Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

13-24Winter prayer hall of the Shahi (Imam) Mosque, Isfahan, Iran, 1611–1638.

The ceramists who produced the cuerda seca tiles of this Isfahan mosque’s winter prayer hall had to manufacture a wide variety

of shapes with curved surfaces to cover the hall’s arches and vaults.

in Iran. The earliest mosque on the site, of the hypostyle type, dates

to the eighth century, during the Abbasid caliphate. But Sultan Malik

Shah I (r. 1072–1092), whose capital was at Isfahan, transformed the

structure in the 11th century. Later remodeling further altered the

mosque’s appearance. The present mosque, which retains its basic

11th-century plan (FIG. 13-23), consists of a large courtyard bor-

dered by a two-story arcade on each side. As in the 14th-century

complex (FIG. 13-19) of Sultan Hasan in Cairo, four iwans open onto

the courtyard, one at the center of each side. The southwestern iwan

(FIG. 13-23,no. 3) leads into a dome-covered room (no. 4) in front

of the mihrab. It functioned as a maqsura reserved for the sultan and

his attendants. It is uncertain whether this plan, with four iwans and

a dome in front of the mihrab, was employed for the first time in the

Great Mosque at Isfahan, but it became standard in Iranian mosque

design. In four-iwan mosques, the qibla iwan is always the largest. Its

size (and the dome that often accompanied it) immediately indi-

cated to worshipers the proper direction for prayer.

13-23Plan of the Great Mosque, Isfahan, Iran, 11th to 17th centuries.

In the Great Mosque at Isfahan, as in other four-iwan mosques, the

qibla iwan is the largest. Its size and the dome-covered maqsura in front

N of it indicated the proper direction for Muslim prayer.

0 5102 755 00 feet

0210 03 0 meters

1

11

2

3

4

Iwan

Courtyard

Qibla iwan

Domed maqsura

1.

2.

3.

4.

356 Chapter 13 THE ISLAMIC WORLD