Great Mosque of Herat

The Great Mosque of Herat (Masjid-i Jami) is the principal congregational mosque of the city of Herat in western Afghanistan and one of the most architecturally significant historic mosques of the eastern Islamic world. The original mosque on this site was founded in 1200 CE during the Ghurid dynasty under Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, on the foundations of an earlier Zoroastrian fire temple, and was substantially rebuilt and expanded during successive periods — most notably under the Timurid dynasty in the fifteenth century, when Herat was the capital of the Timurid empire and one of the great cultural and intellectual centres of the Islamic world. The mosque is laid out around a vast central courtyard surrounded by four iwans (vaulted halls) on each of the four sides, with the main qibla iwan facing Mecca containing the mihrab and the principal prayer hall. The exterior of the mosque is covered in the magnificent blue, turquoise and yellow majolica tilework characteristic of Timurid Iranian-Central Asian Islamic architecture, painstakingly maintained and progressively restored by a dedicated workshop of Herati craftsmen who have continued the medieval Timurid tilemaking tradition into the modern era. The mosque accommodates approximately twelve thousand worshippers across the main prayer hall and the surrounding courtyards. The mosque continues to serve as the principal congregational mosque of the Herat Sunni Muslim community and is among the most important historical religious buildings in Afghanistan.