Isfahan : City of Old Mosques

Isfahan : City of Old Mosques

This has been a principal Islamic practice since the Prophet Moḥammad established the first congregational mosque at his house in Medina (Hillenbrand, 1994, pp. 33-34). Friday mosques of major cities were additional to smaller neighborhood mosques that dotted most large cities in the Islamic world. Ordinarily founded by the king or members of the ruling elite, congregational mosques facilitated the profession of political allegiance through the customary Friday noontime prayer and the sermon (ḵoṭba) that was delivered, if not by the king himself, by a representative of the patronized clergy. Masjed-e Ḥakim. Masjed-e Ḥakim, built in the years 1067-73/1656-63, was commissioned by Ḥakim Mo-ḥammad Dāwud, a converted Jew who served as the royal physician during the reigns of Shah Ṣafi I and Shah ʿAbbās II. Chardin relates that the considerable funds needed for the construction of the mosque had been amassed in India by Ḥakim Dāwud, who had left the Safavid court after his fall from favor during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās II. His considerably more favorable reception at the court of Shah Jahān, who granted him the title of Taqarrob Khan, the confidant, brought with it wealth. Ḥakim Dāwud never returned to Persia to see his namesake mosque, which carries his name in a poem inscribed on the portal and containing the chronogram “maqām-e kaʿba-ye digar šod az Dāwud-e Eṣfahān” indicating the date (1067) of the construction.
This mosque is located on the site of the Buyid Jorjir/Rangrezān Mosque, whose construction is credited to the Buyid vizier Ṣāḥeb Esmāʿil b. ʿAbbād, and of which only a carved doorway has survived. It is nearly four acres in the area, which makes it the largest mosque in Isfahan after the Saljuq and Safavid congregational mosques, thus representing an extraordinary instance of competitively scaled sub-imperial patronage in the capital city. It too is a four-ayvān, courtyard-centered mosque of the Persian type. Unlike the two Safavid mosques, here the vast surfaces, especially inside the ayvāns and the domed chamber over the meḥrāb are decorated with alternating glazed and unglazed tiles. The epigraphic program, designed entirely by Moḥammad-Reżā Emāmi, one of the greatest masters of the mid-17th century, records the name of the architect as Moḥammad-ʿAli b. Ostād ʿAli Beg Eṣfahāni. The architect was the son of the master builder ʿAli Beg of Isfahan, whose name appears in the foundation inscription of the Masjed-e Imam. By employing the artists and architects associated with royal projects, Ḥakim Dāwud partakes in the same atmosphere of surrogate and competitive patronage that inspired many ḡolāms and other elite members of the Safavid household. As the foundation inscription of the mosque indicates, despite his sanctuary at the court of the Sunni Mughal emperor, the physician remained loyal to the protection of Twelver Shiʿism under the auspices of the Safavid Shah ʿAbbās.Masjed-e ʿAli. This mosque of the early 16th century, dated by inscription to 929/1523, is noteworthy for its pairing with the shrine of Hārun-e Welāyat (1513) and their location on the southern threshold of the Meydān-e Kohna . This mosque was built in place of a ruined Saljuq mosque by Mirzā Kamāl-al-Din Shah-Ḥosayn, a professional architect who had also served as a statesman during the reign of Shah Esmāʿil I. In his capacity as the vizier of the qezelbāš governor Dormiš Khan Šāmlu, he had built the shrine of Hārun-e Welāyat and had inscribed his own name onto its famous façade. While the shrine’s significance rests on its façade, the mosque represents the aspirations of an architect-patron in its attempt to introduce new architectural elements into the standard four-ayvān plan of mosques.
Like the shrine, the epigraphic program of the portal highlights the connection between Shah Esmāʿil and the family of the Prophet Moḥammad, albeit here considerably less intense both visually and iconographically. Recalling Saljuq decorative techniques, Shiʿite sacred names are rendered on the portal in angular Kufic bands of script alongside geometric decoration in alternating glazed and unglazed tiles. A selection of Qurʾanic verses, which interweave numerical symbols of Twelver Shiʿism with the name of Esmāʿil, reference the shah as the recipient of God’s grace. An allusion in the inscription to Imam ʿAli as the “opener of gates” reiterates the Safavid devotion to Imam ʿAli as the gate (bāb) to spiritual knowledge and the dynasty’s source of legitimacy.
The mosque’s courtyard and four-ayvān plan, the familiar Persian form already standardized at the Great Mosque of Isfahan, is relatively modest in size and ordinary in composition. Its domed chamber, however, displays considerable departure from earlier examples. This is the space that contains the meḥrāb and constitutes the main prayer hall of the mosque. Two systems, one rooted in the past, and the other prefiguring future developments, coexist in this unusual interior. The multiple arched openings on two stories that surround the sanctuary recall the 15th-century Masjed-e Kabud (Blue Mosque) of Tabriz. The transition from the square chamber walls to the circular base of the dome, on the other hand, is facilitated through four massive pendentives (triangular corner units). Such an expansive architectonic treatment of the domed space anticipates the extraordinarily brilliant square-to-circle solution that will be found at the early 17th-century Shaikh Loṭf-Allāh Mosque in Isfahan.