The Role of Mosque in Building Resilient Communities

This book is about the role of the mosque in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Disasters give rise to a situation where people from different parts of the world, quite unfamiliar with each other, come into contact to save lives, provide necessities such as food and shelter, rebuild homes and enable community recovery. During these challenging times, community-based religious institutions such as churches, mosques and temples  are a practical choice for reaching people living nearby to fulfil their needs. The book shows the contributions of the mosque as a physical, spiritual and social place for improving the knowledge and practice of disaster risk reduction and management including the COVID-19 pandemic. It also illuminates the widening role of religion in development. The book reinforces the case for broader engagement with all community-based religious institutions. The book is of interest to academics in diverse fields including development studies, disaster studies, sociology, anthropology, religion, Asian studies, emergency and disaster management. It will also of interest to the professional staff of disaster management authorities, public sector, bilateral and multilateral aid allocation and implementing agencies and those of humanitarian organizations.   

​“This book narrates untold stories about the complex nature of mosque, community organisations and development practices in Pakistan. Without doubt, this book further triggers passionate debates on the role of religious organisations in development practices. Abdur Rehman presents his decade long research on the role of religious institutions in disaster risk reduction in a thought-provoking monograph.”

Associate Professor Imran Muhammad, Massey University, New Zealand

“Dr. Abdur Rehman Cheema in this book has taken up a very rare subject which is essentially required by Muslim communities. Mosque, the most frequently attended religious place is packed with social energy. As visualized in the book, if this energy under the patronage of the Imam (Prayers leader) is correctly mobilized, it can help achieve success at every stage of disaster risk management cycle. The theme presented in the book can be effectively applied to inspire Muslim communities for disastermanagement.”

Brigadier Fiaz Hussain Shah, Sitara-e-Imtiaz (Military), Retired.

“Dr. Cheema’s outstanding scholarly work highlights the forgotten role of mosque as a catalyst for community development, social cohesion, and resilience building, and not merely as a place for observing rituals of faith.” 

Tariq Cheema, Founder, World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists

“This book from Abdur Rehman Cheema is an incredible endeavor to bring light to the potential future roles that the mosques and other religious institutions can play in disaster preparedness. These community-based religious institutions undertake an imperative part in the reaction, response, recuperation, relief, recovery, reconstruction, and preparedness phases of the disaster in nations with Muslim preponderance. The author confers different dimensions of the role of the mosques to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in atimely and efficient manner and passage magnanimity, pledge, and responsibility among the Pakistani community.”

Sajid Naeem, Senior Program Manager/Country Representative, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)

“This sympathetic case study analysis of the role of mosques in rural Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake presents new insights into diverse dynamics of religion, economy, and gender in post-disaster contexts while highlighting both the possibilities and the limitations of humanitarian engagement with religious institutions in mitigating the impact of future disasters.”  

R. Michael Feener, Kyoto University, Japan

“This is an outstanding and much-needed contribution to help understand the role of faith and religiosity in humanitarian relief efforts and disaster risk reduction. Faith-based community set ups and organisations offer immense advantages in terms of access to areas where government machinery may struggle to reach. Abdur Rehman Cheema has brilliantly demonstrated how the mosque, as part of the civil society, faith-based institutions and networks can provide effective emergency response and recovery and improve community resilience.”

Dr Abid Mehmood, Cardiff University, UK

“For too long scholars have overlooked the significant role that religious institutions can and do play to assist communities all around the world in recovering from disasters. Dr Cheema’s book makes important strides in this direction by focusing on the role of the mosque, particularly in terms of supporting the resilience of people in the face of a major earthquake in Pakistan.”

Prof Regina Scheyvens BA(Hons), PhD, Professor & Co-Director - Pacific Research and Policy Centre Doctoral Mentor Supervisor, School of People, Environment and Planning

“Focusing on the role of the community mosque in disaster relief in Pakistan, this book offers arare account of a community institution of importance to Muslims across the world. Based on empirical research, the book is an timely contribution to the debate about what disaster response and preparedness can be. The book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the role of religious institutions in disaster response in Pakistan and beyond.” 

Dr Kaja Borchgrevink, Senior Researcher, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway

“The masjid/mosque is an integral part of Muslim society across globe. This book on tackling the climatic change crises by leveraging mosques in Pakistan or community-based religious institutions elsewhere is an outstanding and unique contribution. More than ever, the world desperately needs such indigenous community institutions to build adaptative and resilient societies in our fast-changing Anthropocene.”

Faisal Abbas, PhD,  School of Social Sciences and Humanities (S3H), National University of Sciencesand Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

 

 

Abdur Rehman Cheema is an economist and development professional with PhD in Development Studies (Massey University, 2012). He has served in academia, non-profit, national and international organizations. He has held Charles Wallace Fellowship and University of Oxford fellowship. Currently, he is working for the UNDP at the Federal Sustainable Development Goals Support Unit, Ministry of Planning, Development, Reform and Special Initiatives, Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad.