Mihrab from Kashan
The prayer niche from Kashan comes from the Maidan mosque in Kashan in Iran and is inscribed with an inscription dated to the year 623 H./1226 AD. It is now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin.
The structure corresponds to the flat type typical of medieval Iran, only the columns protrude semi-plastic. The niche shape is repeated three times. The mihrab consists of 74 individual tiles that were embossed with models and then painted. "The chandelier shimmers in various golden-brown tones, large blue patterns and inscriptions as well as small turquoise-blue fillings stand out effectively."
Although it was not created until the Mongol period, the pattern repertoire corresponds entirely to the pre-Mongolian style, which has hardly any Chinese elements. The inscriptions in the Kufi and in the Nashi style reproduce texts from the Koran Suras 76 and 17, which relate to prayer, from the outside in. Niche pediments and frames contain texts from suras 11, 112, 97 and 2. Of these, the so-called throne verse (sura 2, verse 255) is one of the most popular texts:
"Allah! There is no god but him, the living, the eternal! Neither slumber nor sleep seizes him. His is what is in the heavens and what is on the earth. Who is it that intercedes with him without his permission? He knows what is between their hands and what is behind them, and they do not comprehend anything of his knowledge except what he wants. His throne extends far over the heavens and the earth, and neither hat weighs him down. Because he is the high, the sublime. "
A Shiite belief appears on the capitals, with the Islamic creed between them. From the master al-Ḥasan bin ʿArabšāh (الحسن بن عربشاه) there are single tiles of a mihrab in London's Victoria & Albert Museum .
literature
- Gisela Helmecke : The mihrab (prayer niche) from Kashan. In: Leaflet No. ISL 6, Museum of Islamic Art , Berlin
- Markus Ritter, The Kashan Mihrab in Berlin: a Historiography of Persian Lustreware. In: Yuka Kadoi (ed.), Persian Art: Image-making in Eurasia , Edinburgh University Press 2018, 157-178
- Friedrich Sarre , Ernst Kühnel : Two Persian prayer niches made of luscious tiles. In: Berliner Museen , 49th year, volume 6., 1928, pp. 126-131.
Web links
Information on mihrab from Kashan in the online database of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Reading by Ernst Kühnel in Friedrich Sarre , Ernst Kühnel : Two Persian prayer niches made of luscious tiles . In: Berliner Museen , 49th year, volume 6. (1928), pp. 126-131, p. 131
- ^ Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin: Ceramic Tiles
- ↑ a b Gisela Helmecke : The mihrab (prayer niche) from Kashan . Leaflet No. ISL 6, Berlin: Museum of Islamic Art .