Mombasa's Old City

I have mentioned in a previous post that the special charm of Mombasa’s old city can hardly be perceived immediately. My Jordanian colleagues from Kuwait and I had booked at the Whitesands Sarova Hotel north of the city. The view of the Indian Ocean just outside the hotel with camels on the beach was breathtaking. The constant breeze from the ocean made humidity and tropical temperatures very comfortable. In fact a place to die, I was thinking.

My friends are not the ideal company when exploring exotic places. On my request, we went to Mombasa, but it was hot and dusty and I was told “we know all of this” from home. When I became curious about the 16th century Mandhry mosque with its strange minaret, I was informed by my Muslim friends that it was not prayer time, so asking to enter was hopeless. Nobody was either interested in the vegetable and fruit market. Was that a bazaar? We rushed through the lanes. Souvenir shops sold beautiful collectibles at reasonable prices.

Seh Mihraba Prayer Rug

I have posted on this blog some time ago an unusual Seh Mihraba rug from the Shindand market area in west Afghanistan. I had bought it from my friendly Afghan carpet sellers Mirwuis and Syed who used to have a small shop in Kuwait’s Souq Mubarakia. They frequently offered a variety of rugs from Afghanistan and Iran on the Friday market in the Al-Rai industrial area next to the notorious 4th Ring Road just behind the nurseries. Opposite to the animal market, there is what is called the Iranian market where you may find in fact everything you might be looking for. The whole area is in fact very fascinating. My friends and I liked to go there, if possible every weekend.

I would like to post another, much more typical, Seh Mihraba rug here. Tareq Rajab, Kuwait’s former Director of the Department of Antiquities and Museums in Kuwait and owner of two most marvelous private museums in Jabriya (the museum for calligraphy I had a chance to visit shortly before leaving Kuwait for good in 2007), also had a tiny shop in Salmiya, next to my flat in the Al-Qana’a towers: the Kuwait Design Center, where Mr. Rajab sold certain items from his vast collection. I have heard that the shop has meanwhile been closed down when the friendly lady from the Philippines, Marlene, and her colleague decided to leave Kuwait for good.

Visiting the shop has always been a delight. They had fine furniture, carpets, chinaware, engravings, and many other affordable and not affordable collectibles for sale. Every now and then, the two organized, with the help of Mr. Rajab and his wife Madame Jehan, exhibitions in the couple’s third building in Jabriya, Dar Al-Cid, where even more exclusive furniture, carpets and rugs were displayed.

It was on one of these occasions when I bought this high quality Seh Mihraba (literally meaning three mihrabs, or prayer niches) prayer rug which is displayed here. The design is typical for rugs from the Shindand area south to Herat, Afghanistan. The central field contains four rhombus-shaped medallions described as nakshe hozi (“water basins”). The overall dark-red field displays highlights of triangles in bright-red and bright green and blue dots. In the centers of the main medallions. The central area is flanked by columns of white, stepped rhombuses, again surrounded and containing bright highlights. The border system consists of four stripes. The main border is composed of interrupted white stripes. The very soft and shiny wool has a silky appearance. See a similar carpet in Parsons’ Carpets of Afghanistan, plate 97.


Afghan Baluch prayer rug
Seh Mihraba design
Afghanistan,135 cm x 86 cm, second half of 20th century

Warp: W, Z2S ivory
Weft: W, S, grey
Pile: W, Z
Knots: as2 (asymmetric, open to the right)
Density: 11 x 7, ca. 77 kpsi (1200 per sq dm)
Height of pile: 3 mm
Handle: velvet, grainy
Upper end: 6 cm kilim, W, soumak technique
Lower end: 4 cm kilim, W, soumak technique
Sides: 0.5 cm wide, W, selvage dark-brown
Colors: 9, black, dark-brown, dark-blue, Bordeaux, white (undyed), bright red, bright green, bright blue,

See another very similar rug here.

The Curse Of Jumba La Mtwana

Suleiman, one of Whitesands Hotel’s tour managers, wasn’t in a good mood. Very talkative, he obviously believed that I would actually be interested in his family affairs which seemed to be in a mess. His wife had been taken back to Riyadh by her parents where they were living. Arabs. A black man was not really the son in law they had expected, he told me. But at least you are a Muslim, aren’t you? I asked him. Yes, he replied, but his mother was Christian, and it doesn’t really matter. Then he told me about the origin of the Palestinians. Although knowing the story about Jacob and his older twin brother Esau, the two sons of Isaac and Rebekah, I wasn’t aware about theories regarding the two resulting tribes, the children if Israel (or Jacob) and those of Esau, the Palestinians (or Edomites, I suppose). An interesting hypothesis.

We took a ride to Jumba la Mtwana (he unavailingly tried me to pronounce the Swahili words correctly). The century-old gorgeous ruins of a town north of Mombasa can be found just off-shore the Indian Ocean. We crossed the beautiful Mtwapa creek and then turned right after having passed through a busy village. Suleiman mentioned that many old Europeans, males and females, come here to get married again (?) and start a new life. He pointed to rather strange examples, old and pretty ugly men with young girls doing shopping. He found that okay. I was in doubt. Is it a sort of sex tourism? I asked. Not really, he explained. Both parties have advantages, so it’ll be okay!

Into the jungle! We approached the ruins of what had been a bigger town. A Muslim place, I immediately recognized. A young guide was desperately waiting for tourists. I was the only one so far today. When entering the site I saw a huge skeleton of a Blue Whale which has once stranded here. Further we went into the magical remains of buildings, mosques, squares, a cemetery with a stele covered by Arabic script. Century-old trees, even Neem, or medicine, trees I once was very interested in for medical reasons. A 1.5 meters long green snake disappeared in a hole, a colorful lizard was more curious. Magical. My guide told me a word in my ear: “Germans used to give the best tips!” I was wondering why the people had disappeared from this place? “Was it an epidemic, sort of plague?” He gave me an evasive answer.

When returning to Whitesands, I asked Suleiman about it. “Didn’t he dare to tell you the true story? It was Allah’s curse. Once, the king of the town wanted to marry another girl. But people warned him that she was one of his own daughters. He didn’t mind, and from then the town’s destiny was doomed.

Marshmallow

I couldn't resist.

Mombasa's Fort Jesus

Mombasa does not reveal its special charm easily. I had been in the old city before (I will report later) but was a bit disappointed. The organizers of the AMER IADR Meeting had scheduled a guided tour on Friday afternoon, and I was the first to register. Twenty-eight Euros for three hours, whow! I expected gorgeous insights into the East African societies and culture.

Out we went with the bus. The group promised to be fun. In fact, we laughed a lot. A South African couple was interested in my pretty exotic experiences in Kuwait and Norway. Our first stop was at the Akamba Handicraft Industry Cooperative Society, a non-profit organization where some 10'000 people were employed who carved beautiful sculptures and small items, chairs, masks, etc. from ebony wood, Kenya's gold.

Well, when entering Mombasa city we got more or less stuck in the afternoon traffic jam. Our guide seemed not to have the slightest clue what he wanted to show us. We passed the famous giant tusks but I could't take a snapshot. The other day, my friends and I had started our walking tour at Fort Jesus, and I asked the guide whether we will also visit that sight. I saw in his face that he loved my suggestion. "Don't worry", he told me, "it won't be closed", he dispelled my concern.

Upon arrival we had in fact half an hour left. Only four of us were interested. The guard at Fort Jesus was knowledgeable and showed as around. The fort had been built by the Portuguese in 1593 and in the following centuries, it had changed hands at least nine times between Portuguese sailors , Omani soldiers (who recruited their slaves in Mombasa) and Swahili rebels. In 1875 the British finally used it as a jail. There are great views from the Fort's mighty walls at the Indian Ocean. The Fort's museum is not a must but turned out to be an excellent refuge for cooling down from the steamy heat.

A Dokhtar-i Ghazi Prayer Rug

Timuri prayer rug
Dokhtar-i Ghazi design
Afghanistan, 150 cm x 98 cm, old (second half of 20th century)

Warp: W, Z2S, ivory, light brown
Weft: W, S, ivory
Pile: W, Z
Knots: as1
Density: 17 x 11, ca. 187 kpsi (2900 per sq dm)
Height of pile: 2 mm
Handle: like velvet, grainy
Upper end: -
Lower end: -
Sides: 0.5 cm wide, W, selvages black
Colors: 5, black, dark-purple, dark blue, brown-red, ivory (beige)

Classic Dokhtar-i Ghazi (the Qadi’s daughter) design. With considerable density of knots. The origin is sometimes identified as Timuri, an Afghan/Central Asian tribe which, according to George O’Bannon, does no longer exist in Afghanistan. See also a less interesting rug in R. D. Parsons’ Carpets of Afghanistan, plate 98. Good examples may be found on Thomas Cole’s page:
http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article45YaqubKhani.html , http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article30PitOcts.html

A Kordish Baluch Rug from Khorassan

Kordish Baluch rug, Ali Mirzai design

Khorassan, Northeastern Iran, 198 cm x 107 cm, old, possibly antique (first half of 20th century)

Warp: W, Z2S, ivory
Weft: W, S, grey
Pile: W, Z
Knots: as2 (asymmetric, open to the right)
Density: 12 x 7, ca. 84 kpsi (1300 per sq dm)
Height of pile: 3 mm
Handle: thin, evenly grained
Upper end: 2 cm kilim, W, 3 bands, black, red-brown, olive
Lower end: -
Sides: 0.5 cm wide, W, selvage dark-brown
Colors: 4, black, dark-blue, brown-red, white

The main field consists of octagons, alternating either filled with blossoms or with another octagon and an octagonal star. In between the main octagons, stylized cocks are displayed (note that "Baluch" is etymologically derived from cock, cockscomb, or bundle of hairs). They generally face each other with the exception of the lower row of cocks, where the second is turned.

The main border has a hashie nargessi (narcissus border) design, which is very typical for the Ali Mirzai (S. Azadi, Carpets in the Baluch Tradition, Klinckhardt & Biermann 1986; see, for example, plates 49ff).

Considerable wear. Dark-blue and black areas are alternating, while the black-dyed wool is considerably corroded.

Bobbins and Bowties

I have promised some time ago to describe, in separate posts, the different iwans at Esfahan’s Masjed-e Jomeh. I have discussed the southern and western iwans but political turmoil after the presidential election has largely dampened my enthusiasm of reporting on Iran’s glorious past.

What has attracted my interest on the occasion of my last visit of Esfahan were some dazzling tessellations on the Darb-i Imam (1453 CE) and on the western iwan of Esfahan’s Great Mosque (about the same time) which have caused considerable discussions in the academic world. It had even been speculated whether they represent early examples of quasi-periodicity. You may find more information on it here and here.

What is evident is that these complicated tilings frequently with five-fold ornament (decagons and pentagons) must have been composed of certain units which have been called girih tiles. They have conventional decoration ribbons with internal angles of multiples of 36°. You may find them in decorations all over the Islamic world in particular during and after the 15th century. In the finished tiling the construction lines would be erased leaving only the interlaced decoration ribbons. Thus, the underlying framework is concealed. One of the main reasons for the frequent impression of, well, dazzling. The precision which results in using these girih tiles is absolutely stunning. A nice article on the topic has recently been published by Peter R. Cromwell (Mathematical Intelligence 2009; 31:36-56). He described a somewhat larger set of what he calls Islamic prototiles, rhombus, pentagon, hexagonal barrels, octagon, bow-tie, hexagonal bobbin, and decagons.

Well, precision was not always granted. Also on the western iwan, in one spandrel, I noticed a similar tessellation as that of the nearby huge and famous decoration, which, after reconstruction, turned out to be quite different from that on the Darb-i Imam. You may reconstruct it with bobbins and bowties, and decagons bordering the spandrel. But it didn’t work out so nice. I offer here a somewhat different solution. But it is not really satisfactory anyway.

Note, that the insert below is a mirrored image of the right spandrel (not shown) which tesserae almost fit those on the left spandrel. So, the artisan knew what he did.

More Holy Sites

I haven’t posted here for a long time (but see my other posts at Freelance where I have been pretty busy in recent months). It was mainly the Iranian election with its outcome (not surprising) and the turn into a police state afterwards. The Iranian people have a tough time right now. I have seen the new cabinet suggested to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the other day in a picture (they have to be approved by the majlis, but God forbid!). To be honest, none of them looks trustworthy. One is even wanted by Interpol. It’s a shame, but maybe the good people there (are there?) will reject the proposal in total.

I have received a disturbing email from Iran as a response to my Ramadan Kareem greetings wanting me to pray for the people there. I will try to do that by posting another series of pictures of holy places, this time in Shiraz, the city of nightingales and roses, poets and poems, vine and paradise gardens, and beautiful girls. This post is dedicated to the friendly people in Iran and in particular to the great hospitality of Nilo and Maryam who I have met in Esfahan on last year’s Christmas Day. Nilo had shown me the way to the Vank church in the Armenian quarter where she also wanted to pray since she (as a Muslim) loved Jesus so much.

Well, when in Shiraz in 2006 (please see also my previous posts on this blog on Persepolis, the paradise gardens and Masjed-e Vakil) I came across three posters (among pictures of modern idols such as movie and pop stars) which had been attached to a fence. It showed Jesus offering His heart, and the Virgin Mary with a Baby Jesus and a lamb. Leonardo’s Holy Supper I found only later (left) when more closely inspecting the photograph. You can imagine how emotional such a sudden and unanticipated encounter can be in a Muslim country, in fact, the only Islamic Republic so far.

I had been invited by the organizers of an international conference and was stunned again by the great hospitality of my hosts. I was assigned to a guide, a beautiful young lady and former student, who introduced herself “to make things easier, my name is Kathy”. Of course, the organizers had orders not to let me stray alone through Shiraz and Katajoun did her best to show me the most significant sights in her home city. We visited the gardens and parks, and Shah-e Charagh, when she called a male student to guide me in since she didn’t want to wear the obligatory chador.

I sometimes managed to escape to do my own studies. The onion-shape tile-decorated domes of the numerous mosques in Shiraz resemble in their colorfulness Fabergé eggs. I watched a funeral where the coffin of the deceased was quickly transported from the mosque to the cemetery. Shiraz is home of Iranian Shi’ites' most holy places, the tombs of close relatives of Imam Reza who had found refuge after persecution in the aftermath of the poisioning of the Holy Imam in the 9th century. His tomb is found in the northeastern corner of Iran in the holy city of Mashhad. I had joined, in 2006, a group of Kuwaiti pilgrims and have reported several times about my impressions and emotions on this blog.

Seyyed Mir Ahmad was a brother of Imam Reza. He died in Shiraz in 835 CE and his remains are housed in the mausoleum of Shah-e Charagh. I suppose that the present complex is Safavid (17th century?) but the first mausoleum erected there is much older. The courtyard is a most pleasant place, peaceful and busy with the faithful, even pilgrims, pouring in and preparing for visiting the shrine inside the mausoleum. At the southeastern corner of the courtyard lies the mausoleum of a brother of Ahmad, Seyyed Mir Mohammed who also died in Shiraz.

The Imamzadeh of Hazrat Shah Mir Ali Hamza is another holy site in Shiraz. The tomb contains the remains of a nephew of the 7th Imam Musa al-Kazim, father of Imam Reza. The courtyard is covered by tombstones since the faithful hope for a better afterlife in the vicinity of the relatives of the Holy Imams.

In 2004, I went as a tourist to Shiraz, mainly to visit Persepolis. My Esfahanian friend Ehsan joined me on the trip and we went also to the Zagros mountains and visited a famous spot there, the mighty Margoon waterfalls. We joined a group of students and were invited for a delicious picnic of kebabs. Ehsan and I later attended a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummernights Dream. Unexpected, sudden, and highly emotional. The theater was filled with the people of Shiraz, men women and children of all ages. The female actors wore wigs instead of the hijjab. Sometimes, 30 people were on the stage. The play was given in Farsi, and Ehsan had only eyes for one of the actresses he had fallen in love with just before the performance when he had met her in my hotel and had been invited to the act. Miraculous Iran! But these days are definitely over, I am afraid. Iran might turn into a military dictatorship or police state, again God forbid!

The Long Way

That the small but oil-rich state in the northwestern corner of the Persian Gulf has recently elected four female MPs in parliamentary elections has seemingly pushed Kuwait again into a forerunner position among its Arabic neighbors, in particular largely retarded Saudi-Arabia. However, the tiny democratic achievements are at risk due to continuous outrageous reactions of six notorious Islamists in the parliament, namely Faisal AlـMislem, Waleed AlـTabtabaie, Dhaifallah BuRamiah, Jamaan AlـHarbash, Mohammed Hayef and Mubarak AlـWalaan. As we read in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Watan Daily, they threaten to “walk out of the swearing-in ceremony of the two female MPs if they do not wear the hijab while taking the oath of office.” They even met to “discuss the legal procedures to be initiated against Aseel Al-Awadi and Rola Dashti for violating the Election Law which states that female candidates must stick to Islamic dress code during elections.”

It is definitely a long way until democratic values will eventually reach even the Arab world. Islamists will sooner or later vanish anyway. It is, however, a great shame that the same troublemakers of the former parliament are again abusing their largely serving role as ‘parliamentarians’ when intimidating others about an absurd issue, wearing hijab, or Islamic headscarf, whether it is inside or outside of Kuwait’s nice parliament building.

First published at Freelance.

Kuwaiti Women Power

In the third parliamentary election within only three years, four women have won seats in the Kuwaiti parliament yesterday. Women have fought successfully for their voting rights in 2005. I remember with much sympathy the women of Kuwait demonstrating in front of the parliament when inside lawmakers eventually agreed to give them the right to vote. When I congratulated some of my female Kuwaiti colleagues, open-minded and westernized, well-educated young women, they argued, however, that the right to vote may only strengthen the influence of the Islamists in the country. The paradox may be explained as follows. Very traditional Kuwaiti family fathers have, of course, up to four wives and plenty of grown-up but still unmarried daughters who, in all likelihood, will vote what the householder prefers: one man, several votes.

In the following parliamentary election in 2006, and two years later when the parliament had untimely been dissolved by the Amir of Kuwait, His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed, women failed to win seats in the very much male-dominated Islamic country. Now they eventually succeeded. Congratulations to former Minister of Health Massouma al-Mubarak, Salwa al Jassar and liberal candidates Aseel Awadhi and Rola Dashti!

The widely perceived retardation of scientific, cultural and human rights development in many if not most Islamic countries may be due to an important fact. In rapidly growing societies with population growth rates of between 3 and 5%, countries are soon evolving into, well, boys’ countries. The testosterone factor of the frequently unemployed, unmarried into their thirties and therefore profoundly unsatisfied young men, who have, if at least realistic, little hope for change, are running the society at the low-level, while male-dominated administrations try to keep this power under control only by restricting normal civil rights.

A typical example of a boys’ country is, of course, Saudi-Arabia. Despite undisputable rights for equal education women in Iran suffer from a mainly male-dominated and completely outdated interpretation of Shari’a family law. In particular, women rights movements there are brutally suppressed. Boys’ countries are undemocratic.

Yesterday’s Kuwait election is a flicker of hope after the previous very much annoying legislative period.

First published at Freelance.

Abstract Art

For some time, the Gonbad-e Qabud in Maraghah in Western Iran has attracted considerable attention. Maraghah is a small city east of Daryacheh Urumiyeh in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. It lies about 100 km south of Tabriz close to the southeastern shores of the huge super-salty lake at the southern foot hills of 3700 meters high Kuh-e Sahand. On the other side of the mountain lies the picturesque village of Kandovan, Iran’s Cappadocia [1].

Maraghah is quite famous for its five tomb towers (four are preserved) from the Post-Seljuq and Mongolian periods (12th till early 14th centuries). Gonbad-e Qabud, the Blue Tower (1196/97), has the most elaborated and complex brick pattern which has fascinated and confused generations of explorers and tourists. It represents an octagonal tower with eight panels each crowned by a niche with a pointed, gothic, arch. The brickwork results in highly ornamental net of unglazed ribs interlaced with turquoise blue ribbons unrelated to the pentagonal geometry of the overall pattern. It can be shown that the pattern extends over two panels and therefore repeats four times.

Almost hidden in a book about Fivefold Symmetry edited by István Hargittai (World Scientific, Singapore 1992) which compiles very interesting articles on all aspects of fivefold symmetry, mineralogist Emil Makovicky at Copenhagen University has argued that the incredibly complex brick pattern which is displayed on the eight panels of the octagonal tower may in fact represent a Penrose pattern [2]:

“Aperiodic tiling with pentagonal geometry, discovered by Penrose [in 1974, 1978], have been, in its different versions, the object of intensive study by numerous mathematicians and crystallographers. The present discovery of a similar, 800-year-old tiling from (post) Saljuq Iran therefore represents a matter of considerable interest. Besides giving a surprising insight into the skills of ancient geometric artists, it also reveals some new aspects of Penrose tiling and leads toward further generalizations.”

Makovicky correctly describes the large-scale pattern of the Gonbad-e Qabud as consisting of:

“[…](a) regular pentagons; (b) complex decagons, hereafter called butterflies with convex angles of 72° and reentrant angles of 108°: (c) deltoids (“kites”) and a pair of partly overlapping pentagons that always form together a rhomb with “deltoid-marked” corners of 72° and unmarked corners of 108°; and (d) occasional nested pentagons with five spokes. “

What follows are combination rules, described as “simple”:

“[only] straight-line segments of the net intersect (at 72°), whereas all line breaks (of 108° or 144°) are outside these intersections. Polygons of the same kind do not share edges. Butterfly wings terminate in pentagons and are surrounded either by four additional pentagons or by an additional cis pair of pentagons and a cis pair of rhombs (each straddling the long diagonal).

“The entire pattern is too complex to be understood at a glance. It requires long contemplation, and almost appears to be designed by a mathematician rather than an artist. Its badly damaged lowermost portions can be safely reconstructed because of the good state of preservation of the corresponding uppermost portions.

However, “[in] a small part of the bottom portions of the pattern the artist gained the upper hand over the mathematician. The tenfold stars, which can be traced in the polygonal net on both sides of the partly overlapping nested pentagons at the bases of the corner pilasters […] were emptied of their original polygonal contents and were filled by fivefold 'rosettes.' Eye-attracting rosettes of this kind are common in Islamic wall ornaments, but those used here (only once per each side of the building) are completely foreign to the rest of the pattern.”




After his lengthy analysis of the pattern on the Gonbad-e Qabud, Makovicky concludes that it is “[b]ased on tiles that can readily be obtained by transformation of the Penrose pattern of pentagons, stars, and lozenges. It deviates from a true cartwheel Penrose tiling only in several geometric and artistic adaptations.”

No Penrose tiling

As a matter of fact, the pattern on the Gonbad-e Qabud lacks any characteristics of a Penrose tiling. First and most eminent, it is not aperiodic. And secondly, it does not implement a self-similar subdivision. The small-scale pattern seen is unrelated to the large-scale major pattern [3].

A simple method how the medieval artists (and it can be argued that in that particular case not even a mathematician was involved in the process of decoration) has been suggested by Lu and Steinhardt [4]. They discovered on what is called now the Topkapı Scroll [5], a 15th century Timurid-Turkmen scroll now in the collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul, that most of the highly complex geometric patterns found on buildings and paintings in the Islamic world can be created seamlessly with the aid of a set of five tiles displaying well-defined decorative ribbons, a decagon, a pentagon, an elongated hexagon, a bowtie, and a rhombus, which they called girih tiles which “[share] several geometric features: every edge of each polygon has the same length and the two decorating lines intersect the midpoint of every edge at 72° and 108° angles. This ensures that when the edges of two tiles are aligned in a tessellation, decorating lines will continue across the common boundary without changing direction. Because both line intersections and tiles only contain angles that are multiples of 36°, all line segments in the final girih strapwork pattern formed by girih-tile decorating lines will be parallel to the sides of the regular pentagon; decagonal geometry is thus enforced in the girih pattern formed by the tessellation of any combination of girih tiles. The tile decorations have different internal rotational symmetries: the decagon, 10-fold symmetry; the pentagon, five-fold; and the hexagon, bowtie, and rhombus, two-fold” [4].

Lu and Steinhardt reconstructed the pattern on the Gonbad-e Qabud with four girih tiles. I have followed the suggestion by Makovicky and have not included a decagon “rosette”.

The Maraghah pattern compared with the decagonal pattern on the west iwan of Esfahan’s Great Mosque

Another suspected site displaying allegedly a “quasi-crystalline” pattern of tesserae is the western iwan of Masjed-e Jomeh in Esfahan. The reconstruction revealed that it is not a Penrose tiling. The “dazzling” appearance turns out to be largely a rosette which can be constructed by use of a set of four girih tiles. There is no self-similar subdivision. In a way, it resembles a bit the pattern found in Maraghah, although there, some irregularities occur, as described above.

The artists who have created the decorations at either site (1197 in Maraghah, mid of the 15th century in Esfahan) did not use color but chose a high degree of abstraction. It is amazing that an intentional reduction of a piece of art to a strict geometric pattern with an unbelievable degree of precision has led to profound confusion among a large number of visitors. The perception of the artistic effort in fact confused even certain scientists who argued that medieval artists could have discovered what became famous as Penrose patterns, 500 or even 800 years before they were described and understood in the West.

Notes

[1] I have posted some pictures about trips in and around Tabriz on Salmiya.

[2] Makovicky E. 800-year-old pentagonal tiling from Marāgha, Iran, and the new varieties of aperiodic tiling it inspired. In: Istvan Hargittai (ed.) Fivefold Symmetry. World Scientific, Singapore 1992, pp. 67-86.

[3] See Lu and Steinhardt’s response to Makovicky’s comment on their paper at Science 2007; 318: 1383b.

[4] Lu PJ, Steinhardt PJ. Decagonal and quasi-crystalline tilings in medieval Islamic architecture. Science 2007; 315: 1106-1110.

[5] Necipoglu G. The Topkapı Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Getty Center for the History of the Art and Humanities. Santa Monica, CA, 1995.

First published at Freelance.

Dazzling Decagonal

The most interesting tile decorations and muqarnas, or stalactite vaults, are found on the western iwan of Esfahan’s Great Mosque. While all iwans have been added to the Seljuq mosque after a fire pillaged by the Hashashiyyin sect in 1121 CE, their decorations are Timurid and early or even late Safavid (late 15th till early 17th century). Next to the western iwan the pretty famous Timurid gate had been moved and inserted into the façade. It contains signature and date of its creator Sayyid Mahmud-e Naqash, 1447. A similar, highly decorative floral style can be seen on the south iwan and on the Darb-e Imam, some 300 meters west to the mosque, which is dated 1453.

The date ۱۳۱۷ (1317) translates into 1939, by the way, when restoration had taken place. The Timurid gate near the western iwan of Masjed-e Jomeh leads to a room with a stunning dated (1310) mihrab of sultan Oljatu, the great Ilkhanid Mongolian ruler in northern Iran. The inscriptions are, according to Oleg Grabar in his book about the Great Mosque, not qur’anic, but contain traditions about mosques and about Ali. Amazing that Oljatu in fact converted to Shi’a Islam in 1310.

The western iwan and its counterpart to the east are called the sofe of the student (shāgird) and master (ustadh). Although both iwans were built at the same time as the south iwan (early 12th century), both of them are, “in their visible shape, late Safavid works of the seventeenth and, in case of the west one, even early eighteenth centuries”, as Grabar writes.

“[A] celebrated square panel in the western iwan [which] is one of the most commonly cited examples of complex geometric ornament using writing. It is easy to argue that here is a wonderful example of a simple design rotated 45 degrees which acquires two separate values, one as a carrier of geometric forms filled with (by the time of the panel) antiquarian writing, the other one as a violator of the sequence of both writing and architecture by forcing one into rare contortions to read the writing. And one could argue that here is precisely the use of geometry which gives it the high status so frequently heard and read about. In fact, however, the corner spaces contain the following rather undistinguished pious quatrain: ‘As the letter of our crime became entwined [i.e., grew so long], [they] took it and weighed it in the balance against action. Our sin was greater than that of anyone else, but we were forgiven out of the kindness of Ali.’ The central square is taken up by a signature of one of the most active craftsmen busy repairing the mosque in the seventeenth century. Even though formally related to the angular style of writing on the face of the iwan and in fact much more sophisticated in design, this panel is nothing more than a ‘plug’ for a local artisan.”

The exact construction of a similar “square from three squares” has been described in Abu’l Wafa’s (d. ca. 998) book “On the Geometric Constructions Necessary for the Artisan”. As Alpay Özdural describes it in his article “Mathematics and Arts: Connections between Theory and Practice in the Medieval Islamic World” (Historia Mathematica 2000; 27: 171-201), contemporary mathematicians frequently held so-called conversazione with artisans explaining them how to create new inspiring geometric decorations.

Now let’s turn to what I've called “dazzling decagonal”. I have reported on my stunning first experience with mysterious decagonal tessellations in Esfahan’s old city several times, here on this blog as well as on Freelance. There are suggestions by Peter Lu at Harvard that there had been a breakthrough in creating (almost) Penrose tiling in the 15th century, in particular on the Darb-e Imam near Esfahan’s Great Mosque. In the supplementary material of Lu and Steinhardt’s article, you may find a picture of the western iwan where the authors suggest that the tiling can be subdivided in the same way as the Darb-e Imam pattern(s). You can easily identify the pattern at the inner sides of the iwan’s portal. It is huge, about one meter wide and up to 10 meters high. At first glance the two sites seem to be an anomaly in Esfahan. Lu and Steinhardt also suggest so-called girih tiles to facilitate the incredible precision of the tiling.

For instance, I have mirrored the right part of a picture of the arch borrowed from ArchNet (left part of the panel below) and can demonstrate (right part of the panel) that each tiny tessera on one side (as small as, say, a square centimeter) can be found in exactly the same place on the other side of the vault.

The Southern Iwan of Esfahan’s Great Mosque

As Oleg Grabar has stressed many times in his book about Esfahan’s Masjed-e Jomeh, the mosque itself is perfectly embedded in the fabric of the Old City. There are no well-defined boundaries of the huge, 170 by 140 meters, complex. The main entrance is rather hidden at the eastern side of the building. Only helicopters and birds (or angles) may get an immediate impression of the huge dimensions of the mosques. I asked the officer near the ticket seller whether I was allowed to climb to the roofs. He declined, of course.

It was very early in the morning, the sun had just risen and the glazed tiles on the mosque’s façades were glowing like gold. It reminded me of the spectacular photos taken by Henri Stierlin. Pigeons were sitting on the South Dome and warming up in the sun. When entering the courtyard, the two domes of the mosque are not visible at first sight. In particular, the northern dome is not visible at all from here, one of the main reasons for having neglected this masterpiece of Islamic architecture during my previous visits. What attracts immediately the attention is the heavily decorated main iwan to the south. The two thin minaret-like towers have never been used for prayer calls.

The iwan contains inscriptions dated 1475-76 by the artist Sayyid Mahmud-e Naqash, who can be considered also responsible for certain decorations on the Darb-e Emam shrine only 300 meters to the west. While the latter was built during the reign of the Qara Qoyunly ruler Jahan Shah, the additions on the southern iwan of Masjed-e Jomeh were done during the time of Uzun Hassan, the great ruler of the Aq Qoyunly dynasty. Both show the highly decorative late Timurid style.

The numerous “elements of Shi’ite Muslim iconography of piety” point to the extensive embellishment during the Safavid era, in particular that of Shah Abbas II (1642-67).

See much more information here.

Approaching the North Dome

I have reported on last year’s journey back to Esfahan many times on this blog. I had been invited by the Islamic Azad University at Khorasgan for giving a course for postgraduate students and then stayed in the University guest house. I later moved to the Dibaee House in Esfahan’s old city, close to my ever fascinating study object, Esfahan’s Great Mosque. When living in Kuwait, I had once read a supplement to the Arab Times describing the marvels of this gorgeous building, which is not on the must-see list of sights of the common western tourist. I had visited the site whenever in Esfahan, but usually I did not stay inside the courtyard longer than, say, half an hour. This time, I had informed myself in particular by reading the wonderful book about the mosque by Oleg Grabar who had studied the largest mosque in Iran, which some people consider as the Chartres of Iran, in the 1960s and 70s. Before retirement, Grabar was Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art at Harvard. His book is based on a series of lectures at the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies of New York University in 1987. I have recently posted another example of his fascinating projects, a virtual walking tour around and into the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, elsewhere on this blog .

My fresh knowledge about the history of Esfahan’s Friday Mosque, which I had acquired before traveling to Iran, has been posted as well. While reading Oleg Grabar’s text is, in fact, a great pleasure, the black-and-white pictures of the mosque do not give a good impression of its grandeur (although Professor Grabar would argue that I am still watching the architecture with a tourist’s eye). In the coming weeks I plan to describe the different parts of the mosque mainly based on Grabar’s expert descriptions, and document it with my new pictures. Different parts of the mosque are constantly being restored and tile decorations are replaced. But the contemporary artisans have been meticulous. I suppose that the original tile patterns, in certain areas dazzling tessellations, have largely survived for centuries.

Why is the North Dome of the mosque so mysterious? First, it is perfect. It has survived dozens of severe earthquakes since it had been constructed in 1088 CE, only two years after the South Dome (which can be seen on the first picture) had been built. The southern dome is not really elegant. When constructed, it was regarded the largest dome in the Islamic world. It definitely belongs to the Seljuq mosque. The North Dome, which was commissioned by Taj al-Mulk, an arch enemy of the ingenious vizier Nizam al-Mulk, seems to be excluded from the place of worship. Four years later, Malik Shah, the sultan who commissioned the south dome, died and Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated by the Hashashin sect.

Omar Khayyam, the great medieval mathematician who was born in Nishapur in Khorasan, lived in Esfahan under Nizam and Malik Shah. He was called to the city to build an observatory which has never been found. Without any proof, it is widely believed that Khayyam was involved in the perfect construction of the dome. Mathematician Alpay Özdural presented a fine argument about the special right triangle described by Omar Khayyam (and most probably not the Golden Section, as Oleg Grabar argues), which seem to be present all over the North Dome of the Great Mosque, the Gunbad-e Khaki, or earthly dome. Is it possible that the North Dome is in fact Omar Khayyam's observatory? The last picture has been taken from Özdural's original publication. You may find much more information here.

While wandering through the vaults in the northern parts of the Great Mosque, the looks to the ceiling with its numerous brick cupolas and the plenty of inclined columns are quite breathtaking. Amazingly, I met young and older Esfahanians, who were visiting the site for the first time.

A New Beginning

A new beginning, indeed

It's Springtime

On equinox today (astronomically, it occurs exactly at UTC 11:44 am), the sun is setting pretty much across the sund. Amazing to remember great emotions not even two months ago, when sun rose again (and set at the same time) after two long months of darkness at 69˚40’N 18˚56’E.

The March equinox is the beginning of spring (or fall in the southern hemisphere of the world). For Iranians it might be the most significant time of the year. They (and many other people in Central Asia or, for instance, the Turkish Kurds) celebrate Nowruz, the beginning of a New Year (1388 H).

To all of them

Nowruz Mobarak!

Catching Up

These monkeys from Thailand clean their interdental spaces with human hair and, even more amazing, seem to teach this to their little ones (I have told my students a slightly different technique). There will be more surprises in Darwin Year 2009, I suppose.

Najasat-e Ahl-e Kitab

When Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian Captivity in 539 BCE, some of them did not return to Jeruslaem but eventually settled on the banks of the Zayandeh Rud in Central Iran, possibly founding the city of Esfahan. This is the beginning of Jewish life in Iran which thus started two-and-a-half-thousand years ago. While Cyrus is betoken as ‘the anointed’ in the Book of Isaiah, Jews seem to have lived for centuries in peace with the indigenous Persian populace. Persian religious tolerance was legendary as long as Zoroastrianism was the state religion. The alarming rhetoric in particular of the present president of Iran, who had openly questioned the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazi’s terror regime in the early 1940s and the very right of Israel to exist, has caused considerable new concern about the safety of the Jews in the Islamic Republic. It raises again the question, what do we actually know about the relationship of Shi’a Muslims and other ‘people of the book’, or Ahl al-Kitab?

Daniel Tsadik is an Assistant Professor at Yeshiva University, New York. He has earned a PhD from the History Department at Yale University. Apparently, Tsadik’s family is still living in Iran. In his new book he tries to illuminate the more than difficult situation of the Jews under the rule of the Shahs of the Qajar-Dynasty, in particular the second half of the 19th century. Iran has seen the Constitutional ... Read the rest of this book review »

Agriculture in the Desert

The ancient and still inhabited village of Mohammedieh with its huge Sassanid castle is located a couple of kilometers northeast to Na’in. Diligent farmers were working in fruit orchards and on the fields. In the beginning of January, there was a scent of springtime. An old man wanted to show me his carpet loom in his hut. Before taking the picture, he put on his coat and told me he was a mollah. Just kidding, I suppose.

A qanat is a sort of artificial spring. The aquifer had been invented in ancient Persia and spread throughout the Middle East as far as Africa and Central Asia as far as China. Deep water tables at the foothills of mountains are approached by vertical access shafts and horizontal channels. They finally reach the surface and a small artificial runlet will transport the water miles into the desert for agriculture. Constructing qanats is a dangerous task and nowadays strictly regulated by the government. You may find the well-like openings and runlets as well as so called ab anbars (huge domed water reservoirs) in the vicinity of wind towers (badgirs) all over Iran’s deserted countryside, especially in Yazd and Na’in.

Bricks and Stucco Rather than Tiles

The most significant building in Na’in is certainly its more than 1000-years old Friday mosque, build in 960 CE. Its single minaret without any ornaments has an octagonal ground plan and tapers. It is built on a small hill somewhat outside of the old city’s center. Nearby, a guard will open the doors of a small museum which is part of a Safavid traditional house with a small sunken garden.

The mosque itself, one of the oldest in Iran where still Friday prayers take place, is Abbasid/Bujid, as the remains of the Jurjir mosque in Esfahan. Brickwork and carved stucco especially of the mihrab and surrounding bays are superb and well-preserved. There is no iwan, which is in fact a development of the later Seljuq rulers of Iran.

The bazaar in the old city is a museum, too. The shops had been closed long time ago when the owners moved to the modern part of the city.

Another Trip through the Desert of Central Iran

The course at Islamic Azad University in Khorasgan was over and I had a free week for some traveling in Iran before returning to the Arctic. Hamadan, the Achaemenid capital (Ecbatana in ancient times) and home of Esther and Mordecai at the court of Artaxerxes (or one of his successors on the throne) would be one of my favorite destinations. But it was far away and most probably also too cold this time of the year. It has to wait for a future visit to Iran. I decided to go to Na'in, halfway to the other desert city Yazd, which I had visited in 2004. The German couple that I met in the breakfast room of the Dibaee house in the old city of Esfahan (he was interestingly enough a diplomat at the German Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan) planned to go further to Yazd. When I suggested taking a bus rather than a taxi for the after all more than 300 km, they were not interested.

To get to the Jey minibus terminal east of Esfahan’s city center you must take a taxi which will cost you more than the 140 km bus trip afterwards (IR 15’000, if I recall correctly, about $1.5). The bus would go in half an hour. So I bought the ticket and sat down on a bench of the small concourse of the terminal. There were many students who, after the weekend, made it to Na'in’s other branch of Islamic Azad University.

East of Esfahan (which is in fact a huge oasis, located at the banks of one of Iran’s major rivers, the Zayandeh Rud) the desert of central Iran stretches for hundreds of kilometers. Every now and then caravanserais can be seen along the highway. The bus terminal in Na'in was very close to the excellent traditional tourist inn with its beautifully renovated, two-storey rooms (IR 30’000, or $30). The receptionist gave me a brochure of the city and I started my sight-seeing tour.

Na'in is not a tourist hub. I met a Chinese group that had hired an Iranian driver. They, too, were on their way further to Yazd, which is bigger and definitely more famous. Na'in itself is charming. Not really a ‘one-horse town’, but slumbering and a bit provincial. Most interesting is its historical old city, which, sad to say, is more a museum now since most people had moved into other areas. Huge water reservoirs and wind towers (badgirs) everywhere. An enormous castle, known as Narin Ghaleh, dominates the center of the ancient buildings’ fabric. It originates from Sassanid times.

No carpets from here. Although very popular in Iran and in the West, there are several aspects which I do not appreciate very much in Na'in carpets.