Remembering Isfahan
Photos from Iran
In 2015, I spent several days in Isfahan, Iran and visited some of the buildings damaged in the current US-Israeli bombing campaign. Isfahan is a UNESCO World Heritage site that, until now, had survived many battles including the Siege of Isfahan and Battle of Gulnabad in 1722 that led to the deaths of 80,000 civilians, and the Battle of Murche-Khort and Liberation of Isfahan in 1729.
Isfahan has been inhabited since prehistoric times. In 1387, the city surrendered to the army of the Turkic-Mongol conqueror Timur (aka Tamerlane) but later killed his tax collectors. Timur ordered the inhabitants massacred, 70,000-200,000 in all, sparing the artists and artisans. Some of the heads were stacked into 28 towers of 1,500 heads apiece, a Turkic-Mongol practice immortalized in Vasily Vereshchagin’s 1871 painting Apotheosis of War.
Timur died in 1404 and his empire disintegrated but the Timurid style of architecture he patronized, with its emphasis on monumental scale and intensely colored tilework, had a lasting impact on Persian architecture. One has only to visit the Timurid capital of Samarkand—in present-day Uzbekistan—to see the aesthetic connection with Isfahan.
In 1598, the fifth Safavid Shah, Abbas I (aka Abbas the Great) moved his capital from Qazvin to Isfahan, to distance himself from the rival Ottoman empire and gain more control of the Persian Gulf, which had become an important trade route for the British and Dutch East India companies. He relocated Persian, Turkish and Armenian craftspeople to help build the new imperial city and ensure its prosperity. Isfahan’s most famous buildings date from that era.
Ali Qapu Palace
Ali Qapu (“Great Gate”) is an early 17th-century palace, built during the Safavid dynasty under the decree of Shah Abbas I and expanded by Shah Abbas II. The six-story building is located on the western side of Naqsh-e Jahan (“Exemplar of the World”) Square, an oblong collection of palaces, mosques and bazaars surrounding an enormous polo field. Ali Qapu underwent repeated renovations and expansions and was finally completed a century after its inception.
On the sixth floor is the palace’s most famous feature, the music hall, where the king would host receptions and parties often accompanied by live music. The hall is actually several halls, connected and arranged around a domed central space. The upper walls and ceiling feature a unique double-walled design of delicate plaster niches in the shape of cups, vases and other vessels. They are enhanced on the surface by polychrome arabesque and geometric patterns and inside each niche by alternating complementary red and green coloration.
According to the University of Isfahan’s Professor Mehrdad Hejazi, the plaster is so delicate that it “falls to pieces at the slightest touch.” The ceiling also features muqarnas, stalactite-like protrusions that are Islam’s unique contribution to world architecture. Typically, muqarnas are used to make the transition of a dome or drum onto square supporting walls instead of the pendentives, squinches and corbelling typical of European architecture. Muqarnas are also used decoratively in archways and niches.
The music hall is a sonically “quiet” space with no echo. Hasan Azad at the University of Tehran, who created a 3D model of the space, concluded that the combination of recesses and protrusions acts as a sound diffuser: The wall design ensured that the king’s guests would hear music with no distortion. The writer Goli Mohammadi calls this low-tech solution to room echo “the world’s first quadraphonic sound system.”
Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque
Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, named after a Shiite scholar who moved to Iran from Lebanon at the invitation of Shah Abbas I to spread the teachings of Shiism in Iran, is located on the eastern side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square, the center of the city. Completed in 1619, the mosque was reserved for the king’s harem. Possibly because the public was forbidden to enter the building, it has neither minaret nor courtyard, unusual in Iran.
Inside the mosque, walls are covered with intricately decorated blue tile mosaics and an ornate golden dome, the two connected by elaborate muqarnas. Today, this contrast of blue and gold is referred to colloquially as the “day and night ceiling,” one of those spots where photographers like I wait in line to lie on the floor to get a perfect shot.
The slowly rotating play of sunlight across the inner dome is referred to as the “peacock tail.”
Shah Mosque
The Shah Mosque employs a double-shell design, with a tall, slightly bulbous outer dome and drum, and a shallower inner shell. The space between acts as an insulator and acoustic amplifier. Because of this design, an imam standing at a particular stone on the floor and leading prayer or giving the Friday khutbah sermon can easily be heard throughout the entire space.
Construction of the Shah Mosque was begun in 1611 and completed around 1630. Located at the southern end of Naqsh-e Jahan Square, it is turned 45 degrees from the square so that it is aligned with the qibla, the direction of prayer toward Mecca. The mosque features a courtyard, four minarets and an enormous blue-tile drum and dome that has the opposite function of the Ali Qapu music hall. The domed space does not dampen echoes but amplifies them so that prayer can be heard throughout the mosque. Persian architecture researcher Zohreh Torabi and architectural engineer Reza Khoeini call it “a marvel of acoustic engineering.” The Shah Mosque features monumental iwan gates, walled on three sides and open on their façades that serve as arched portals to the mosque complex and the mosque proper. The ornamented projecting space around the iwans is called the pishtaq. The iwan and pishtaq are essential features of classical Persian architecture.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Shah Mosque was renamed the Iman Khomeini Mosque. The entire Naqsh-e Jahan complex was named a UNESCO Heritage site the same year.
Since the United States has no diplomatic presence in Iran, American tourists are rare. The few like me who do visit must travel on a preset itinerary with a government-recognized tour company and are accompanied at all times by a tour guide/minder. In 2015, nationals from other countries were not thus constrained and Isfahan was full of independent tourists from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Those rules changed in 2025, and all visitors are now expected to work with a licensed tour agency.
Bryn Barnard is an artist, teacher and former ICWA fellow. He has worked with Far Eastern Economic Review, Asiaweek, National Geographic and NASA, and also with schools and universities in Kuwait, Korea, Singapore, the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. His books include Dangerous Planet: Natural Disasters That Changed History, Outbreak: Plagues That Changed History, The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World and The New Ocean: The Fate of Life in a Changing Sea.
A good reminder of the cruelty and beauty of other ages that mirrors our own times. Insightful.
Thank you for sharing your art and your insights, Bryn. I always appreciate the chance to learn from you.