Normally, when you see a niche, you expect a sculpture to be in it. However, we are looking at a prayer niche, a mihrab. This is really just a directional pointer.
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. So all of the mosques anywhere in the world are set up to do this.
And so they have this Minrab in a wall, which is known as the Qibla Wall. Correct. And that just basically faces towards Mecca. It's not oriented east or north or south or west, but in the direction of Mecca, whatever that might be. And there's no...
no religious edifice that stands in front of it. Some of the things that you might be expecting to see, as you would see in a Western church or cathedral, don't exist here. People wouldn't pray towards this niche. They would just pray in the direction that this niche was set.
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. 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 evidence, physical evidence of the house.
It's long gone, but that is what the Hadiths and early sources tell us. 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. And it's interesting that you say that his house was the civic center because that's the way we think about mosques.
That is that they're not just religious spaces, but they're really cultural centers. One of my favorite experiences was going to the Great Mosque in Damascus. And 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.
We've also seen that with the Arab Spring. Friday prayers and people going to the mosque was a kind of flash point for many people to then go and protest their governments. So the mosques hold this very important political and social place in the Islamic world. Let's put this particular Minra back in its...
Historical context. This is from the city of Isfahan, and its brilliant blues that we see in these tiles is not distinct just to this minrab, but was really distinct to the entire city. 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.
This minrab would have been within not a public mosque, but a madrasa, part of a school. Dr. Yes, it's believed to have come from, I think it's called the Minani Madrasa in Esfahan. 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. But in this context, you don't really even need the sermon because it's written into the tile work itself. Dr. Yes, and that's one of the things that makes this so gorgeous. On the exterior rectangular frame, we have a verse from the Quran. This is Arabic and it is read from right to left, the opposite direction that we read in English. Right.
The Quran was always in Arabic, and the Quran should always be learnt and 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. That outer frame that you were pointing out, the script is so fluid and so beautiful and so decorative, it almost seems to be a pure abstraction.
The inner frame is really distinct. This is not that kind of fluid script that we see on the outer part of the Minrab. This seems much harder edged and much more geometric. This is called Kufic script, and 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. 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. But what's also particularly interesting about this inscription is what it says.
And it basically lists the five pillars of Islam. So these are the five rules that any adherent to Islam must follow. That's right. And 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. You have to give alms. You have to pray five times a day. If you are able, you should undertake a pilgrimage, the Hajj, to Mecca.
And And lastly, Ramadan, the month of fasting. And those are the five basic things you should try to achieve in your life if you are to be a good Muslim. So this is a really didactic statement, and it seems so appropriate that it's within a madrasa, within a school.
Yeah, it's a constant reminder. You also would have had a literate population. You have people who are studying the Quran for hours upon end.
I see that there's a third area within the niche that has text within it. It's low, so it would be visible when one was praying. It says in Arabic, the Prophet, peace be upon him, upon him, the mosque is the dwelling place of the pious.
So it's another nice reminder that you should be contemplative, but also invoking Muhammad, that he is the kind of beacon to which all Muslims should be looking to live their lives.