Friday Mosque of Herat — mosque
Todd Huffman · CC BY 2.0

Friday Mosque of Herat

  • 2 min read
  • 34.343° N 62.196° E

Interesting facts

  • The complex is roofed by about 460 small domes carried on more than 440 pillars, a forest of vaults hidden behind the tiled courtyard façades.
  • The bronze basin cast in 1375 for the last Kart ruler has outlived every later demolition and earthquake with nothing worse than minor scratches.
  • The mosque's prayer direction points west but misses the true bearing of Mecca by roughly 20 degrees, a common error in early medieval mosques.
  • Herat's Jami Mosque was almost entirely ruined twice by earthquakes, first in 1102 and again in 1364, and rebuilt after each.
  • The fountain in the courtyard was fed directly from Herat's historic main water channel, known as the Joy-i Injil.
  • The front of the main iwan collapsed in the 18th century and was only fully rebuilt during the restorations of the 20th century.
  • A ceramic tile workshop established at the mosque during the 20th-century restorations produced new mosaic to replace lost decoration.
  • The marble minbar installed in the Timurid period has nine steps and replaced an older wooden pulpit.
  • Between 1992 and 1998 the courtyard's stone surface was relaid in a patterned design of white and black marble.
  • Facade works in 2004 and 2005 unexpectedly uncovered fragments of the original Ghurid decoration hidden beneath later layers.

Why it is worth it

Glazed tile mosaic in blues, greens, turquoise and ochre covers the courtyard façades of Herat's Friday Mosque, framing a vast paved court with four great arched halls facing one another across it. The Masjid-i Jami of Herat is the oldest congregational mosque of the city and one of the great monuments of the eastern Islamic world, a building begun by the Ghurid sultans around 1200 and remade by every dynasty that held Herat afterwards.

The site was sacred long before the present mosque: a building used for worship was converted into a mosque in the 7th century, enlarged under the Ghaznavids, and rebuilt after an earthquake in 1102 and later a fire. In about 1200 the Ghurid sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad laid the foundations of a new brick mosque on a four-iwan plan; he was buried in a mausoleum within it in 1203, and his son completed the work, with a madrasa, by 1210. Mongol armies ruined much of Herat in 1221, and the Kart rulers rebuilt; from them survives a great bronze basin about 1.74 metres across, commissioned for the mosque in 1375 and still in place. Under the Timurids, who made Herat a capital of art and learning, Shah Rukh had the courtyard faced with tile mosaic and added a marble mihrab, and later Ali-Shir Nava'i, adviser to Sultan Husayn Bayqara, remodelled the arches, added geometric mosaic and installed a marble minbar. Scholars regard the Timurid era as the mosque's most magnificent period.

Much of what is seen today results from 20th-century restorations, especially between 1942 and 1973, when the mosque was freed from surrounding buildings, given a new east entrance with minarets, and its courtyard façades re-clad in Timurid-style mosaic in seven colours. The complex measures about 180 by 120 metres, with a courtyard of about 82 by 60 metres, hundreds of small domes and twelve minarets. The oldest fabric survives at the southeast corner in the Ghurid portal, where vertical bands of Kufic inscription in blue-glazed terracotta stand out against warm brick, and in carved stucco uncovered in the southern and western iwans.

Getting there

The mosque stands in the old city of Herat in western Afghanistan, about 0.7 km from the city centre. Herat International Airport (HEA) is about 15 km to the south.

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From the encyclopaedia

The Great Mosque of Herat, is a Sunni Friday mosque, located in the city of Herat, in the Herat Province of north-western Afghanistan. It was built by the Ghurids, under the rule of Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad Ghori, who laid its foundation in 1200 CE. Later, it was extended several times as Herat changed rulers down the centuries from the Kartids, Timurids, Mughals and then the Uzbeks, all of whom supported the mosque. The fundamental structure of the mosque from the Ghurid period has been preserved, but parts have been added and modified. The Friday mosque in Herat was given its present appearance during the 20th century.

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