A 51 THE DISCUSSION ON THE EXTRAVAGANT ORNAMENTATION ON CONTEMPORARY MOSQUE IN MALAYSIA Siti Dalila Mohd Sojak *1 , Raja Nafida Raja Shahminan 2 and Fadhlina Ahmad @ Taufik 3 1 Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), MALAYSIA. (Email: siti.dalila@graduate.utm.my) 2 Centre for the Study of Built Environment in the Malay World (KALAM), Institute for Smart Infrastructure & Innovative Construction (ISIIC), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), MALAYSIA. (Email: b-nafida@utm.my) 3 Department of Architecture, Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), MALAYSIA. (Email: fadhlina@utm.my) ABSTRACT Ornamentation is a part of mosque components, considered as the essence of mosques all over the world. Ornament plays a role in Islamic spirituality, as a symbol of tawheed, reminder to Allah the Almighty. The Prophet (pbuh) did not condemn the idea of decoration and beautification as such, but harshly condemned inappropriate decoration. These days, mosques are highly decorated and always been used as an icon of grandeur of a religion. As a result, contemporary mosques are as much as tourist attraction rather than a place of congregation for Muslims. The primary function of a mosque as a place of worship has been neglected and the extravagant ornamentation disregard the rules in Islamic Sharia. This paper discusses the principle of Sharia contained in al-Quran and hadiths related to ornamentation and its application on contemporary mosque architecture. Moderate and meaningful mosque ornamentation is neither forbidden nor authorized. Thus, this paper explains the consequence of extravagant ornamentation as to obtain the basic philosophical for implementation of the beauty in mosque as well as to restore the function of ornamentation itself. Keywords : Ornamentation, Islamic Architecture, Contemporary Mosque 1.0 INTRODUCTION In Islamic practice, mosques are houses for worshiping Allah. In principle, they should be simple and plain. Too much decoration in mosques is not only a waste of money, which is utterly forbidden, but also deprives the mosque of the sense of serenity that usually accompanies simplicity (Al-Haj, 2017). The desire to express Islamic architecture in a grandeur fashion came during the nation’s rapid growth in the late 1980s and were probably due to its new found wealth, knowledge and confidence. Mosques were built in such designs to equate Malaysia to other known Islamic countries which were well-known for their grand