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The mihrab is a niche or alcove, typically concave, set into the qibla wall (the wall standing in the direction of prayer) of a mosque or other prayer space. It symbolized and indicated the direction of the qibla to worshippers. It also acquired ritual and ceremonial importance over time, and its shape was even used as a symbol on some coinage.
The second, outer row of eleven columns creates an eleven-sided outer arcade. The qibla wall contains the mihrab or prayer niche and is flanked by two smaller columns. [1] There are a total of seventeen columns in the structure, excluding the mihrab. One of the oldest historical sources (903 CE) states that initially there used to be twenty ...
The qibla is the direction of the Kaaba, a cube-like building at the centre of the Sacred Mosque (al-Masjid al-Haram) in Mecca, in the Hijaz region of Saudi Arabia. Other than its role as qibla, it is also the holiest site for Muslims, also known as the House of God (Bayt Allah) and where the tawaf (the circumambulation ritual) is performed during the Hajj and umrah pilgrimages.
The word mihrab originally had a non-religious meaning and simply denoted a special room in a house; a throne room in a palace, for example. The Fath al-Bari (p. 458), on the authority of others, suggests the mihrab is "the most honorable location of kings" and "the master of locations, the front and the most honorable."
The qibla wall should, in a properly oriented mosque, be set perpendicular to a line leading to Mecca, where the Kaaba is located. [83] Congregants pray in rows parallel to the qiblah wall and thus arrange themselves so they face Mecca. In the qibla wall, usually at its center, is the miḥrāb, a
View of the mosque's hypostyle interior. The mosque's layout is somewhat irregular, suggesting multiple modifications throughout its history. [3] The floor plan is roughly rectangular: the southeast wall (corresponding to the qibla or direction of prayer) is 44.24 m (145.1 ft) long, the northeast wall is 19.35 m (63.5 ft) long, the southwest wall is approximately 20.3 m (67 ft) long, and the ...
[118] [123] [10] Drawing on the ideas established by the earlier Üç Şerefeli Mosque, the mosque consisted of a rectangular courtyard with a surrounding gallery leading to a domed prayer hall. The prayer hall consisted of a large central dome with a semi-dome behind it (on the qibla side) and flanked by a row of three smaller domes on either ...
There were three domes (indicative of the location of the prayer hall), two at the corners of the qibla wall and one over the prayer niche, and a small brick minaret over the main entrance. The gallery around the courtyard had series of columns and the prayer hall, which had the domes built over it, had five more rows of five pillars. [62]