Shah Mosque, a masterpiece of Timurid architecture in Mashhad

This building was located in front of the western entrance of the Razavi courtyard and next to the old “Sarsang” square near the mouth of the Grand Bazaar.

Shah Mosque has a rectangular plan with dimensions of 20.33 meters, including an entrance porch with a height of 4.9, an opening of 95.4 and a depth of 2.4 meters, two porches on either side of the porch, two minarets above the arms on either side of the porch and a dome as the core. Central building. The exterior of the building is decorated with colorful mosaic tiles and inscriptions on an azure background, and the stems of the minarets are decorated with a combination of bricks and mosaic tiles in designs with rhombus, rectangle, mako, altar and third and Kufic inscriptions.

Inside the building, in addition to two burial crypts, vestibules were built around the dome and rooms in the south, east and west, making it more like a tomb than a mosque.

According to the inscription of the remaining third around the entrance porch, the date of construction or restoration of the building is 855 AH and its architect is “Shamsuddin Mohammad Bana Al-Tabrizi”. On both sides of the inscription, there are less wide and framed margins in which poems by “Qasim Anwar”, “Saadi” and “Hafez” are engraved.

The double-walled onion dome of Shah Mosque is decorated with turquoise tiles and black altar motifs on top of Pakar.

The stem of the dome is also decorated with decorative motifs and inscriptions of the third, of which there are fixed remains.

The central space of the dome is four-arched in the dimensions of 5.5 meters.

At a height of 1.25 meters, an inscription with a width of 24 cm surrounds the interior of a four-arched building. This exquisite mosaic inscription in the third line contains 16 verses of the prayers of Imam Ali (as). Above the arches and arches, elastics decorated with Islamic motifs with mosaic tiles have been executed, and gypsum fillets, while arranging the building, have provided the ground for the dome to be placed above the square base. The gypsum decorations of the body and the leaflets, including the frames and moqarnas, and the space under the dome are decorated with embossed Islamic and Khatai motifs, the traces of which have survived.

In the excavation of the floor and restoration according to 1327 AH, a small architectural structure appeared under the dome of the north room, which continued with a staircase and led through a porch to a square crypt measuring 36.6 × 36.6 m below the dome. Is. At the bottom of the crypt, three tomb faces were observed. Another crypt was seen on the southern front of the building, the corridor of which was inwards from the southeast corner of the building, and there was a tomb face in the middle of it.

Different comments have been made regarding the use of the building. Some consider it to be the name of “Amir Ghiasuddin Malek Shah” in the inscription on the left side of the porch, the tomb of Ghiasuddin Malek Shah, one of the Timurid generals, and believe that Amir Ghiasuddin Malek Shah built it for his tomb between 807 and 817 AH. However, based on two inscriptions dated 1155 and 1119 on the front of the porch, Bernard O’Connor considered it a dual-purpose building or “burial mosque” and considered the central dome as a monument as a tomb or a tomb, and the side rooms as a private prayer house. Has thought.

According to Okin’s hypotheses and archaeological evidence, it is possible that the basis of the tomb belonged to before the death of Malikshah (died in 829 AH) in which his body was later buried and repaired and organized in 855 AH. Is.

The structure, content of the inscriptions, the decorations of the building and the existence of the crypts reinforce the hypothesis that the Shah Mosque was first built as a mausoleum and changed its use to a mosque in the late Safavid period. The king is famous.

Shah Mosque has been cleaned, renovated and organized after one of the ups and downs and various uses in recent years by the efforts of Astan Quds Razavi and the supervision and cooperation of experts and artists of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts of Khorasan Razavi and visited as one of Mashhad tourist attractions. Tourists are accommodated.

This building was registered in the list of historical monuments on July 9, 1931, number 186.

* Report by Rajabali Labaf Khaniki, Archaeological Researcher