Jameh Mosque of Isfahan

The Jameh Mosque, the Friday Mosque of Isfahan, is often described as a museum of Iranian architecture, because almost every period from the early Islamic centuries to the Safavids left its mark on it. It stands in the old heart of the city, a short walk from the bazaar, well away from the later Safavid splendour of Naqsh-e Jahan Square, and it is still a working mosque, used for daily prayers.

Its decisive moment came under the Seljuks in the late eleventh century. The vizier Nizam al-Mulk built the great domed chamber in front of the mihrab, the prayer niche, around 1086–1087, and a year or two later his rival Taj al-Molk built a smaller, exquisitely proportioned brick dome at the northern end of the axis. Around this time the courtyard was given four iwans, vaulted halls open to the courtyard on each side. This four-iwan plan became the model for mosques across Iran and Central Asia for centuries.

Later builders added their own layers. In 1310, under the Ilkhanid ruler Öljeitü, a prayer hall was given a carved stucco mihrab of extraordinary depth and intricacy, deep-cut with plant scrolls and inscriptions. Under the Timurids and Safavids the courtyard façades and iwans were faced with glazed tile, while behind them the forest of brick columns and vaults of the prayer halls shows the bare brickwork of earlier centuries.

Walking from the courtyard into the low brick halls is to move between eras in a few steps, and the mosque rewards slow looking, especially in the patterns of the brick vaults, each one different. It was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in 2012.