CHURCH, mosque, masjid, pagoda, temple, wat, paya, synagogue, cathedral, spirit house- sacred and revered structures take many names and many forms. Many of the world’s greatest buildings were built to honour and praise our creator, or at least to help secure a better afterlife for its sponsor.

Main mosque, Berbara, Somaliland. The run-down town has some Ottoman era buildings, but often it was hard to tell what was new or old.

Because of he numerous architecural masterpieces, Iranians say “Isfahan nesfe Jahan”, Esfahan is half the world. Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque.

Shops light up in Emam Mosque, Esfahan. Shops are a common feature at mosques. The income provides for the upkeep and for community purposes.

Mosques in Yazd, Iran, which briefly served as the capital of the Muzaffarid Dynasty in the fourteenth century.

Rasafa, Syria, was a Roman trading city and became a Christian site of pilgrimage in the 4th century.

Al-Hamidiyah Souq, dating back to the Ottoman era, seen from the 7th century Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria.

In the Syrian capital of Damascus sits one of the world's oldest, largest and most beatiful mosques, the Umayyad.

St Simeon spent 37 years sitting atop a pillar in the 5th century, at this site oustide Aleppo, Syria

The Hypostyle Hall in the Precinct of Amun-Re contains 134 columns (20m high and 3m in diameter) in 16 rows.

The magnificent Angkor Wat, 1993. Built as a Hindu Temple by Suryavarman III in the 1100s, construction took around 30 years.

Mevlid-i Halil Mosque, built next to the site where prophet Abraham is believed to have been born, in multicultural Sanliurfa, Turkey.

Covered since the coming of Islam to Constantinople, these magnificent mosaics are in the Aya Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

The cavernous interior of Istanbul's Aya Sophia Museum. The massive structure began life as a cathedral, was converted to a mosque, before its latest incarnation.

Built in the year 500, the Emperor ordered the Aya Sophia to be the greatest building in Christendom. It was.

Built in the early 1600s, the Sultan Ahmet mosque, Istanbul, is one of the great works by legendary architect, Sinan.

Zenkov Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church in Al Mata Kazakhstan. Islam is the major religion in the region, although the Orthodox Church is strong.