Guldasta
Guldasta (rarely Goldasta , Persian and Urdu , "bouquet of flowers") is a small roof structure on mosques that appeared in Persian architecture from around the 17th century to the 19th century. In Iran , during the rule of the Qajars, a mostly square wooden pavilion on one of the ivans served the muezzin instead of the minaret as a place for the call to prayer ( adhān ).
In the older Indo-Islamic architecture , the guldasta on the roofs of Indian mosques has been a brick, tapered decorative tower since the time of the Bahmani Sultanate and in the Mughal Empire , often in the miniaturized shape of a minaret or a pavilion with the top of a spherical lotus bud .
term
The word guldasta is made up of the Persian gul , "flower" ( phul, hindi phulan ) and dasta . Dasta is translated as “group”, “bundle”, “bouquet”, meaning a small amount: daste , a “handful”, from dast , “hand”. In Iran, “bouquet of flowers” does not refer to a specific form of architectural detail, but only to its decorative value in a place that is visible from afar. It can also mean a minaret, the balcony on this or the smaller decorative minaret on the corner of a religious building. A functional name in Iran for the roof pavilion is miʾdhana or ma'zana, "place of the call to prayer", which otherwise means the minaret.
In contrast to this, in India a roof tower is called guldasta , the shape of which is actually reminiscent of a bud, blossom or a bouquet of flowers. Guldastas here have a symbolic meaning that goes back to an ancient Indian design language. The shape of the Qajar guldastas cannot be compared with the Indo-Islamic guldastas, but with the Indian chhatris , miniature domed pavilions on roofs.
Iran
Under the Qajar dynasty that ruled from 1779, Iranian architecture had reached the end of a tradition that had become more and more inflexible, which allowed only one type of mosque instead of the earlier variety of forms. This is the courtyard mosque, in which an inner courtyard (Arabic ṣaḥn ) is surrounded on all sides by arcades ( riwāq ). Two or four half-open ivans in the arcades highlight the middle of the sides and mark the main axes of the strictly symmetrical basic plan. A high portal ( pischtaq ) forms the entrance to the street . The architectural characteristics of the Qajar period were based on the design of the façades, in addition to the use of pre-Islamic sculptures, especially the main façade with colorful tiles in contrast to the exposed brick walls.
The guldasta on the roof of the Ivan is related to the development of this form of architecture, which is central to large Persian buildings. While the ivans lay within the wall surface in the Parthian and Sassanid times, a development began in early Islamic times towards ever taller ivans that gradually protruded far beyond the surrounding parts of the building, those in the central Asian capital of the Timurids , in Samarqand , in the 15th and 16th centuries found their most splendid enhancement. The Ivan of the Friday Mosque of Semnan, dated 1424/25, towered over the mosque and the entire city center with its 21 meters height. The Qajars endeavored to break with this tradition of a towering ivan, not by constructing it lower, but by attempting to formally better connect the ivan to the arcades through side, intermediate-high extensions. There were different design solutions for this.
In order to emphasize the main facade at the same time, high minarets were erected in some cases, as in earlier centuries, but experimentation was predominantly made with other possibilities. At the corners of the north facade of the Masjid-i Aqa Buzurg of Kashan, instead of the minarets, wind towers ( bādgir ) rise into the sky. The minarets had been secularized under the Safavids . With the number of minarets on a mosque, its religious importance decreased and the majestic splendor of the building increased. The muezzin no longer called to prayer from a minaret. Ever since an Englishman called Feste installed a clock tower above the entrance to the Isfahan bazaar on behalf of Shah Abbas I , as the contemporary witness Adam Olearius reported in 1637, the initially hesitant adoption of this strange type of building began. Where the Qajars did not set up a guldasta centrally above the main divan of a mosque, a clock tower could also be erected, for example on the north divan of the Masjid-i Sayyid in Isfahan. Some guldastas were later replaced by clock towers.
In the case of the four-Iwan mosques and the madrasas built according to this basic plan, the guldasta was on the roof of the main portal on the north side. Here he was also visible from the outside. In other courtyard mosques, the guldasta can also have stood on the opposite south divan, which forms the qibla wall, or on a side portal. According to old illustrations and descriptions, the shape of some guldastas is known. According to this, the pavilion consisted of a mostly square, rarely octagonal, open wooden structure, which was closed off by a cantilevered flat ceiling, in the middle of which a smaller pyramid roof towered up. The wooden posts were decorated with capitals and connected by a surrounding parapet. The Shah mosque in Borudscherd from the mid-19th century had an octagonal guldasta.
When the guldasta was introduced is unknown. The pavilion has mostly been found in mosques since the 17th century, i.e. since the rule of the Safavids , and it could therefore have been developed in that century. In isolated older mosques with guldasta, this presumably comes from a later period. The widespread use of the guldasta in Iran as a place to call to prayer began in the early Qajar period, when mosques and madrasas were only occasionally equipped with minarets, but were more common on palaces as emblems of sovereignty. The guldasta replaced the minaret at the mosque and, in early Qajar times, was usually only missing where there was a minaret. The French traveler Jean Chardin (1643–1713) provided the oldest evidence of a guldasta . In his travelogue Voyages en Perse et aux Indes orientales , first published in 1686 , a picture shows the west ivan of the Shah mosque in Isfahan from 1616 with a guldasta. The guldasta came there sometime between the completion of the mosque and Chardin's visit. In the illustration, the pavilion still has a flat roof; at a later time, this type of pavilion received the pyramid structure typical of the early Qajar period.
Why the guldasta was introduced instead of the minaret is also speculative. Jonathan Bloom makes a connection with the number of minarets, which declined under the Safavids and only increased again in the late Qajar period. Accordingly, the Safavids, who elevated Shiite Islam to the state religion, took the view that the muezzin should not call the believers to prayer higher than from a roof. However, there is no evidence that this doctrine existed and was widely implemented, as minarets were also built on mosques under the Safavids. It is possible that the use of wood, an ephemeral material, in an exposed position on a mosque shows consideration for religious ideas. Guldastas were never built in Iran from stone or brick. In any case, the guldasta contributed to emphasizing the central axis of the entire complex, as did the brick clock tower in its place later to a greater extent. In the case of the Masjid-i Sayyid of Isfahan, there was a low clock tower on the north and a guldasta on the south.
The great mosque of Sousse (Tunisia) was built under the Aghlabids in 850/51 and expanded in 897. It is a courtyard mosque with arcades surrounding it. A small octagonal pavilion with a domed roof on the north corner tower of the mosque dates from the first half of the 11th century. To this end, the judge Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Naṣr as-Sūsī, who died in 952/53, writes in his memoirs that he sat under this dome ( qubba ) to watch what was happening at the annual market and called from here to prayer.
Mughal Indian influence on Iran
Northern India has a tradition of stone turrets and miniature pavilions on roofs, which can be traced back to medieval Hindu temples , where the outer shape of the roof tower ( shikhara ) above the sanctuary is divided up by tiered rows of miniature turrets ( urushringa ). Hindu and Buddhist forms of construction, such as the amalakas crowning the dome , were transferred to Islamic buildings. The mausoleum of Sher Khan Suri , a Pashtun ruler who ruled northern India from 1540 to 1545, is an octagonal domed building surrounded on three floors by domed pavilions and at its top in a photo from 1870 by a square pavilion with a curved pyramid roof is crowned. The pavilion on the dome of the Islamic building has now been replaced by a point that corresponds to an amalaka of Buddhist-Hindu architecture. In Indo-Islamic architecture, these miniature pavilions with domes on four, sometimes eight stone pillars are called Chhatris .
In India the Chhatris belong to the style of the Indo-Islamic architecture of the Mughals . As decorative elements on the roof corners, they replace minarets in their design effect. What is striking is the similarity in shape and arrangement of the Mughal Indian chhattris with the pavilions set up in pairs on both sides of the ivans at some Iranian mosques, for example on the northern ivan of the Masjid-i Muschir in Shiraz (Moschir mosque, completed 1858) and the Masjid Nasir al-Mulk in Shiraz (built from 1876 to 1888). The Friday mosque in Sanandaj , built under Amanullah Khan, who ruled over the Kurdestan province from 1800 to 1820 , has two minaret-like towers crowned by a pavilion with a curved domed roof on the ivan. The guldasta on the north ivan of the Nabi mosque (Masjid-e Shah, completed shortly after 1800) in Qazvin corresponds in every detail to the chhatris on the Itimad-ud-Daula mausoleum in Agra , which was built between 1622 and 1628, i.e. almost 200 years was built earlier.
India
The wooden roof pavilion Guldasta in Iran is related to the stone Chhatri in India. The guldasta in Indo-Islamic architecture in India and Pakistan, on the other hand, is a decorative stone roof structure in the form of a minaret-like turret or a slender pavilion with an attached sphere that grows out of a wreath of leaves like a bud and has a symbolic meaning. Probably the best known example of Indian guldastas are the elegant round marble turrets that tower over the roof at the corners of the Taj Mahal . The mausoleum, completed under Shah Jahan in 1648, represents the most perfect connection between Indian and Islamic architecture. In contrast to the heavy-looking Amalaka capping stone, the Guldasta spire, created from the ancient Indian motif of the lotus , is an upwardly aspiring flower with the stone jug ( kalasha ) is related. The kalasha has been a symbol of fertility, growth and prosperity since ancient Indian times. With this meaning the kalasha occurs not only in Hindu temples, but also in Muslim buildings. The Machchhi Bhawan Palace, built in the 1630s, is located in the Red Fort of Agra . The central element within a two-storey row of arcades is a white marble canopy protruding from the surface, under the roof of which Shah Jahan took his throne. The plant ornaments on the pillars of the canopy are supposed to represent the ruler as the creator of natural growth and well-being. This claim is symbolically reinforced by kalashas at the bottom of the four pillars of the canopy, from which the plants and the pillar shafts grow. On the roof corners of the Nagina Masjid in Agra, which was probably also built in the time of Shah Jahan, the guldastas take the form of candlesticks.
An early example of a roof decoration with guldastas is the tomb of Sheikh Muhammad Maschaich (Shaykh Mashyakha) in the village of Holkonda, 30 kilometers from Gulbarga . The mausoleum in the classical architecture of an Islamic qubba with a square structure on which a round dome sits, belongs with four other domes and a mosque inside and two domes outside a walled complex to the dargah of Sheikh Muhammad Maschaich. The Qubba of the religiously venerated namesake, who belonged to a Sufi order , is dated to the middle or second half of the 14th century based on style comparisons. The type of crenellated crown that forms the roof edge is characteristic of the early Bahmani Sultanate . At the corners, Guldastas tower over the battlements with a semicircular cap. The preserved remains of the guldastas on the two mausoleums that were later built outside the wall are more elaborately designed. The guldastas on the 15th century tomb of Hair Khan, to the west of Sheikh Muhammad's tomb, are extremely finely ornamented, two-part turrets with a hemispherical end.
In the Malika Jahan Begum Mosque, built in 1586 in Bijapur by Ibrahim Adil Shah II (r. 1580–1627) in honor of his wife, the roof edge of the dome is decorated with square miniature pavilions with Jali windows and a further floor above their projecting roof completed by a spherical lotus bud. Small turrets with the same lotus buds rise up at the corners in miniature format. These Guldasta roof structures are a takeover of the Jal Mandir Water Palace in Bijapur (which is now on dry land). Guldastas are a characteristic feature of the mosques and mausoleums of the central Indian sultanate of Bijapur .
At the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century, the Qutub Minar was built in Delhi as a visible sign of Muslim rule over the conquered Hindu principalities. The victory tower marks the beginning of the Sultanate of Delhi . Several towers were built in the following centuries as imitations of the Qutub Minar. Furthermore, the motif of this tower was taken up again during the Tughluq dynasty (1320-1430) and the Lodi dynasty (1451-1526) in Delhi on numerous guldastas; erected as a pair of towers on the corners of the mosque-ivan, obviously next to the aesthetic function with the intention of recalling the original meaning of the Qutub Minar. Ebba Koch directs the guldastas, among other things, at the audience hall ( Diwan-i Am ) in the Red Fort of Agra, which was completed under Shah Jahan in 1637 and at the portal of the Moti Masjid in the Red Fort of Agra (1147-1653) formally from the Qutb Minar.
The Jama Masjid in Delhi was built from 1650 to 1656 also in the style of the Qutub Minar under Shah Jahan. With it, the center of the main facade forms an iwan-like portal ( pischtaq ) which, following the classic Iranian model , towers over the side arcades and is surmounted at both corners by round towers that grow up in Guldastas in the form of a fanning bouquet of flowers. On top of the guldasta crown are octagonal miniature pavilions ( chhatris ) with domed roofs, adding up all the form elements mentioned . Such a combined spire is called guldasta chhatri .
literature
- Robert Hillenbrand : The Role of Tradition in Qajar Religious Architecture. In: Ders .: Studies in Medieval Islamic Architecture . The Pindar Press, London 2006, Volume 2, pp. 584-621
- Markus Ritter: Mosques and madrasahs in Iran, 1785-1848. Architecture between recourse and innovation. Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 978-90-04-14481-1 , pp. 206ff
Individual evidence
- ↑ Markus Ritter, 2005, p. 203, footnote 191: “The use of the term has not been examined. [...] Guldasta, 'bouquet of flowers' does not refer to the form and function of the roof pavilion, but apparently means the crowning, elevated position, it is also used as a name for a minaret, ie a tower or its balcony. "Ritter overlooks them Shape and symbolic meaning of the guldastas in India.
- ^ Alireza Anisi: The Friday Mosque at Simnān . In: Iran, Vol. 44, 2006, pp. 207–228, here p. 207.
- ^ Roger Stevens: European Visitors to the Safavid Court. In: Iranian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3/4 (Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part II) Summer – Autumn 1974, pp. 421–457, here p. 435.
- ^ Robert Hillenbrand, 2006, pp. 585, 602f.
- ↑ Markus Ritter, 2005, p. 199.
- ↑ Markus Ritter, 2005, p. 205; refers to: Jonathan Bloom: Minaret - Symbol of Islam. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1989, p. 179.
- ^ Robert Hillenbrand, 2006, p. 603.
- ↑ Heinz Halm : News on buildings of the Alabids and Fatimids in Libya and Tunisia. In: Die Welt des Orients, Volume 23, 1992, pp. 129–157, here p. 141.
- ↑ Klaus Fischer , Michael Jansen , Jan Pieper: Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1987, p. 209, ISBN 3-534-01593-2 .
- ^ Robert Hillenbrand, 2006, pp. 604, 620.
- ↑ Fischer, Jansen, Pieper, 1987, p. 228
- ↑ Ebba Koch : The Taj Mahal: Architecture, Symbolism, and Urban Significance . In: Muqarnas , Vol. 22, 2005, pp. 128–149, here p. 139.
- ↑ Ebba Koch: The Baluster Column: A European Motif in Mughal Architecture and Its Meaning . In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 45, 1982, pp. 251-262, here p. 252.
- ↑ Dargah of Shaykh Muhammad Mashyakha. ArchNet.
- ↑ Elizabeth I. Merklinger: Seven Tombs at Holkonda: A Preliminary Survey . In: Kunst des Orients, Volume 10, Issue 1/2, 1975, pp. 187–197, here pp. 191f.
- ^ George Michel, Mark Zebrowski: Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates. (The New Cambridge History of India) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, p. 90.
- ↑ Deborah Hutton: Carved in Stone: The Codification of a Visual Identity for the Indo-Islamic Sultanate of Bīḏjāpūr. In: Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 55, 2005, pp. 65–78, here p. 71.
- ↑ Laura E. Parodi: Bibi-ka Maqbara in Aurangabad. A Landmark of Mughal Power in the Deccan? In: East and West, Vol. 48, No. 3/4, December 1998, pp. 349–383, here p. 359.
- ^ John Burton-Page: Indian Islamic Architecture: Forms and Typologies, Sites and Monuments. (Handbook of Oriental Studies) Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008, p. 52.
- ↑ Ebba Koch: The Copies of the Quṭb Mīnār . In: Iran, Vol. 29, 1991, pp. 95-107, here p. 101.
- ^ José Pereira: The Sacred Architecture of Islam . Ayran Books International, New Delhi 2004, pp. 303, 306.