http://torkzadeh.com/ali/node/510
“The mind could not create such beauty,” says art historian Abdulreza Soleimani, at the mihrab, inside Sheik Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran.
“Do you see this little turquoise piece,” says my guide, art historian Abdulreza Soleimani. “How many of pieces like this one do you think there are just on this wall?”
He’s pointing to a piece perhaps one by two centimeters, one of the thousands upon thousands of slices of tile, larger and smaller, cut into odd shapes and put together like pieces of puzzle.
It’s called “moaragh”—the art of creating breathtaking mosaics by putting together odd-shaped pieces.
We’re standing inside the Sheik Lotf Allah Mosque, one of the components of the world-renowned Naghsh-i Jahan Square in Isfahan, Iran. The sheik taught students from the very spot we stood—the mihrab—overlooking the 20-by-20 meter room around us. The tile walls led to the dome towering above, perhaps 30 meters high.
One shot couldn’t do it justice. I keep going back and back and back to show the enormity of what surrounds me.
“Now,” Soleimani continues, “how do you suppose the artistan of 500 years ago put these pieces together without the aid of any modern technology, no computers, nothing?
“And he did it almost as fast as the hand could move,” and Soleimani starts slapping his hand up and down the wall like he’s trying to catch a crawling insect.
He did it that fast? I ask incredulously. How could he?
“He did it because he was not relying on his mind; the mind could never create such beauty.
“These men where in an irfani state of mind, something you might call a trance. Man can bring himself to such places in spirituality that the self is eliminated; the mind ceases to make decisions, and the heart takes over.
“Like Abu-Said Abul Khair prayed, as he was about to address a crowd waiting outside the mosque, ‘God, make it so Abu-Said is gone; that they hear not me, but you.’
“Don’t be surprised. We are surprised because we’re not connected to that mentality.
“Back then they lived in a kind of harmony between mankind, nature and architecture. Thus they were far closer to God.
“Therefore, for them the creation of such structures, so much beauty, was not fantastic; it was normal.
“You and I stand around in awe. We’re flabbergasted; we can’t comprehend. But that’s because we’re cut off from that culture. We’re lost our connection to the realm they lived in.”