As the world's population continues to expand and the pattern of urbanization increases rapidly, it is inevitable that the speed, quality, and consequences of this growth require sustainable management. However, it is noticeable that the pattern of rapid urbanization seems to focus on secular and tangible aspects of cities, such as political, economic, residential, and educational attributes, while marginalizing others such as those associated with spirituality and religion. Religion is represented through places of worship, which are significant architectural attributes impacting social connections, religious practices, and community development. While places of worship may be deemed essential by worshippers, policymakers, planners and architects, these spaces are often neglected, unoptimized and used for brief periods of time in many cities across the world. Consequently, places of worship have become symbolic and iconic ‘artifacts’ rather than essential sociocultural and spiritual places that are closely integrated with their urban context and collective life and memory of the community. This pattern of using places of worship as ‘symbols’ is evident in the form and function of mosques in urbanized contexts of Arab Gulf countries and particularly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The key problem is that mosques in the UAE are not optimized to their ideal urban, sociocultural, and spiritual role due to certain practices and policies. Therefore, this study aims to understand design practices and management policies affecting the role, value, and feasibility of a mosque in its context, and comparing them with the community’s needs and expectations. mosques in the UAE are used as a case study to explore urban and architectural design practices along with operational and management policies. An in-depth literature review will outline the main categories, followed by an online questionnaire and focus group interviews. The collected data will be analyzed using statistical analysis to derive the main criteria and weights to develop a decision support tool. The anticipated outcome of this research is a framework that can be used by stakeholders and decision-makers to design and manage mosques in congruence with the community’s needs, expectations, and values. Ultimately, the study aims to bridge the gap between an ‘ideal’ role of a mosque from social, religious, and urban perspectives and the ‘reality’ shaped by stakeholders and decision-makers.