Market›Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque
Company Profile

Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

The Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque is a Shi'ite mosque, located on the eastern side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square, Isfahan, Iran. Construction of the mosque started in 1011 AH (1602/1603 CE) and was finished in 1028 AH (1618/1619 CE). It is one of the masterpieces of Iranian architecture from the Safavid era. It was designed by the chief architect Muhammad Reza during the reign of Shah Abbas the Great. On the advice of Arthur Upham Pope, Reza Shah Pahlavi had the mosque restored in the 1920s.

History
The purpose of this mosque was for it to be private to the royal court (unlike the Shah Mosque, which was meant for the public). For this reason, the mosque does not have any minarets and is smaller. Indeed, few Westerners at the time of the Safavids even paid any attention to this mosque, and they certainly did not have access to it. To avoid having to walk across the Naqsh-e Jahan Square to the mosque, Shah Abbas had the architect build a tunnel spanning the piazza from the Ali Qapu Palace to the mosque. On reaching the entrance of the mosque, one would have to walk through a passage that winds round and round, until one finally reached the main building. Along this passage there were standing guards, and the obvious purpose of this design was to shield the women of the harem as much as possible from anyone's entering the building. These doors are open to worshippers and visitors, and the passage underneath the piazza is no longer in use. Sheikh Lotfollah The mosque was named in 1622 after Shaykh Lutfallah Maysi al-'Amili (d.1622), a prominent religious scholar and teacher (and father-in-law to Shah 'Abbas) who came to Isfahan at the orders of Shah 'Abbas, and resided on the site, but was never involved in the mosque's construction. Throughout its history, this mosque has been referred to by different names. For Junabadi it was the mosque with the great dome (Masjed-e qubbat-e ’azim) and the domed mosque (qubbat masjed), while contemporary historian Iskandar Munshi referred to it as the mosque of great purity and beauty. On the other hand, European travellers, such as Jean Chardin, referred to the mosque using the current name, and Quranic inscriptions within the mosque, done by Iranian calligrapher Baqir Banai, also include the name of Sheikh Lutfallah. In addition, the reckonings of Muhibb Ali Beg, the Imperial Treasurer, show that the Imam's salary came directly from the imperial household's resources. All this suggests that not only was the building indeed named after Sheikh Lutfallah, but also, that this famous imam was among the first prayer-leaders for the royal court in this very mosque. == Architecture ==
Architecture
The mosque is more similar in type to a mausoleum than a four-iwan mosque. Architectural historians ascribe this either to the fact that members of the Shah's family had used it for private worship or that it had functioned as a women's sanctuary. According to Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, the architect of the building was Muhammad Reza (or Muhammad Riza), son of Husayn, a builder from Isfahan, whose name appears on an inscription around the mihrab. Other names found in the mosque's inscriptions are Ali Reza al-Abbasi, a calligrapher who also worked later on the Shah Mosque nearby, and Baqir Banna' (Baqir the Builder). Entrance iwan The entrance gateway, like those of the Grand Bazaar and the Masjed-e Shah, was a recessed half-moon. Also, as in the Masjed-e Shah, the lower façade of the mosque and the gateway are constructed of marble, while the haft-rang tiles ( "polychrome mosaics") decorate the upper parts of the structure. This feature, called pāshnah () in Persian architecture, has caused the dome to stand not exactly behind the entrance iwan.