A congregational mosque (Arabic: مَسْجِد جَامِع, Persian: مسجد جامع) or Friday mosque, sometimes known as a jami masjid, great mosque, or grand mosque, is the main mosque of a certain area that hosts the special Friday noon prayers known as jumu’ah. It can also host the Eid prayers in situations when there is no musalla or eidgah available nearby to host the prayers.
Etymology
The full Arabic term for this kind of mosque is masjid jāmi‘ (مَسْجِد جَامِع), which is typically translated as “mosque of congregation” or “congregational mosque”.“Congregational” is used to translate jāmi‘ (جَامِع), which comes from the Arabic root “ج – م – ع” which has a meaning ‘to bring together’ or ‘to unify’ (verbal form: جمع and يجمع). From this the Persian term masjed-e jame (مسجد جامع) was derived. The term is rendered similarly in transliterations from other languages, such as jame mosque, jami masjid, jameh mosque, jamia masjid, or jomeh mosque. In Arabic, the term is typically simplified to just jāmi‘ (جَامِع).
In non-Arab Muslim nations, the word jāmi‘ (“that which gathers, congregates or assembles”) is often conflated with another word from the same root, jumu‘ah(Arabic: جُمُعَة, lit. ‘assembly, gathering’), a term which refers to the Friday noon prayers (Arabic: صَلَاة الْجُمُعَة, romanized: ṣalāṫ al-jumu‘ah, lit. ‘prayer of assembly’) or the Friday itself (Arabic: يَوْم الْجُمُعَة, romanized: yawm al-jumu‘ah, lit. ‘day of assembly’). This is due to the fact that the jumu’ah prayers require congregations and are only held in congregational mosques, usually the main mosque or central mosque of a town or city, and hence they are also sometimes known as Friday mosques.