Minaret

Minaret (/ˌmɪnəˈrɛt, ˈmɪnəˌrɛt/;[1] Persian: گل‌دسته goldaste, Azerbaijani: minarə, Turkish: minare,[2] from Arabic: منارة manarah[2] or المنارة‎ menara) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets serve multiple purposes. While they provide a visual focal point, they are generally used for the Muslims call to prayer (adhan). Minarets can have a variety of forms, from thick, squat towers to soaring, pencil-thin spires.[3][4] The top is often decorated with a conical or onion-shaped crown.[5]

For other uses, see Minaret (disambiguation).
Minaret at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus

Functions
An orientalist depiction of the muezzin's call to prayer from the balcony of a minaret, 1878. Usually only one muezzin chants the azan from the balcony, back straight and not leaning on the railing.

The formal function of a minaret is to provide a vantage point from which the muezzin can issue the call to prayer, or adhan.[6] The call to prayer is issued five times each day: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night.[7] In most modern mosques, the adhān is called from the musallah (prayer hall) via microphone to a speaker system on the minaret.[7]

Additionally, minarets historically served a visual symbolic purpose.[8] In the early 9th century, the first minarets were placed opposite the qibla wall.[9] Oftentimes, this placement was not beneficial in reaching the community for the call to prayer.[9] They served as a reminder that the region was Islamic and helped to distinguish mosques from the surrounding architecture.[10] They also acted as symbols of the political and religious authority of the Muslim rulers who built them.[8][11]

Construction

The region's socio-cultural context have influenced the shape, size and form of minarets.[12] Stairs or ramps inside the tower climb to the top in a counter-clockwise fashion.[13] At the top of the stairs, a balcony encircles the upper sections of the tower and from here the muezzin may give the call to prayer.[14]

History
Minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia, one of the oldest surviving minarets in the world

The earliest mosques lacked minarets, and the call to prayer was often performed from smaller tower structures.[9][15][16] Hadiths relay that the early Muslim community of Medina gave the call to prayer from the roof of the house of Muhammad, which doubled as a place for prayer.[9]

Scholarly findings trace the origin of minarets to the Umayyad Caliphate and explain that these minarets were a copy of church steeples found in Syria in those times. The first minarets were derived architecturally from the Syrian church tower. Other references suggest that the towers in Syria originated from ziggurats of Babylonian and Assyrian shrines of Mesopotamia.[17][11]

The mosques of the Umayyad Caliphate generally did not have minarets. However, some mosques were built with platforms or shelters on their roofs that were accessed by a staircase and from which the muezzins could issue the call to prayer. These were known formally as a mi'dhana ("place of the adhān") but were also known as a ṣawma῾a ("monk's cell") due to their small size.[6] Examples of these platforms are documented during the reconstruction of the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As by Mu'awiya's local governor, Maslama ibn Mukhallad al-Ansari, who was given orders by the caliph to add one to each of the mosque's four corners, similar to the Great Mosque of Damascus which had a ṣawma῾a above each of the Roman-era towers at its four corners.[18][19][20] Historical sources also mention them in other parts of North Africa. In another example, under the Umayyad Emirate of al-Andalus, emir Hisham I ordered the addition of a ṣawma'a to the Great Mosque of Cordoba in 793.[21]: 21 

A possible exception to the absence of tower minarets is documented in Caliph al-Walid's renovation of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina in the early 8th century, during which he built a tower, referred to as a manāra, at each of the mosque's four corners. However, it's not clear what function these towers served; they may have been intended as symbols of the mosque's status.[6][22]: 21  Historical sources also reference an earlier stone tower, called a manāra, being added to the mosque of Basra in 665 by the Umayyad provincial governor.[18]

The first known minarets built as towers appear in the early 9th century under Abbasid rule, and were not widely used until the 11th century.[9] Four towers were added during the Abbasid reconstruction of the Great Mosque of Mecca in the late 8th century,[6] but in the 9th century early minarets were placed in the middle of the wall opposite the qibla wall.[9] These towers were built across the empire in a height to width ratio of 3:1.[9] One of the oldest minarets still standing is that of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia, built in 836 and well-preserved today.[9][6][8][23] Other minarets that date from the same period, but less precisely dated, include the minaret of the Friday Mosque of Siraf, now the oldest minaret in Iran, and the minaret opposite the qibla wall (the "Minaret of the Bride") at the Great Mosque of Damascus, now the oldest minaret in the region of Syria (though its upper section was probably rebuilt multiple times).[6][8] As the first prominent minarets were built by the Abbasids and had a symbolic value associated with them, some of the Islamic regimes opposed to the Abbasids, such as the Fatimids, generally refrained from building them during this early period.[8]

Minarets have had various forms (in general round, squared, spiral or octagonal) in light of their architectural function.[13] Minarets are built out of any material that is readily available, and often changes from region to region.[9] The number of minarets by mosques is not fixed, originally one minaret would accompany each mosque, then the builder could construct several more.[24]

Regional styles
Different types of minaret. 1. Iraq 2. Morocco 3. Turkey 4. India, 5. Egypt 6. Asia.

Iraq
The Great Mosque of Samarra has a distinctive spiral minaret (848–852)

The oldest minarets in Iraq date from the Abbasid period. The Great Mosque of Samarra (848–852) is accompanied by one of the earliest preserved minarets, a 30-metre-high (98 ft) cylindrical brick tower with a spiral staircases wrapped around it, standing outside the walls of the mosque. The Abu Dulaf Mosque, also in Samarra and from the same period, has a similar minaret.[9][8] In the later Abbasid period (11th to 13th centuries), after the Seljuk period, minarets were typically cylindrical brick towers whose square or polygonal bases were integrated into the structure of the mosque itself. Their main cylindrical shafts were tapered and culminated in muqarnas cornices supporting a balcony, above which is another small cylindrical turret topped by a dome. Two examples of this style are the Mosque of al-Khaffafin and the Mosque of Qumriyya.[25]: 312 

Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia
Kalyan Minaret (left) in Bukhara (1127)

Starting with the Seljuk period (11th and 12th centuries), minarets in Iran had cylindrical shafts with square or octagonal bases that taper towards their summit. These minarets became the most common style in the eastern Islamic world (in Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia).[18] During the Seljuk period minarets were tall and highly decorated with geometric and calligraphic design. They were built prolifically, even at smaller mosques or mosque complexes.[26]: 333 [18] The Kalyan Minaret in Bukhara remains the most well known of the Seljuk minarets for its use of brick patterned decoration. The tallest minaret of this era, the Minaret of Jam, in a remote area of present-day Afghanistan, was built circa 1175 by the Ghurids and features elaborate brick decoration and inscriptions.[26]: 333  The Qutb Minar in Delhi, the most monumental minaret in India, was built in 1199 and is design on the same model as the Minaret of Jam.[6]

In later periods, however, minarets in this region became generally less monumental in comparison with the mosques for which they were built.[18] The tradition of building pairs of minarets probably began in the 12th century, but it became especially prominent under the Ilkhanids (13th-14th centuries), who built twin minarets flanking important iwans such as the mosque's entrance.[18]

The rise of the Timurid Empire, which heavily patronized art and architecture, led to what is now called the "international Timurid" style which spread from Central Asia during and after the 15th century.[27][28]: 69  It is categorized by the use of multiple minarets. Examples of this style include the monuments of Mughal architecture in the Indian subcontinent. the minarets on the roof of the south gate in Akbar's Tomb at Sikandra (1613), the minarets on the Tomb of Jahangir (1628-1638), as well as the four minarets surrounding the mausoleum of the Taj Mahal.[27] Elsewhere in India, some cities and towns along the coast have small mosques with simple staircase minarets.[29]

Egypt
Minaret of the al-Maridani Mosque (1340), the earliest example of a style repeated in later Mamluk minarets

The styles of minarets has varied throughout the history of Egypt. The minaret of the 9th-century Ibn Tulun Mosque imitated the spiral minarets of contemporary Abbasid Samarra, though the current tower was reconstructed later in 1296.[30]: 9  Under the Fatimids (10th-12th centuries), new mosques generally lacked minarets.[31] One unusual exception is the Mosque of al-Hakim, built between 990 and 1010, which has two minarets at its corners. The two towers have slightly different shapes: both have square bases but one has a cylindrical shaft above this and the other an octagonal shaft. This multi-tier design was only found in the minarets of the great mosques at Mecca and Medina at that time, suggesting a possible link to those designs. Shortly after their construction, the lower sections of the minarets were encased in massive square bastions, for reasons that are not clearly known, and the tops were rebuilt in 1303 by a Mamluk sultan.[30]: 17–18 [32][33]: 243 

Under the Ayyubids (late 12th to mid-13th centuries), the details of minarets borrowed from Fatimid designs. Most distinctively, the summits of minarets had a lantern structure topped by a pointed ribbed dome, whose appearance was compared to a mabkhara, or incense burner.[33]: 30  This design continued under the early Bahri Mamluks (13th to early 14th century), but soon began to evolve into the shapes distinctive to Mamluk architecture. They became very ornate and usually consisted of three tiers separated by balconies, with each tier having a different design than the others. This configuration was particularly characteristic of Cairo.[34]: 77–80 [33]: 30 [35] The minaret of the al-Maridani Mosque (circa 1340) is the first one to have an entirely octagonal shaft and the first one to end with a narrow lantern structure consisting of eight slender columns topped by a bulbous stone finial. This style later became the basic standard form of Cairene minarets, while the makhbara-style summit disappeared.[33]: 114 [36]: 17 [34]: 77–80 

Later minarets in the Burji Mamluk period (late 14th to early 16th centuries) typically had an octagonal shaft for the first tier, a round shaft on the second, and a lantern structure with finial on the third level.[33]: 31 [36]: 26  The stone-carved decoration of the minaret also became very extensive and varied from minaret to minaret. Minarets with completely square or rectangular shafts reappeared at the very end of the Mamluk period during the reign of Sultan al-Ghuri (r. 1501–1516). During al-Ghuri's reign the lantern summits were also doubled – as with the minaret of the Mosque of Qanibay Qara or al-Ghuri's minaret at the al-Azhar Mosque – or even quadrupled – as with the original minaret of al-Ghuri's madrasa.[36]: 26 [34]: 77–80 

Maghreb and al-Andalus
The Giralda in Seville, a former Almohad minaret (1198) converted to the bell tower of the Seville Cathedral

Minarets in the Maghreb (region encompassing present-day Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) and historic al-Andalus (present-day Spain and Portugal) traditionally have a square shaft and are arranged in two tiers: the main shaft, which makes up most of its height, and a much smaller secondary tower above this which is in turn topped by a finial of copper or brass spheres.[37][21] Some minarets in the Maghreb have octagonal shafts, though this is more characteristic of certain regions or periods; e.g. the minarets of the Great Mosque of Chefchaouen, the Great Mosque of Ouazzane, the Kasbah Mosque of Tangier, and the Great Mosque of Asilah in Morocco or the Ottoman-era minarets of Tunisia such as the Youssef Dey Mosque and the Hammouda Pacha Mosque.[38][39] Inside the main shaft a staircase, and in other cases a ramp, ascends to the top of the minaret.[37][21]

The minaret at the Great Mosque of Kairouan, built in 836, influenced all other minarets in the Islamic west.[9] It is the oldest minaret in North Africa and one of the oldest minarets in the world.[6][8] It has the shape of a massive tower with a square base, three levels of decreasing widths, and a total height of 31.5 meters.[23] Another important minaret for the architectural history of the region is the minaret built by Abd ar-Rahman III for the Great Mosque of Cordoba in 951–952.[21]: 61–63  Jonathan Bloom has suggested that Abd ar-Rahman III's construction of the minaret – along with his sponsoring of other minarets around the same time in Fez – was partly intended as a visual symbol of his self-declared authority as caliph and may have also been aimed at defying the rival Fatimid Caliphs to the east who did not endorse the construction of minarets at the time.[11]: 106–109  Other important historic minarets in the region are the Almohad-era minarets of the Kutubiyya Mosque and the Kasbah Mosque in Marrakesh, the Hassan Tower in Rabat, and the Giralda in Seville, all from the 12th and early 13th centuries.[21][8][40]

Turkey
The Selimiye Mosque in Edirne (1574), which features the four tallest Ottoman minarets

The Seljuks of Rum, a successor state of the Seljuk Empire, built paired portal minarets from brick that had Iranian origins.[18] In general, mosques in Anatolia had only one minaret and received decorative emphasis while most of the mosque remained plain.[18] Seljuk minarets were built of stone or brick, usually resting on a stone base, and typically had a cylindrical or polygonal shaft that is less slender than later Ottoman minarets. They were sometimes embellished with decorative brickwork or glazed ceramic decoration up the level of their balconies.[41]: 372 

Ottoman architecture followed earlier Seljuk models and continued the Iranian tradition of cylindrical tapering minaret forms with a square base.[6][18] Classical Ottoman minarets are described as "pencil-shaped" due to their slenderness and sharply-pointed summits, often topped with a crescent moon symbol. The presence of more than one minaret, and of larger minarets, was reserved for mosques commissioned by the Ottoman sultans themselves. Taller minarets often also had multiple balconies along their shafts instead of one.[18][6] The Üç Şerefeli Mosque in Edirne, finished in 1447, was the first sultanic mosque to have multiple minarets with multiple balconies. Of its four minarets, the northwestern minaret was the tallest Ottoman minaret up to that time, rising to 67 metres.[6][42]: 99–100  Its height was only surpassed by the minarets of the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne (1574), which are 70.89 meters tall and are the tallest minarets in Ottoman architecture.[28]: 226 [43] Later Ottoman minarets also became plainer and more uniform in design. The trend of multiple minarets culminated in the six minarets of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque) in Istanbul.[6]

China

Next to the Huaishengsi Mosque in Guangzhou is the Tower of Light, also known as the Guangta minaret (1350). The mosque and the minaret merge aspects of Islamic and Chinese architecture. Its circular shaft and the double staircase arrangement inside it resembles the minarets of Iranian and Central Asian architecture, such as the Minaret of Jam.[44]

See also

References
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Further reading
  • Jonathan M. Bloom (1989), Minaret, symbol of Islam, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-728013-3
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