In Its Own Class

The Islamic world is filled with magnificent cities. Samarkand, Bukhara, Damascus, Cairo, Istanbul and Mecca are all at the top of any top ten list, but Isfahan is in a class of its own. A city where the spiritual and the secular both find expression, Isfahan is tasteful blend of the stern classical contours of Islamic architecture with the curvaceous and luxuriant movement of Persian. Should I ever return, I'll spend a week in Isfahan. Two days are not enough, not enough to see the highlights, much less dig deep into the soul of the city and uncover all its secrets.

After the long ride from Tehran to Isfahan our guide started us off slowly. We drove north towards the outskirts of the city the morning of the 26th where we stopped at a middling size hill, maybe 100 meters from top to bottom. A barren rock with centuries of worn trails going up and down in all directions, all of them clearly beginning at the summit where a small mud brick edifice endures, to this day the harsh Persian sun. Called the Ateshkadeh-ye Isfahan it is the remains of a 3^rd century Zoroastrian Fire Temple, most likely erected by the Sassanians.

In the early morning sun the rocks are almost peach in appearance, contrasting mildly with the muddy brick buildings at the summit, which stands to reason: they are made from mud, something the Persians excel at. There are a thousand, thousand mud brick buildings still standing in Iran some of them date back to the days of the Sassanians (a pre-Islamic dynasty) and others from the turn of the last century. But all of them share two features above all: they are functional and they (mostly) endure.

After the Ateshkadeh-ye Isfahan we drove south again back into the city. Before we arrived we stopped at a small shrine known as the Manar Jonban, or the shaking minarets. This shrine dates back to the Il-Khanid period (a Mongol successor state), from roughly 1256-1353 AD, and was originally built to house a local Iranian mystic, Amoo Abdollah Garladani. But in the late 14^th century a pair of minarets were conceived of a purpose and built atop this single iwan (a portal leading into a shrine or sanctuary) shrine, which now looks more like a small Southwestern Spanish Catholic mission than a mosque (see photo). The minarets do serve, as I said, a critical purpose: atop the minarets are two small belfries, which when shaken ring out loudly. Conceived by old Persian architects that the city dwellers would have some kind of a warning for earthquakes. After all, Iran is an earthquake prone country. (These shaking minarets are not to be confused by those of the same name in Ahmedabad, Gujarat India, which were designed to shake off the blow of an earthquake, not warn of an impending one.) Then, at eleven o'clock, as if cued up by central casting, the keeper of the shrine ascended the staircase, crawled into the belfry and shook the right minaret vigorously. Almost thirty feet away the other minaret shook vigorously and its bells also rang. It was almost like Rome at noon with bells pealing across the Isfahani suburbs.

With the show over and our appetites calling for attention we dashed back into the city, parked the car and walked to Imam Square (where we would soon eat). There are fewer more noble public spaces in the world. Saint Peter's in Rome, the square in front of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg and Trafalgar in London are the only three that immediately come to mind. This square is immense in proportions but beguiling, simple and elegant. It is a long rectangle, roughly 500 meters by 150, built on a north south axis. Where once there was a polo field, in the time of Shah Abbas the Great, fountains now gush, lovers walk, and horse drawn carriages carry the curious. Four long two-story arcades, simple in design, enclose the square. The top story of each segment is a niche filled by a half vault and a pointed arch. The first floor is filled with curio shops, miniature galleries, the ubiquitous carpet sellers and the occasional refreshment kiosk. All have duel entrances, one leading out into the square, the other leading inside into an interior bazaar of sorts filled with strolling tourists, pilgrims and locals.

At the north end of the square is a beautiful, if not quite so well preserved iwan, known as the Qeysarieh gate leading into what has to be the world's largest covered bazaar. The bazaar, filled with everything from banks, food, pharmacies and lingerie, runs for almost two kilometers towards the Friday mosque, a gorgeous edifice of Seljuk provenance we would see the next day.

At the middle of the west side sits the Ali Qapu palace, which was Shah Abbas' seat of government. This two-story building, with its graceful second story patio looks out over the central portion of Imam Square. (Sadly, we just didn't have the time to visit. Then again, palaces don't really do much for me and yet places of worship, wow!)

Anchoring the south end of the square, or maydan as they call it in Persian is the Masjid-i-Shah, what Arthur Pope, the premier scholar of Persian architecture says, "represents the culmination of a thousand years of mosque building in Persia, with a majesty and splendor that places it among the world's greatest buildings." It certainly is grand, and the part of this mosque that struck me the most, as with the other great mosque in the Imam Square, was the liberal use of a gorgeous Persian marble. The marble is to be found as dressing for the main piers (supports) of the mosque and changes color with the sun. In the morning it is almost pink; midday it's a warm creamy orange and shortly before sunset ochre hues refract the light of the dying day.

But it is to the east side, the Sheikh Lutfollah mosque, that I was inexorably drawn that day.

"I'd like to be alone right now, you two, so y'all go ahead," I told my father and Ahmad, our guide.

They walked off towards the Masjid-I-Shah while I, like a satellite in terminal orbit with the planet, gravity consuming all, breathed deep and continued ahead. From the outside this 'private mosque' is almost unprepossessing: an ample but not too epic pishtaq of midnight blue beckons the pilgrim forward, while a creamy warm café-au lait dome hints at the wonders just inside. I crossed the threshold and quickly passed through a vaulted and subtly curving passageway with a riot of the usual vegetal blues, yellows, and faint greens dancing above and beside me. In full contemplative mood, hands clasped behind my back and camera firmly tucked away in my backpack it hit me. I wasn't prepared.

The first thing one sees are a set of dark blue tiled lines on the floor intersecting each other and linking each of the eight piers inside the mosque. The piers, made of the an embracing ochre and taupe colored marble (just like that found in the Masjid-i-Shah), rise up towards the dome. Between each pair of piers is a panel bordered by a turquoise rope that culminates in a pointed arch. The panels that make up the cardinal directions are flat; one is the entry doorway I just entered through; another looks into the hallway beyond; a beautiful latticed window brings in light fills the third panel; and the final panel is used as the qibla wall, a small indentation marking the direction of prayer towards Mecca. Filled with the rich vegetal motifs climbing upwards like vines, but all different in minor ways, each contributes to the effect of the whole.

Inside the rope arch of each corner panels is another, smaller border of white thulth calligraphy on a midnight blue background. Several repeating patterns of flower blossoms in pink, green, yellow and blue fill in the remaining empty space. What is remarkable about the placement of the panels is that they give this square room the feel of an octagon. And it is here that the question of how to put a circular dome on top of a square building finds its ultimate expression. In each corner panel a squinch has been ingeniously (and elegantly) hidden. A squinch, in the simplest terms, is an arch placed over the right angle intersection of two walls, thus making a square room an octagon. By duplicating this once more the architect creates a room with sixteen sides; a room that approximates a circle that engineers can then work with.

Above the elegantly hidden squinches, in the zone of transition, there is a small band of thulth calligraphy, cotton white on midnight blue tiles so prevalent in the mosque architecture. Sixteen latticed windows of subtle gently rocking arabesques let in the light, but only enough to add to the vegetal abstractions crawling up the walls. The windows (and the panels between them) are followed by another small band of thulth calligraphy. Here the dome proper begins, filled with a multiplicity of turtle-shaped forms crawl upwards, slowly but inevitably towards the apex of the dome where they dissolve into a singularity of golden light (an enveloping warm golden light, as safe as the womb). Here color and shadow simulate the firmament, in a celebration of the ineffable.