Mihrab

Categorized as Terms

Mihrab

Yasemin Gencer

Related Terms:

  • Aniconism (lack of figural imagery)
  • Kaʿba (the most sacred structure in Islam)
  • Mecca (the holiest city in Islam)
  • Qibla (direction of the Ka’ba in Mecca)
  • Salah (daily ritual prayers)

Worksheet:

A worksheet for this video is available here.

Also visit the Khamseen Worksheets page here.

Related Khamseen Videos:

Glaire Anderson, “The Mihrab of the Great Mosque of Córdoba,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 19 October 2020.

Sumru Belger Krody, “Prayer Carpets,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 11 May 2021.

References:

Fehérvári, Géza. “Miḥrāb.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs. Leiden: Brill, 2012.  

Frishman, Martin and Hasan-Uddin Khan. The Mosque: History, Architectural Development and Regional Diversity. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. 

Irwin, Robert. Islamic Art in Context. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1997. 

“Mihrab.” In The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, edited by Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, vol.2, 515-517. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 

Ogunnaike, Oludamini. “The Mihrab: Reflections on Form, Function and Symbolism.” In The Art of Orientation, edited by Idries Trevathan, Mona AlJalhami et al., 201-208. Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2021.

Citation:

Yasemin Gencer, “Mihrab,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 1 July 2021.

Yasemin Gencer is a Pre-Faculty Fellow in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Wayne State University. She is a scholar of Islamic art and civilization specializing in the history of Ottoman and modern Turkish art and print culture. She has authored a number of articles on printing and the early Turkish Republican popular press, and she regularly writes a research and translation blog entitled Today in 1920s Turkey. Gencer is currently preparing for publication her English translation of Celal Nuri’s Hatem ül-Enbiya (Seal of the Prophets), an Ottoman Turkish scholarly monograph on the Prophet Muhammad written in 1914 CE.