Some of the tiles on the dome of the Masjid-e Shah in Isfahan have recently been reported to be ‘creeping’ downwards. I recently realised that this is what is visible in a photo I took of the dome in spring 2008. Until now, I confess that I had thought it was a fault in my …
The Masjid-e Jame in Isfahan was not the only congregational mosque in Buyid Isfahan: the Jurjir mosque was constructed sometime shortly before 985CE for the vizier Ibn Abbad, a Mutazilite scholar who transformed the court of the ruler Abu Mansur Moayyed-al-Dawla into a transnational literary centre. Only a fragment of the façade of the latter …
Shortly after I returned home from tracing Shah Abbas’ thousand kilometre walk from Isfahan to Mashhad, I found this extraordinary (1907) photo of the citadel in Lasjird (40km west of Semnan), converted as it had been into an elevated, fortified village. Lasjird was the only place specifically mentioned as having a fortress in an unpublished …