The Hidden Treasure

The Fifth Day of Creation by Mahmoud Farshchian (1990)

 

“I was a hidden treasure and wanted to be known.” This is the beginning of the probably most famous hadith qudsi, or extra-Qur’anic Word of God, ḥadiṯs-e kanz-e maḵf. Its more correct translation might be as follows:

 

“I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me.”

 

Tradition says that it is the divine response to the Prophet David’s query when he asked about the purpose of creation. These are not the words of the Prophet Muhammad and no chain of transmission is known for this, whether sound or weak, as Ibn Taymiyya and others state. But anyway, the meaning is true and is inferred from Q51:56:

 

“I created the Jinns and humankind only that they may worship Me”,

 

meaning “that they may know Me” as Muhammad’s cousin Ibn Abbas explained it.

 

This hadith qudsi sounds very familiar to Christians, as well. Although no image would be allowed here, a deep feeling of limitless amicability is certainly conveyed to those who want to contemplate these words.

 

Since Adam and Eve were created in His image, all human beings are hidden treasures, too. And all have this deep desire to be known. So, all of us create our own little worlds, each according to his or her capabilities, talents, gifts. Of course, a limited and ephemeral world, not comparable with the Almighty’s creation.

 

 

Mobile Phone?

Dutch Army Sergeant Major Jan, 2nd Platoon, E-company, Battle Group-7, Task Force Uruzgan, talks to an Afghan village elder about the needs of his community. Jan also discussed the importance of Afghan people getting involved with local government to improve quality of life issues. The platoon was on a 3-day International Security Assistance Force mission conducting foot patrols through villages to meet the Afghan people. ISAF-photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class John Collins, U.S. Navy.

Source: NATO, ISAF.int

Most of this picture seems to be bogus. Propaganda. The stylish sunglasses of the sergeant, how he sits, his body language in general. The machine gun in the back, within reach. He emanates a kind of baseless supremacy. According to the legend of this picture, he is talking about “needs for the community”. But does he really talk about mobile phones? The sergeant was on a three-day mission conducting foot patrols through the villages to meet the people. The young man to the right should be a ‘village elder’? What do you think is he thinking? In contrast to his discussion mate, he seems to be completely at peace with himself. He listens carefully. Obviously, he is even a bit amused, but not too much to be impolite.

Aghanistan is now at war for almost 30 years. It has been a playground first for the late Soviet Union and the US American CIA, then the Taliban, then G. W. Bush’s war on terrorism. We know that before that, Britain completely failed in getting control over the proud people there in at least three wars, around 1840, 1880, and at the end of WWI.

The German novelist and poet Theodor Fontane wrote, in 1859, the following ballad (and I hope that some not familiar with the German language get at least a vague feeling of what is it about):

Das Trauerspiel von Afghanistan

Der Schnee leis stäubend vom Himmel fällt,
Ein Reiter vor Dschellalabad hält,
“Wer da!” – “Ein britischer Reitersmann,
Bringe Botschaft aus Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan! Er sprach es so matt;
Es umdrängt den Reiter die halbe Stadt,
Sir Robert Sale, der Kommandant,
Hebt ihn vom Rosse mit eigener Hand.
Sie führen ins steinerne Wachthaus ihn,
Sie setzen ihn nieder an den Kamin,
Wie wärmt ihn das Feuer, wie labt ihn das Licht,
Er atmet hoch auf und dankt und spricht:
“Wir waren dreizehntausend Mann,
Von Kabul unser Zug begann,
Soldaten, Führer, Weib und Kind,
Erstarrt, erschlagen, verraten sind.
Zersprengt ist unser ganzes Heer,
Was lebt, irrt draußen in Nacht umher,
Mir hat ein Gott die Rettung gegönnt,
Seht zu, ob den Rest ihr retten könnt.”
Sir Robert stieg auf den Festungswall,
Offiziere, Soldaten folgten ihm all’,
Sir Robert sprach: “Der Schnee fällt dicht,
Die uns suchen, sie können uns finden nicht.
Sie irren wie Blinde und sind uns so nah,
So lasst sie’s hören, dass wir da,
Stimmt an ein Lied von Heimat und Haus,
Trompeter blast in die Nacht hinaus!”
Da huben sie an und sie wurden’s nicht müd’,
Durch die Nacht hin klang es Lied um Lied,
Erst englische Lieder mit fröhlichem Klang,
Dann Hochlandslieder wie Klagegesang.
Sie bliesen die Nacht und über den Tag,
Laut, wie nur die Liebe rufen mag,
Sie bliesen – es kam die zweite Nacht,
Umsonst, dass ihr ruft, umsonst, dass ihr wacht.
“Die hören sollen, sie hören nicht mehr,
Vernichtet ist das ganze Heer,
Mit dreizehntausend der Zug begann,
Einer kam heim aus Afghanistan.”

Do people learn from history?

Nice Try

Iran’s Vice President, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has recently been heavily chastised by a majority of Majlis members for his surprising statement, the American and Israeli people (!) are friends of Iran. The Head of the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, whose daughter recently was married to President Ahmadinejad’s son had spoken at a tourism convention in Tehran claiming that no nation in the world is Iran’s enemy. What Mr. Mashaei actually did was highly diplomatic. Iran’s ailing tourist industry is not really in need of further impediment by daring language.

 

After the Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani’s and Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi’s condemnation, Mashaei was later forced to retract his controversial comment.

 

Immediately after his statement, speculations were running wild about who had actually endorsed the Vice President. President Ahmadinejad confirmed at a press conference in Tehran last Friday that Mashaei’s position represents that of the government. He stressed, in particular, that Iran doesn’t have any enemies.

 

In stark contrast, however, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei himself, made sure in his Friday prayers the same day that Iran and Israel are on a collision course.

 

Before leaving for the UN General Assembly in New York, Mr. Ahmadinejad even rectified, in a presstv interview, his badly translated, albeit unacceptable October 26, 2005 speech about Quds (Jerusalem) and the ‘Zionist’ regime. It appears that the Iranian President was about pouring oil on troubled water before departure. It might be hindsight.

 

 

A Tough Week Ahead

Ramadan is coming to an end soon. In Iran and some Arab countries, on the last Friday of the Holy Month, the so-called International Quds Day sees anti-Zionist demonstrations opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem (Quds). Especially in Iran, where the annual occasion had been suggested by Ayatollah Khomeini after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, ‘Death to Israel’ shouts are usually inevitable and unfortunately even highly desired by authorities. 

 

Last week has seen rather discomposed reactions in Tehran to a most probably downright negative report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear activities. The report will be presented to the IAEA Board of Governors on Monday, 22 September. So far, the exact content and wording is not known to the public, but almost desperate attempts of Iran’s close to the government news media to downplay possible effects and new military exercises in the country bode ill.

 

It is still about the ‘laptop issue’, that Iran has linked projects for processing uranium, test high explosives and modify a missile cone in a way suitable to contain a nuclear war head. Fabricated, Iran insists. That Tehran insists that the IAEA has no mandate to consider Western intelligence might be understandable. But full transparency here is possible. The Additional Protocol which allows IAEA inspectors to visit any suspect site at very short notice and which which has been signed by Iran in 2003, but which was suspended two years later, should be re-ratified by Iran as soon as possible.

 

Into the bargain comes the General Debate of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, 23 September when Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad is not expected to give a speech this time. No University invitation, no planned visit of Ground Zero.

 

It is all about reliable, responsible cooperation within the global community which sometimes demands a much lower profile. The Iranian government might consider a more peaceful end of the holy month of Ramazan this year. Hopefully, there will be no hysterical death wishes on Friday, 26 September. They would not really fit in the context in which the President had put, before departing to New York, his own words into perspective which he made three years ago. By the way, they were not diplomatic either.

 

 

From Aradan

 

Kasra Naji. Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader. University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, 312 pages 

 

There is an urgent need for an unbiased and more detailed analysis of the origins of this son of a blacksmith from Aradan. And, a personality profile might in fact explain his incredible rise, from humble homes to the centers of power in Tehran. Fast, determined, scary to much of the rest of the world. Paralyzing, even nullifying, the already initiated little progress under former ‘reformist’ President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami.

 

Who is this man who has almost become a hero, even a kind of pop star, of the underdogs in Muslim societies; those (incredibly poor) who are sitting beneath the table of the rich? And those who are related in one or the other way to what has been called by George W. Bush as the axis of evil?

 

De-demonizing the Iranian President? Not really a purpose of the present book. The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader by Kasra Naji contains, from the very beginning, a lot of bitterness. The author was well-advised, or even more or less forced, leaving the country after having finished his book. Anyway, the book is a most welcome treatise with plenty of pieces of new information gathered mainly in interviews done between late 2005 and November 2007, when Naji had to leave Iran. It is also obvious that many interview partners had to be protected and stay anonymous.

 

I’ve got the impression that Naji, while not really glorifying the Shah, he rather demonizes the late Ayatollah Khomeini (and maybe he even deserves it), who was long residing in the holy city of Qom and forced to leave the country in 1963 [1].

 

The way how young Mahmoud had been socialized is not becoming very clear in the book. Maybe it is really not known. His role as a student of Tehran’s conservative Elm-o Sanat University and struggles (or battles) with left-wing activists in the tumultuous aftermath of the Islamic Revolution when Khomeini safeguarded his grip on power seems still to be blurred. His role in the American Embassy hostage crisis, alleged participation in executions in the notorious Evin prison; and even his contributions in the following Iraq-Iran war with the build-up of close contacts with the Pasdaran, remain rather enigmatic. Is this the typical carrier of a decided opportunist? Ahmadinejad’s first-time administrative task as governor general in the northwestern province of Ardabil, has it been quite a failure as the author wants us to believe?

 

Apparently, there was, especially after ‘reformist’ President Muhammad Khatami’s re-election in summer 2001, a political antagonism between him and Ahmadinejad who was, at that time since 1997, an Assistant Professor for transportation engineering and planning at his old Elm-o Sanat University in Tehran. But can it really be described as a power struggle eventually leading to Khatami’s defeat and much disappointment among Iran’s youth? Nobody in the West, I suppose, had ever heard about the young ‘right-wing’ activist teaching at one of Tehran’s Universities engineering before, say, May 3, 2003 when he was elected mayor of Tehran. Kaji draws, at least for me in too colorful shades, a picture of mayor Ahmadinejad as a driven activist, by religious fervor and political ambitions; busy with fulfilling promises of previous election campaigns but also very much involved in the rise of corruption in Tehran. Anyhow, it is interesting to read that the financial irregularities during his term accounted to that of the past several mayors of Tehran put together. 

 

Why did the largely unknown man who was deliberately discouraged to continue in the election campaign of 2005 finally win the race? Naji writes, on page 63, without reference:

 

“Quietly, Ahmadinejad enjoyed the support of some of the most influencial backers in Iranian politics. These included important sections of the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij, as well as the Guardian Council. He was also supported by the Imam Khomenei Education and Research Institute in Qom, which was led by his spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi. Most significantly of all, it later transpired that Ahmadinejad was the preferred candidate of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Amazingly, the outsider and no-hoper was secretly the first choice of the ruling religious class, their institutions and militia.”

 

Given that this impression was true also before the first round of the election, why and when had he gained that much support? Naji vividly describes the quagmire consisting of top clerics (involving even Iran’s Supreme Leader), the Basij and Revolutionary Guard, who apparently conducted an urgently needed massive election fraud in order to get Ahmadinejad into the second round in 2005. He then won the run-off in a landslide with a more than 61% vote.

 

How did and does religion influences Ahmadinejad and his acts and speeches, his connection to certain Shi’a movements devoted to revering the 12^th Imam and his fast return from occultation? His alleged spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, is introduced on page 46, but his ideological impact on Ahmadinejad’s politics, his apocalyptic visions, are rather obscured. Unfortunately, Naji entertains some notorious prejudices spread already about Amadinejad. Jamkaran, about 10 km east to the center of the Holy City of Qom, and its growing numbers of pilgrims are described in a rather denouncing way. Soon after his election, Ahmadinejad had supported the small complex of Jamkaran where the Mahdi allegedly had appeared in 984 CE with comparatively huge amounts of money. According to Naji, Ahmadinejad managed to “elevate the Missing Imam from an undifferentiated element in Shia Islam to a clear presence in the minds of many Iranian,” within only one year in office [2]. But the simple fact that the western audience has never heard about, I would tell it central, beliefs in the Shi’a branch of Islam does not mean that it is a marginal aspect only.

 

Iran’s nuclear issue with the United Nations, the US, Israel, and the EU gathered new momentum under Ahmadinejad. It is amazing to read how the President is constantly using Iran’s nuclear pride for detracting the people’s attention from serious domestic problems. However, 16 national intelligence services had reported in November 2007 that, with reasonable confidence, an atomic bomb program had been abolished already under President Khatami. Naij’s book went to print before the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report [3], and may reflect, therefore, the overall impression of feverish activity to put Iran into the capabilities. Much of this was and is a mere show-off, of course [4]. The cat-and-mouse game will go on, I am afraid. In its very recent report the IAEA said Iran was failing to co-operate with its investigators, raising the old concerns about Iran’s allegedly peaceful nuclear program.

 

While Naji makes sure that the widely known misinterpretation of Ahmadinejad’s tirades on the occasion of the infamous 25 October 2005 Tehran conference ‘A World without Zionism’ are put into the right perspective, one should not hesitate for a second assuming bad intentions of the entire Iranian leadership here. The former President Rafsanjani was even more frightening in his radical demands of erasing Israel from the map. It is important what is meant, the respective wording is secondary. Naji’s corrections seem to be a bit apologetic. He suggests that the outrageous proposals of Ahmadinejad as, for example, moving Israel to Europe or Alaska, and his abhorrent denial of the Jewish Holocaust (an insult of every single Jew in the world, including the small community of 25’000 Jews left in Iran) may be part of an intentional Third Revolution in the Islamic Republic [5]. I rather got the impression of a completely inexperienced, indeed naïve, politicial amateur who was, sad to say, only overstrained with his tasks of responsibly leading a nation with such a great history of several thousand years. And, there were (and are there?) apparently no control mechanisms. I am sure that the Iranian establishment was more than irritated about Ahmadinejad’s solo attempts in 2005. And, for example, the two never answered letters to Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and President George W. Bush in 2006 [6]? Doesn’t Iran’s President have any diplomatic advisors? And why did the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, keep silent? When Naji entertains Ahmadinejad’ network within the inner circle of Iran’s multilevel leadership, relations with ultra-conservative Ayatollahs Ahmad Jannati (Chairman of the Guardian Council), or Mohammad Taqi Mezbah-Yazdi (his alleged spiritual mentor) remain blurred in a way [7].

 

It is Naji’s meritoriousness delivering at least some insights into the bizarre so-called Holocaust conference in Tehran, which took place in December 2006. The invited by the organizers assembly of frank racists, European Nazis, white supremacist Americans, ultra-orthodox anti-Zionist Jews and fundamentalist Muslims was rightly more or less ignored in western media. It is a shame for a grand nation like Iran to have come down to such disgrace. A shame that some of the Iranian leaders aligned with the offscourings of this kind.

 

There are a great number of traditional denominations in the book about left- and right wing politicians and attitudes which might confuse the reader. In the traditional meaning, ‘revolutionaries’’ fighting for the abolishment of the social order is considered extreme leftists. Revolutionaries are usually fundamentalist in a very dogmatic sense. Those who uphold the traditional authorities and liberties of the society, frequently with a determined nationalistic view, are considered right-wing. Thinking in left- and right-wing categories is about to vanish in the Western societies, in a widely perceived ‘global’ World, a pleonasm, of course [8]. The inflationary use of these rather unclear denominations in pre- and post-revolutionary Iran (definitely a counter-revolution of the clergy) by Naji may in fact be questioned. Secular liberalism or Marxism vs. fundamentalist Islam or Islamism would have done better, but what the members of the very heterogeneous political and religious groups in Iran are really thinking is too complex, I suppose, to assign ‘traditional’ labels on them. Other examples for graphic and, for my taste, too imprecise assignments are ‘radical’, ‘radical reformist’, ‘hardliner’, ‘conservative’ and ‘neo-conservative’, even ‘ultra-conservative’, and ‘pragmatic’ whenever it comes to Rafsanjani.

 

The questions remains: Do we have to fear the man or rather the system appointing such a figure [9]? After having read the book, I am still not sure. Ahmadinejad is in no way portrayed here as a responsible politician dedicated to lead a great nation. His origins are, at least to me, still unclear. My immediate questions whether he was actively involved in the US Embassy hostage crisis and, maybe more important, in executions during the immediate turbulent events of the Revolution remain largely unanswered.

 

His acts before and after his election are widely perceived as irrational. He is a populist and political activist, a man deeply mired in his fundamental religious faiths which are not so much different from those of the rest of the religious people in Iran. Having learned his lesson that it was frank populism which has swept him to the levers of power in Iran has resulted in his daring and unacceptable attitude of a reckless and irresponsible zealot and baiter. Today’s news about the new IAEA report may be a portent for Iran’s near future.

                          

Notes

 

[1] When reading the few paragraphs in the first chapter about the youth of Iran’s leader under the Shah regime, I remember the strong opposition, even detestation, of left-wing intellectuals in the West regarding Reza Pahlevi, who was sitting on the Peacock Throne (which I have seen very recently in Tehran’s walkable bank-safe, the mind-boggling Royal Jewelry Museum). I remember the day of June 1, 1967, when Benno Ohnesorg, a German student, had been shot dead by a policeman during a demonstration in Berlin against the Shah’s visit to Germany. SAVAK, Iran’s intelligence and security organization (definitely a terrorist organization by today’s standards) was frankly operating in Germany, more or less tolerated by Chancellor Kiesinger’s grand coalition government.

 

[2] I earnestly doubt. Again (after Saddam Hussein’ was toppled in 2003), hundreds of thousands if not millions of pilgrims have participated very recently in the Sha’abaniya festival in Kerbala, southern Iraq, commemorating the birthday of the 12^th Imam on the 15^th of Sha’aban. They were predominantly Iraqis, I suppose, completely unrelated to the Iranian President’s fervor. Most of my Shi’a colleagues in Kuwait were well aware of the 12^th Imam and earnestly observed holidays in relation to the Mahdi. Some of them even claimed keeping a closer spiritual contact with him, something that also Ahmadinejad had mentioned. A kind of mild irrationality is, of course, a characteristic of any religiosity, cf. the current visit of Pope Benedict in Lourdes where legend has it that the Virgin Mary had appeared to a 14-year-old girl in 1858.

I had visited Jamkaran in 2006. I didn’t find anything special there, apart from being different than the probably dozens of holy sites of commemoration of Iran’s ‘National Saint’ Imam Reza and his relatives.

 

[3] National Intelligence Estimate. Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. November 2007. Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton even called the NIE “a quasi-coup of the intelligence services” … “intended to have political and policy effect.”

 

[4] But what are ordinary people thinking? I went, by taxi, to Abyaneh and Natanz in November 2005, a couple of months after Ahmadinejad’s election, when the taxi driver showed my, from the highway, “our atomic bomb project” with considerable pride.

 

[5] I am afraid, I missed the Second Revolution. Maybe he refers to the US Embassy hostage crisis in 1980/81.

 

[6] I still hold that it was bad style not to respond, in a sober diplomatic way, to Ahmadinejad’s initiative when he wrote his letters to Merkel and Bush. Apart from naïve attempts to convert the American President to Islam, there might have been issues worth for resuming an overdue dialogue. Naji stresses that Bush, found it in public ‘interesting’ and refrained of talking negatively about the letter and its contents. Merkel rightly betokened views on Israel and Germany as completely unacceptable.

 

[7] When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently praised Ahmadinejad and predicted that he might retain office for a second term, many considered this not really an accolade but an admonition of taking his present tasks as Iran’s President very seriously.

 

[8] In fact, right- and left-wing denominations mainly abolish because the world is becoming flat. See Thomas L. Friedman. The World Is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century 3.0. Picador Macmillan, New York 2007.

 

[9] I am hesitant using ‘having been elected’ here.

 

 

Words of Concern

 

There was an outcry by Iranian news media when French President Nicholas Sarkozy warned the leaders of the Islamic Republic that “Iran is taking a major risk in continuing the process to obtain a military nuclear capacity”. In a meeting in Damascus on Thursday last week with the Syrian, Turkish and Qatari leaders, Mr. Sarkozy further elaborated his speculation: “One day, whatever the Israeli government, we could find one morning that Israel has struck.” “We must avoid that catastrophe”, he told in a press conference.

 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad promised to help resolve the standoff with Iran, which is a close ally of Syria. Ironically, the country itself is under suspicion by some of working on a clandestine nuclear program. In September last year, an Israeli air strike had destroyed a site at Al Kibar in the northeastern Syrian desert near the river Euphrates which was assumed to be a nuclear reactor under construction. UN nuclear inspectors have been visiting Syria in the meantime.

 

Anyway, on Thursday, Mr. Assad pledged: “Of course the West is frightened. We don’t want the nuclear bomb in the Middle East.”

 

On June 23, only two weeks after Israel’s major military exercise of its air force over the Mediterranean Sea, which was widely perceived to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Mr. Sarkozy had asserted at Israel’s parliament, the Knesset: “Iran’s nuclear program requires a firm response on the part of the international community. Israel is not alone.” That has widely been interpreted as a warning for Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own.

 

The next report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iran’s “alleged studies” incompatible with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is expected in the coming days. Iran is planning new military maneuvers in the meantime.

 

 

Dazzling Tessellations

 

People in the West are rightly questioning the contributions of the Islamic World for the development and implementation of human rights or humanity, which are late achievements of the Enlightenment of the West of the 18^th century; or peace in the last couple of centuries. Especially the latter contributions by the ‘West’ might of course be questioned as well. However, one should in any case constantly remember Islam’s genuine achievements when Europe underwent especially dark ages, namely the end of what people there called the Middle Ages. These medieval times were brightly illuminated in the Islamic World which extended from India, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and, of course, Al Andalus, i.e., the Iberian Peninsula.

 

A Center of Islamic Art and Architecture

If interested in exploring medieval Islam, stunning emotions can certainly be expected when visiting Esfahan in Central Iran, one of the most beautiful cities of the world.  More than once I had a vision of George W. Bush and his wife Laura sitting together with, say, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his wife on the roof of the small tea house in the northwestern corner of Naqsh-e Jehan, the central square in Esfahan and one of the largest in the world, smoking qaliyan, or hubble-bubble, drinking sweetened tea (chay), talking about God and the World. The sophisticated Safavid architecture with the Shah mosque in the southern corner of the square, the Lotfallah mosque at the eastern side and, opposite, Aliqapoo palace, with the mountains in the background and sun setting is actually overwhelming, a vista that can hardly be topped anywhere in the world. Maybe the course of the world would change afterwards. Maybe not. People, who I told my vision, indulged me smiling but considering me completely naïve. Of course, Bush would like to bomb the mosques.

 

In October 2007, on my last visit of the city, I had a special destination. I had read with increasing interest a recent article published in Science magazine [1] about a simplifying technique employing so-called girih tiles for the outer beautification of late medieval Islamic buildings. A further breakthrough in tiling during the Timurid era in the 15^th century may be considered a cultural if not scientific sensation. Its mathematic background was thought to be properly described only 500 years later by 20^th century’s astronomer and recreational mathematician Sir Roger Penrose. According to the article, a couple of examples of quasi-crystalline tiling may in fact be found in the old city of Esfahan.

 

Islamic Tiling

In Islamic architecture animated creatures are usually not displayed for mere decoration. Instead, mosques and other buildings are over and over covered with ceramic tiles with both calligraphy from the Holy Qur’an and dazzling geometric patterns. The two authors of the Science article, Peter J. Lu from Harvard and Paul J. Steinhardt from Princeton, illustrate that most of these already incredible patterns may be drawn as zigzagging lines where the lines were directly drafted with the aid of a straightedge and a compass.

 

An important aspect in Islamic tiling may be periodic repetition of a ‘unit cell’. Rotational symmetry may be desired in some cases in order to enhance the overall impression of complexity. Lu and Steinhardt mention that it had been shown in the mid-nineteenth century by western mathematicians that only two-, three-, four-, and six-fold rotational symmetries are allowed.  Five- and ten-fold symmetries are crystallographically forbidden. While pentagonal and decagonal motifs appear frequently in a unit cell, they are usually repeated within the allowed symmetries.

 

Although possible in many cases, especially larger artwork demands simpler techniques than drawing lines with straightedge and compass. Lu and Steinhardt showed that by 1200 CE Islamic artisans rather used a set of five different types of equilateral polygonal tiles for creating an almost unlimited number of complex tessellations: a decagon, a pentagon, a hexagon, a bowtie, and a rhombus, which they called girih tiles. Each tile had decorating lines which intersect with the midpoints of every edge at angles of 72 and 108 degrees.

 

Lu and Steinhardt provide strong evidence that girih tessellating was the only way to create the almost incredible patterns on the (periodic but on a much larger scale) wall panels of the famous octagonal tomb tower Gonbad-e Kabud (Blue Tower) in Maragha (1197 CE), in the Azerbaijan province of Iran (see figure 1 below). While the decagonal pattern in each panel does not repeat, the ‘unit cell’ of this explicitly periodic tiling spans the length of two complete panels, in fact several meters. Furthermore, while the main decorative brick pattern follows the above mentioned decorating lines, another set of smaller lines conforms to the internal rotational symmetry of each individual girih tile without adhering to pentagonal angles. Within each region occupied by a hexagon, bowtie, or rhombus, the smaller line decoration has a two-fold rotational symmetry. I must admit that ‘seeing’ the girih tile pattern in Lu and Steinhardt’s pictures took me some time.

 

Quasi-crystalline Structures

There was a further and in fact hardly to believe breakthrough in tessellations when artisans of the Timurid period in the late 15^th century applied self-similarity transformations in girih tiles. Larger girih tiles were subdivided into smaller ones. Thus, overlapping patterns at two different length scales were created in which each pattern is generated by the same girih tile shapes.

 

A stunning and revealing example of self-similarity (where, in addition, outlines of girih tiles are clearly given in lighter ink) can be seen on a Timurid-Turkmen scroll belonging to the collection of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul which has first been described by Professor Gülru Necipoglu, Aga Khan Program of Islamic Architecture at Harvard.

 

Another example was published in Lu and Steinhardt’s paper. It may be found in one spandrel of the Darb-e Imam shrine (figure 2) complex (1453 CE) in the old city of Esfahan [2]. The authors clearly indicate that, for instance, the basis of the right spandrel (as indicated by a large, thick, black line pattern) of a kind of portal is formed, on a much larger scale, by four decagons and two bowties. It can, however, be subdivided into smaller patterns, which can be perfectly generated by a tessellation of 231 girih tiles. The authors have even identified the subdivision rule to generate this pattern on one this particular spandrel at the Darb-e Imam shrine. And there are other examples of self-similarity there which may be studied there.

 

The Scientific Sensation

A subdivision rule in combination with decagonal symmetry has apparently allowed these medieval artisans to construct (consciously or not) perfect patterns with an infinite quasi-periodic translational order and crystallographically forbidden pentagonal or decagonal rotational symmetries. The sensation here is that western scientists have understood this principle only about 500 years later. So-called quasi-crystals are structural forms that are ordered but in essence nonperiodic, meaning a shifted copy will not ever match with the original. Although not being the first describing nonperiodic sets of tiles, since the mid 1970s, astronomer Roger Penrose described a set of six tiles, famous ‘kite-and-dart’ tiles, and another set consisting of two rhombuses with equal sides but different shapes which allow aperiodic tiling and five-fold symmetry. Lu and Steinhardt now indicate, in their 2007 paper, that the tile pattern of the particular spandrel in the Darb-e Imam can be mapped directly into the kite-and-dart Penrose tiles using a self-similar subdivision of large girih tiles into smaller ones. Thus, all prerequisites for the creation of infinite quasiperiodic patterns were available to the medieval artisans in Esfahan: girih tiles, decagonal rotational symmetry and self-similar subdivision. In their supporting online material, Lu and Steinhardt identify local point defects in the right spandrel, where the Penrose matching rules were violated. According to their interpretation, these mismatches and other facts point to the fact that the artisans did not really understand what they had actually achieved.

 

 

 

 

Another Example of a Decagonal Pattern

Not more than 300 meters to the east of Darb-e Imam lies the much more famous, magnificent Masjed Jomeh, Esfahan’s Friday mosque (see an aerial view in figure 3 and the main, southern iwan in figure 4a). Different parts of this wonderful mosque, which is considered by Arthur Pope as one of the world’s most awesome Islamic buildings, cover several centuries of medieval architecture. Amazingly, decagonal tessellations have been described by Lu and Steinhardt only at the portal of the western iwan. Lu and Steinhardt present a picture of the pattern in the supporting online material only which very much resembles that on the Darb-e Imam (see figure 4b and compare with figure 2c). Why has that decagonal tile pattern not been applied in other areas of the just wonderful mosque with its several styles from the Seljuq, Timurid and even Safavid periods?

 

The origins of the first mosque date back to the early 8^th century. Legend tells that the first mosque had been erected at the site of a Sassanid fire temple. Under the Abbasid Caliphs the first building was considerably enlarged in the 9^th century. The main structure which is still visible today was erected by the Seljuqs who had chosen Esfahan as their capital in 1051. As Henri Stierlin writes in his monumental work on Islamic art and architecture [3], during the vizierate of Nizam al Molk (d. 1092) architecture especially in Esfahan developed a distinctive form and the full range of its modes of expression thanks to the technological innovations of the Seljuq period.

 

It is important to note that ceramic tile decorations at Esfahan’s Masjed-e Jomeh were added considerably later. The main axis of the mosque with the two enormous domes is oriented in the Makkah direction. The large southwestern main dome has a diameter of 14 meters. The smaller one in the northeastern corner was built by Nizam al Molk’s political rival Taj al Molk in 1088 possibly based on blueprints of mathematician Omar Khayyam (d. 1122) who then lived in Esfahan [4]. The dome with a diameter of about ten meters, called Gunbad-e Khaki (Dome of the Earth) is widely considered to be the finest brick dome ever built. It is mathematically perfect and has survived dozens of earthquakes the country is plagued so much, for more than 900 years.

 

The four iwans of the Masjed-e Jomeh illustrate impressively the varieties of decorative arts of Esfahanian architects of the Seljuq period in late 11^th century. While the northern iwan has a simple pointed tunnel vault only, three iwans present with apses with elaborate muqarnas, or honeycomb-like structures, and are beautifully decorated with kufic calligraphy and geometric patterns (figures 4a, b). There are several large hollow spherical triangles derived from the “squinch, a constructional device that was rigorously and rationally formulated under the Seljuqs” as Henri Stierlin writes (p. 30).

 

 

 

With regard to the present article the western iwan deserves special attention. It is the most unusual and complex of all. First, as is also shown in Henri Stierlin’s marvelous book (p. 31), it presents, at its back view, an extraordinary ribbed structure. “The technique used in the 11^th century to support large honeycomb vaults grew out of an intensive study of the resistance of brick arches carried out in Seljuq Iran.” It presents with “… a large-scale muqarnas vault in which the juxtaposed spherical triangles are not only decorative but functional in a very original way, making up a system as ingenious as that of Buckminster Fuller’s 20^th-century geodesic domes” (ibid, p. 215). And, as mentioned before, similar tile patterns as the quasi-crystalline ones on the Darb-e Imam can be found on the inner sides of the portal [5]. The same subdivision rule applies here as on the tiling on the Darb-e Imam shrine nearby.

 

Esfahan’s Masjed-e Jomeh shows many more interesting details on its four iwans. The tessellations on the western portal may be one interesting scientific issue. While wandering through this 1300 year-old unique testimony of Islamic history one gets, however, more and more excited about its perfection in both its overall architecture and even the smallest details (see, in particular, Henri Stierlin, pp. 214).   

 

The Seljuq Dynasty

The Great Seljuq Empire stretched from Central Asia to Syria. Seljuqs were Sunni Muslims. The founder of the dynasty, Seljuq himself, had converted his Central Asian Turkish tribes to Islam in the mid 10^th century. Under Toghrϊl Beg (d. 1063) the Abbasid Capital Baghdad was taken from the Shi’a Buyid dynasty in 1055. Under the reign of, in particular, Alp Arslan (d. 1072) and Malik Shah I (d. 1092) remarkable monuments were created. Their perspicacious and inspirational vizier Nizam al Mulk had a great influence on the development of Esfahan as the center of Persian power. Art and science were flourishing and major architectural projects were encouraged by the Seljuq rulers.

 

On tomb towers (gunbad) and mosques, complicated geometric brick and stucco patterns were used for ornamental beautifications. One famous example is the already mentioned octagonal Blue Tower (Gunbad-e Kabud) in Maragah with its periodic albeit immensely dazzling network of glazed bricks on its eight panels. Maragah was famous for at least five gunbads, and four can still be seen there. Key feature of the mosques were four conch-shaped iwans facing each other and marking the two axes of the building which met in the ablutions fountain. This typical Persian outline of a mosque, its four iwans with recessed space covered with either a pointed or hemispherical vault, may in fact be a further development of the Sassanid royal hall (see Henri Stierlin, p. 298).

 

Further Achievements during the Timurid Period

While under the Seljuq rulers Persia experienced an early renaissance which cannot be overstated, it must also be emphasized that, as always in its so long history, what is called Persianization of the Turkish intruders from Central Asia took place. The same was true when Tamerlane (Timur Lenk, d. 1405) had conquered Iran and wreaked havoc and incredible massacres among civilians including building pyramids of sculls of killed inhabitants of the conquered cities, in particular in Esfahan in 1387. Under the Timurid rulers, science and art flourished again in Iran. Samarqand and Bukhara in Transoxiana as well as Esfahan and, for example, Mashhad experienced an incredible proliferation of geometric decorations on mosques, madrassahs, and mausoleums. In addition to rigorous geometry (including the above quasi-crystalline patterns) and kufic and, in particular, thuluth calligraphy, now plenty of interwoven vine twines and flowers occur.

 

The true peak of splendid virtuosity of Timurid decoration in Iran may again be found at Esfahan’s Friday Mosque, especially on the southern iwan with its elegant vases of flowers and on the doorway north to the western iwan, facing the courtyard. The latter was built by Sayyed Mahmud in 1447 [6].

 

An especially fine example of great Timurid architecture in present day Iran can be found in Mashhad in Khorasan. The Holy Shrine of the Eighth Shi’a Imam, Reza, and the fine Azim-e Gohar Shad Mosque (1416) were commissioned by the wife of Tamerlan’s eldest son Shah Rokh. Under the influences of Gohar Shad and, in particular, her son Ulugh Beg (d. 1449), Persian language, art and science became central elements of the Timurid dynasty. The exceptionally fine ceramic cladding as well as sturdy drum and bulbous dome are clearly related to more Timurid masterpieces in Transoxiana, in particular, in Samarqand and Bukhara. On photographs taken in the late 19^th century, the splendor of façade decoration but also interior designs in these almost mystical cities on the legendary Silk Road are obvious [7].

 

Some Concluding Remarks

Coming back to decagonal and quasi-crystalline tilings as a further scientific breakthrough of medieval artisans one has to ask why they have been so rarely implemented among the huge variety of just periodic tiling, vine and flowers, and calligraphy. It is quite obvious that these late medieval artisans and architects commanded the whole repertoire of techniques, periodic or nonperiodic, with great proficiency. Based on the evidence presented by Lu and Steinhardt, it may be a mere speculation whether or not they really understood what they did. If occurrence of quasi-crystalline tiling can in fact be traced to the Timurid period at the end of the 15^th century, first, more examples have to be detected and studied. The top contemporary mathematicians may in fact be found at Samarqand’s University which was founded in 1420, for example Ulugh Beg and Ghiyath al Kashi (d. 1429) and their group.

 

The scientific dispute [8] after Lu and Steinhardt’s paper about when aperiodic patterns have been introduced in Islamic tiling may be considered even immature. It may provide some insights in profound misconceptions and even dogmatism which might point again to the incredible superior sovereignty of artisans living several hundred years ago, who probably did not care to much about ‘scientific breakthroughs’ when decorating mosques in the praise of the Almighty.  

 

Time for further research is running. I have found only one short note by Iranian news media after the publication of Lu and Steinhardt’s paper which otherwise aroused considerable interest worldwide. Whether there are current investigations by Iranian scientists at the Darb-e Imam shrine is not known. Renovations in November 2007 may actually have prevented me from detecting one of the spandrels displayed in Lu and Steinhardt’s paper. The pattern on one looked similar (see figure 2d), but kufic descriptions at the margins essentially differ from the published picture.

 

And finally, the political situation in present day Iran doesn’t make things easier.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lu PJ, Steinhardt PJ. Decagonal and quasi-crystalline tilings in Medieval Islamic architecture. Science 2007; 315: 1106-1110.

 

[2] In fact, Peter J. Lu identified decagonally symmetric motifs on two different length scales, a telltale sign of what is called a quasi-crystal, on a photograph of the Darb-e Imam shrine only, as John Bohannon writes in a short editorial of Science (2007; 315:1066). He visited the site in Esfahan earlier this year (personal communication).

 

[3] Stierlin H. Islamic Art and Architecture. Thames & Hudson Inc., New York 2002, pp. 29ff.

 

[4] Architecture in Medieval Iran is generally considered ‘Islamic’. One has to keep in mind, however, that Iran was inhabited by rather great subpopulations of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians as well. Nowadays, that does not hold anymore, of course. The most gorgeous monuments are in fact religious, Islamic, buildings. Howver, Omar Khayyam, for instance, who was involved in the planning of the northeastern dome of Esfahan’s Friday Mosque, was not an avowed Muslim but rather a free spirit. A universal genius, who had not only contributions in poetry (for what he is well-known in the West after Edward Fitzgerald’s (d. 1883) translation of the Rubaiyat), but also and even more in astronomy and mathematics, who has laid the foundation of non-Euclidean geometry several hundred years before its final conception in the 19th century. Iran’s solar calendar, introduced in 1925 in an attempt by Reza Shah (d. 1944) to secularize the country, is based on his calculations, too. It is more precise than the Gregorian calendar which is used in the West. Omar Khayyam’s very special, almost modernistic tomb (in fact not ‘Islamic’ at all) is located in Nishapur in Khorasan, Eastern Iran.

 

[5] The decagonal but distinctly periodic structures are only shown in Lu and Steinhardt’s supporting online material. They date the mosque (or the tessellations on the western iwan’s portal only?) to the late 15th century. As has been mentioned already, the mosque is much older. Its origin can in fact be assumed in the 2nd century AH.

 

[6] The respective sanctuary contains an extraordinary example of a stucco mirhab built in 1310 by the Mongolian Il-Khan Öljeitü.

 

[7] Naumkin V. Caught in Time: Great Photographic Archives. Samarkand. Garnet Publishing Ltd. Reading 1992. In the same series and by the same author, a book with early photographs of Bukhara appeared in 1993. Most of the photos had not been published before 1992. Among the Samarqand photos, few seem in fact to indicate quasi-crystalline tiling patterns(?). See, for example, Fig. 3, the spandrel of the portal at the Shah-i Zindah complex (p. 6); at the famous Registan (Figs. 82, 83 on pp. 120f); or at Ishrat Khana (Figs. 87, 88 on pp. 128f).

 

[8] See, in particular, Makovicky E. Science 2007; 318: 1383.

 

[9] This posting is dedicated to Ms. Dora Fischer-Barnicol whose profound knowledge about and sympathy for foreign cultures may be one of the main reasons for my constant interest in the Middle East and its people.

 

After Gustav now Hanna, Ike, Josephine …

Now, after Gustav had not hit New Orleans as badly as Katrina three years ago, oil prices are dropping, the Dollar is soaring, and US Republicans can eventually celebrate Senator John McCain. At least Gustav prevented President G. W. Bush effectively from attending the nomination convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

But new clouds are seen at the horizon (and it is not McCain’s more and more questionable running mate in his election campaign). After Gustav, Hanna is already the next hurricane, this time threatening the Sunshine State. And Ike and Josephine are already forming on the Atlantic Ocean. Another terrible hurricane season. It’s again, after 2005, kind of gigantic pool billiard.

Gustav has killed about about 15 people in the US. Of course, this is mainly due to the wise decision of its mayor and authorities to evacuate the city. But is anybody thinking of almost a hundred people who had lost their lifes in the Caribbean? Or of the hundreds of thousand stranded people in flooded northeastern India who are desperately waiting for help after the disaster of a burst of the Kosi River in Bihar? And don’t know where to go?

 

First published at Salmiya.