This prayer niche once pointed students towards Mecca. Its blue and white patterns comprise verses from the Qur’an.
Mihrab (prayer niche), 1354–55 (A.H. 755), just after the Ilkhanid period, Isfahan, Iran, polychrome glazed tiles, 343.1 x 288.7 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
[0:00] [music]
Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay Lewis: [0:05] Normally, when you see a niche, you expect a sculpture to be in it. However, we are looking at a prayer niche, a mihrab.
Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:13] This is really just a directional pointer.
Dr. Lewis: [0:15] It is a pointer. In the Islamic faith, you are supposed to pray five times a day, and you’re supposed to pray towards Mecca. So knowing where you are meant to be pointing and where you are meant to be praying is really a fundamental thing. All of the mosques anywhere in the world are set up to do this.
Dr. Zucker: [0:30] They’d have this mihrab in a wall, which is known as the qibla wall.
Dr. Lewis: [0:34] Correct.
Dr. Zucker: [0:35] That just basically faces towards Mecca. It’s not oriented east, or north, or south, or west, but in the direction of Mecca, wherever that may be.
Dr. Lewis: [0:44] And there’s no altar, no religious edifice that stands in front of it. So some of the things that you might be expecting to see as you would see in a Western church or a cathedral don’t exist here.
Dr. Zucker: [0:54] People wouldn’t pray towards this niche. They would just pray in the direction that this niche was set.
Dr. Lewis: [1:01] That’s exactly right. If you imagine this back into its mosque, into its context, you could see people in rows facing the qibla wall, praying towards Mecca. Mecca was the home of the Prophet Muhammad. He lived in Mecca until 620, when he was forced out and he went to Medina.
[1:17] His house in Medina had a large courtyard. His house was more a civic center than really just a domestic space. It was oriented towards Mecca. Now, we have no physical evidence of the house. It’s long gone. That is what the hadiths and early sources tell us.
Dr. Zucker: [1:31] So this basic architectural form, which is now found in every mosque, may have in fact been based on perhaps an archway within the courtyard of the Prophet’s home in Medina. It’s interesting that you say that his house was the civic center because that’s the way we think about mosques. That is, they’re not just religious spaces but they’re really cultural centers.
Dr. Lewis: [1:50] One of my favorite experiences was going to the Great Mosque in Damascus. You go into the courtyard and it is social. Families are there, children are there, people are talking, meeting up, having a good time. It’s a place of community.
[2:01] We’ve also seen that with the Arab Spring, that Friday prayers and people going to the mosques was a flashpoint for many people to then go and protest their governments. The mosques hold this very important political and social place in the Islamic world.
Dr. Zucker: [2:16] Let’s put this particular mihrab back in its historical context. This is from the city of Isfahan. Its brilliant blues that we see in these tiles is not distinct just to this mihrab, but was really distinct to the entire city.
Dr. Lewis: [2:31] Oh, Isfahan is the blue city. It is spectacular. Really, you have to imagine blue tile — light blue, dark blue, turquoise blue — everywhere. A vibrant, glowing city that would have shimmered.
Dr. Zucker: [2:43] This mihrab would have been within, not a public mosque, but a madrasa, part of a school.
Dr. Lewis: [2:49] Yes. It’s believed to have come from, it’s called the Minani Madrasa, in Isfahan. This is where people who were enrolled at the school studying theology would have come to pray. Often, they would hear a sermon, not dissimilar to what people would hear in a church or in other religious spaces.
Dr. Zucker: [3:04] But in this context, you don’t even need the sermon. It’s written into the tilework itself.
Dr. Lewis: [3:10] Yes. That’s one of the things that makes this so gorgeous. On the exterior rectangular frame, we have a verse from the Qur’an.
Dr. Zucker: [3:17] This is Arabic. It is read from right to left, the opposite direction that we read in English.
Dr. Lewis: [3:23] Right. The Qur’an was always in Arabic. The Qur’an should always be learned, studied, and recited in Arabic, because it is the word of God. It is divinely revealed. Muhammad is believed to have been a conduit for the word of God, not the person who created it. So it has to be in Arabic.
Dr. Zucker: [3:39] That outer frame that you were pointing out, the script is so fluid, so beautiful, and so decorative. It almost seems to be a pure abstraction. The inner frame is really distinct. This is not that fluid script that we see on the outer part of the mihrab. This seems much harder-edged and much more geometric.
Dr. Lewis: [3:59] This is called Kufic script. It’s one of the most well-known scripts throughout the entire Islamic world. We have Kufic script written on the Dome of the Rock that was finished in 691-692.
[4:09] This is also really interesting. It stands out partially because you have the blue on the white as opposed to on the rest of the niche, where you have white on blue, blue is your dominant background color. What’s also particularly interesting about this inscription is what it says. It basically lists the Five Pillars of Islam.
Dr. Zucker: [4:26] These are the five rules that any adherent to Islam must follow.
Dr. Lewis: [4:30] That’s right. It’s very simple. You have to believe in the confession of faith: There is only one God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet. He is his messenger.
[4:37] You have to give alms.
[4:39] You have to pray five times a day.
[4:41] If you are able, you should undertake pilgrimage — the Hajj — to Mecca; and lastly Ramadan, the month of fasting. Those are the five basic things you should try to achieve in your life if you are to be a good Muslim.
Dr. Zucker: [4:52] So this is a really didactic statement and seems so appropriate that it’s within a madrasa, within a school.
Dr. Lewis: [4:58] It’s a constant reminder. You also would have had a literate population. You have people who are studying the Qur’an for hours upon end.
Dr. Zucker: [5:04] I see that there’s a third area within the niche that has text within it. It’s low. It would be visible when one was praying.
Dr. Lewis: [5:12] It says, in Arabic, “The Prophet, peace be upon him, [said] ‘the mosque is the dwelling place of the pious.’” It’s another nice reminder that you should be contemplative, also invoking Muhammad, that he is the kind of beacon to which all Muslims should be looking to live their lives.
[5:27] [music]
