The history of the world’s great mosques

For the Holy Month of Ramadan let’s have a look at the history of some of the greatest mosques.

The Shah Mosque (Persian: مسجد شاه‎) is a mosque located in Isfahan, Iran. It is located on the south side of Naghsh-e Jahan Square. It was built during the Safavid dynasty under the order of Shah Abbas I of Persia. It was also known as the Imam Mosque after the Iranian Revolution.

It is regarded as one of the masterpieces of Persian architecture in the Islamic era. The Royal Mosque is registered, along with the Naghsh-e Jahan Square, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its construction began in 1611, and its splendour is mainly due to the beauty of its seven-colour mosaic tiles and calligraphic inscriptions.

The mosque is depicted on the reverse of the Iranian 20,000 rials banknote.

The Friday congregational mosque was built by Nizam al-Mulk, a Persian chief minister to the Turkish sultan Malik Shah, at the end of the eleventh century. Making use of an existing hypostyle building (dating to AD 840), Malik Shah demolished several of its columns in front of the mihrab. In their place he erected a freestanding domed chamber (or maqsura) for the sultan, supported on massive piers – thereby weakening the original structure. He had perhaps been impressed by the great dome of the Mosque of Damascus whose restoration work he had authorized. A second domed chamber was added by a rival of Nizam al-Mulk at the opposite, north end of the mosque.

Undoubtedly elegant,it deserved no particular function but made for a near perfect vertical aligment of all parts of the mosque,directing the eye in a smooth sweep to the decorate dome.

Architecture and design

Design – the four-iwan style

The Safavids founded the Shah Mosque as a channel through which they could express themselves with their numerous architectural techniques.

The four-iwan format, finalized by the Seljuq dynasty, and inherited by the Safavids, firmly established the courtyard facade of such mosques, with the towering gateways at every side, as more important than the actual building itself.

During Seljuq rule, as Islamic mysticism was on the rise and Persians were looking for a new type of architectural design that emphasized a Persian identity, the four-iwan arrangement took form. The Persians already had a rich architectural legacy, and the distinct shape of the iwan was actually taken from earlier, Sassanid palace-designs,^] such as The Palace of Ardashir.

Thus, Islamic architecture witnessed the emergence of a new brand that differed from the hypostyle design of the early, Arab mosques, such as the Umayyad Mosque. The four-iwan format typically took the form of a square shaped, central courtyard with large entrances at each side, giving the impression of being gateways to the spiritual world.

Standing in the public square, or Maidan, the entrance-iwan (gateway) to the mosque takes the form of a semicircle, resembling a recessed half-moon and measuring 27 meters in height, the arch framed by turquoise ornament and decorated with rich stalactite-like tilework called muqarnas, a distinct feature of Persian Islamic architecture.

At the sides rise two minarets, 42 meters high, topped by beautifully carved, wooden balconies with muqarnas running down the sides. Master calligrapher of the Royal court, Reza Abbasi, inscribed the date of the groundbreaking of the construction, and besides it, verses praising Muhammad and Ali.

In the middle, in front of the entrance, stood a small pool and a resting place for the horses, and inside the worshipers found a large marble basin set on a pedestal, filled with fresh water or lemonade. This basin still stands as it has for four hundred years, but no longer serves the function of providing refreshments to the worshipers at the Friday prayers.

When passing through the entrance portal, one reaches the main courtyard, centered around a large pool. The two gateways (iwans) on the sides leads ones attention to the main gateway at the far end, the only one with minarets, and behind it the lofty dome, with its colorful ornamentation.

The distinct feature of any mosque is the minaret, and the Masjed-e Shah has four. Still, in Persian mosques, tall minarets were considered unsuitable for the call to prayer, and they would add an aedicule, known in Persian as a goldast (bouquet) for this particular purpose, which in the Masjed-e Shah stands on top of the west iwan.