What are minarets?

Answer 1

Answer AThe minaret is a tall slender (or thin) tower structured with the mosque> it is desgined usually with balcony (ies) wher one can call Muslims for the prayer. It is traditional structure combined with mosques.

More details:

Minarets (Turkish: minare, from Arabic manāra (lighthouse) منارة, usually مئذنة) are distinctive architectural features of Islamic mosques. Minarets are generally tall spires with onion-shaped crowns, usually either free standing or much taller than any surrounding support structure.

As well as providing a visual cue to a Muslim community, the call to prayer is traditionally given from the top of the minaret. In some of the oldest mosques, such as the Great Mosque of Damascus, minarets originally served as watchtowers illuminated by torches (hence the derivation of the word from the Arabic nur, meaning "light"). In more recent times, the main function of the minaret was to provide a vantage point from which the muezzin can call out the adhan, calling the faithful to prayer.

In most modern Mosques, the adhan is called not in the minaret, but in the musallah, or prayer hall, via a microphone and speaker system. However, the minaret remains as an architect symbol for the mosque.

In a practical sense, these are also used for natural air conditioning. As the sun heats the dome, air is drawn in through open windows and up and out of the shaft, thereby causing a natural ventilation.

Minarets have been described as the "gate from heaven and earth", and as the Arabic language letter alif (which is a straight vertical line).

The world's tallest minaret (at 210 meters) is located at the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco. The world's tallest brick minaret is Qutub Minar located in Delhi, India. There are two 230 meter tall minarets under construction in Tehran, Iran.

Answer BA minaret is a tower that adjoins a mosque. The original purpose of a minaret was to allow a muezzin to call people to prayer in that neighborhood. Some minarets are still functional in that regard although, with the use of public address systems, loud speakers today are frequently attached to the minaret instead. Most mosques have only one minaret, many of which are placed in the direction of the qibla, which shows the direction in which Muslims pray (toward the city of Makkah). However, some mosques may have more than one minaret. Minarets are also somewhat like church steeples in that people can tell from a distance which building is the mosque.

A minaret does not show anything. It is for azan to be heard by as many people as possible, in the early days when there was no microphones.