Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

The Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque is the most intimate of the great buildings on Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan and, to many who have stood inside it, the most perfect. It has no minaret and no courtyard, just a single square prayer hall, about 19 metres on each side, under a single-shell dome some 13 metres across and 32 metres high. From the square the dome reads first as a soft cream-coloured cupola, faced with tiles that seem to change tone through the day, from pinkish in the early light to beige around noon and warmer, darker hues towards sunset, patterned with arabesques in blue and white.

It was built between about 1603 and 1619 for Shah Abbas I, as one of the monuments framing the great square. The mosque is named after Sheikh Lotfollah al-Maysi al-Amili, a Lebanese-born religious scholar and the shah's father-in-law, and the builder's name, Muhammad Reza son of Husayn, an Isfahan master, is recorded in the inscription of the mihrab. Unlike the great congregational Shah Mosque on the same square, it was a royal oratory rather than a public mosque; tradition holds that it served the women of the court. The calligraphic bands, with Quranic verses and poetry, were designed by the court calligrapher Ali Reza Abbasi.

The genius of the building is in how it handles the entrance. The square was laid out without regard to the direction of Mecca, so the mosque had to turn: you enter through a portal on the square, then follow a dim corridor that bends at an angle before opening, without warning, into the prayer hall already correctly oriented. The effect is theatrical. Out of the half-light the whole interior of the dome appears at once, a web of tiled medallions diminishing towards the crown, where a motif known as the peacock catches the light filtering through the high windows. Every surface is covered in polychrome tilework, arabesques and floral patterns in blues, whites and yellows. The mosque is part of the Naqsh-e Jahan Square ensemble, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979.

Getting there

The mosque stands on the eastern side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square in central Isfahan. Isfahan Shahid Beheshti International Airport (IFN) is about 22 km away. The square is at the heart of the historic city and is best explored on foot.