Lewis, Rumi: Past and Present, East and West (Oxford:
Oneworld, 2000).
mihrab
Mihrab is a term associated with the architectural
vocabulary of mosqUes, where it denotes the prayer
niche and prayer orientation. Mihrab entered En-
glish usage through the accounts of 19th-century
travelers whose objectives were to observe, de-
scribe, and catalogue Muslim behaviors and Islamic
forms. To these European sensibilities familiar
with the altars, chapels, and icons of churches, the
concavity in the qibla wall of mosques stood out
in what may have seemed rather stark interiors.
Located left of the minbar, the mihrab marked
the position of prayers leaders and the direction
of mecca, and it held the promise of symbolic
content. The religious emphasis was enhanced by
rug dealers and collectors who, early in the 20th
century, distinguished a type of rug with niche rep-
resentations, dubbed “mihrab prayer rugs.”
Most historical and contemporary mosques
have mihrabs. In the past, these usually echoed
the shape of the rounded niche that was the
first form adopted for a mosque mihrab and that
appeared in a series of state-sponsored monu-
mental mosques of the early eighth century.
Anatolian and Iranian mihrabs evince regional
variations of this theme with their elaborate
and gradated profiles, while 13th-century Ayyu-
bid-Syrian ones are distinguished by geometric
designs of inlaid marble. Today, some mihrabs
are sculptural interpretations of the idea of the
original; the mihrab of the King Faisal Mosque,
islamabad, is an open book designed by the artist
Gulgee. Mosques that omit the mihrab keep alive
an historical controversy regarding the permis-
sibility of mihrabs.
The mihrab has also generated a great deal
of scholarly controversy among art/architectural
historians and linguists who have attempted to
fix its origins in a variety of architectural lan-
guages and contexts. However, the prevalence of
the niche in late antique architecture, the con-
tinuing Arabic usage of the word in diverse ways,
and even the appearance of mihrab in the qUran
(where none of its five occurrences means niche)
have not supported such positivist efforts.
See also architectUre.
Nuha N. N. KhouryFurther reading: Renata Holod and Hasan-Uddin Khan,
The Mosque and the Modern World (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1997); Nuha N. N. Khoury, “The Mihrab
Image: Commemorative Themes in Early Islamic Archi-
tecture.” Muqarnas 9 (1992): 11–28; Nuha N. N.
Khoury, “The Mihrab: From Text to Form.” Interna-
tional Journal of Middle East Studies 30 (1997): 1–27.Mihrab with elaborate inlaid marble designs and
inscriptions in the Sultan al-Nasir Hasan Mosque-
Madrasa complex (14th century), Cairo, Egypt.
(Juan E. Campo)
mihrab 473 J