Walls That Speak, Part 7

Heavenly Honeycombs

(All images are ©Joumana Medlej unless otherwise specified.)

After a long hiatus I’ve returned to work on my Square Kufi survey as I would really like this book to become reality, but still have an enormous amount of work to do before I can even look into the costing and such.

Having now completely surveyed the north iwan of the Great Mosque of Isfahan¹, I turned to the south iwan, which has a completely different arrangement formed of muqarnas.

Photo by Fulvio Spada licensed under CC BY 2.0

What are muqarnas? This feature originates in the earliest domed spaces, which were relatively small. To place a semispherical dome on top of a cubic room requires some kind of transition, both visually and structurally. Adding arches in the upper corners of the cube creates an octagonal transition between square and circle, which is more pleasing to the eye but also distributes the weight of the dome better, as seen below:

Cupola of Odzun basilica, Armenia. Photo by Rita Willaert, licensed under CC By 2.0

These corner arches creating triangular shapes in the corners are called squinches². Larger domes would later require a more sophisticated system, but Islamic architecture embraced squinches and took their ornamental potential to new heights by developing muqarnas: prismatic and often highly intricate elaborations on this visual transition, evoking honeycombs or stalactites, that completely obscure the structure to create a dizzying experience of space animated by ever-changing light and shadow.

Photo by Pawel Ryzsawa, licensed under CC BY 3.0

The muqarnas of the south iwan are of the bold and relatively simple type, as they’re meant as panels for a number of text vignettes. The space is visually divided in two by a roughly cinquefoil arch, so that stepping deep into the iwan one has the experience of a circular domed space (to an extent), with the outer part a half-dome affair. The result is that there’s a lot more text in the iwan than meets the eye from the outside.

To get an overview of the texts and their placement, I created the map of the iwan below. As it’s a flattened rendering of a complex three-dimensional space, it doesn’t convey accurate proportions by any means, but it roughly shows where everything is located if you’re in the iwan facing its mouth and looking straight up. In this way some patterns appear, and some randomness as well!

(Apologies for the watermark, but as all my posts are now free to access I have to mark my more valuable graphics.)

The (provisional) numbering system I used is not meant to reflect an overall reading order. Some texts are clearly grouped together in a sequence: these are the A and B series below. The rest roughly follows an order unfolding from the centre of the dome to the outer circles. I’m presenting the inscriptions in the Arabic direction, from right to left, and the lighter parts represent parts of the vignettes that are purely graphic (not part of the text). I’ll leave discussions of script errors and such for the book.

The first group of vignettes, arranged around the centre of the dome, are a clear sequence, with Allah centered in the iwan axis followed by the first two Divine Names:

1. يا الله O God

2. يا رحمن O All-Compassionate

3. يا رحيم O Ever-Merciful

4. يا كريم O Generous

5. يا حنان O Kindness

6. يا منان O Benefactor

7. يا ديان O Recompensor

8. يا برهان O Proof

Not all of these are on the “official” list of Attributes, but in reality there are rather more of those than ninety-nine. Number 8 however is an epithet of the Prophet.

These three are repeats from the central motif:

9. يا حنان O Kindness

10. يا منان O Benefactor

11. يا ديان O Recompensor

This next, disparate group is made up of individual names, sometimes with different designs. Above they are shown in order and grouped by similarity, but in the space they are arranged seemingly randomly, except for:

12. محمد Muhammad

13. وعلي and Ali

These two are paired and occupy together each of the four squinches. They then reoccur in random places. Others in this group:

16. الله God

17. محمد Muhammad, alternative design

18. علي Ali, alternative design

19. حسن Hassan

14. لا اله الا الله محمد رسول الله علي ولي الله The profession of faith, Shia version: There is no god but God, Muhammad is God’s Messenger, Ali is God’s Helper.

This is the most complex of all the inscriptions here, and features in a predominant central place where it appears twice, on either side of the iwan axis.

15. يا محمد يا علي O Muhammad, O Ali

Contrast with:

20. محمد وعلي Muhammad and Ali

21. الله محمد علي God, Muhammad, Ali

Now we reach the sequential groups:

These are four verses from a poem³ highlighting the role of Ali as Imam:

1. علي حبّه جنّة Ali’s love is a shield

2. قسيم النار والجنّة The apportioner of Fire [hell] and Heaven

3. وصّى المصطفى حقّا The rightful successor of al-Mustafa [epither of the Prophet]

4. إمام الإنس والجنّة The Imam of humans and jinn⁴

This next sequence is a classic series of lauds:

1. سبحان الله Glory to God

2. الحمد لله Praise be to God

3. لا اله الا الله There is no god but God

4. والله اكبر And God is greatest

I don’t think the C series necessarily form a sequence, but I have grouped them because all 8 show similarity both in size and in content, with deliberate placement in the space.

1. يا رفيع الدرجات O Owner of High Ranks and Degrees

2. يا دليل الحيران O Guide to the Confused

3. يا قاضي الحاجات O Grantor of requests

4. يا مجيب الدعوات O Respondent to Prayers

5. يا كافي المهمات O Savior from Sufferings

6. يا سامع المناجات O Hearer of Secrets

7. (I can’t make this out but it could be a poor alternative to C2).

8. بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم In the name of God, the All-Compassionate, the Ever Merciful

Note that C7 and C8 are the most hidden of all the inscriptions, only visible when standing at the back of the iwan (and perpetually in shadow). There are issues with C8 that show there was a definite intent to make these 8 work together, at the expense of proper text treatment. C8 being the bismillah, would traditionally be the opening sentence for any text, and perhaps it was meant to be the first in a sequence despite its obscure position.

I hope you found this close-up interesting; earlier installments are linked below. I have two iwans to go for this mosque alone…

Earlier posts on Square Kufi:

Walls That Speak, part 1

Walls That Speak, part 2

Walls That Speak, part 3

1. See the very first post in this series.

2. They stand out in my mind as the very first technical term I learned in my History of Architecture course, lifetimes ago.

3. “Ali Hubbuhu Junna”. The attribution given seems to be more wishful than verified (a very common phenomenon) so I left it out, but read more here.

4. In Islamic cosmology Jinn are a subtle, unseen people, but quite similar to humans in having free will, so they can be believers or unbelievers and are ruled accordingly.