163 Ilkhanid Mihrab

Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay Lewis and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of a Mihrab that was created just after the Ilkhanid period.

Mihrab (prayer niche), 1354–55 (AH 755), just after the Ilkhanid period, Isfahan, Iran, polychrome glazed tiles, 135-1/16 × 113-11/16 inches / 343.1× 288.7 cm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Arabic Inscriptions

Outer border: Quotation from the Qur’an (chapter IX, verses 18–22)

Inner border: (in Kufic script): “Said [the Prophet] on him be blessing and peace: . . . witness that there is no God save Allah and that Muhammad is his Apostle and the Blessed Imam, and in legal almsgiving, and in the pilgrimage, and in the fast of Ramadan, and he said, on him be blessing and peace.”

Central framed text: “The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘The Mosque is the dwelling place of the pious.'”