–279.