Jame Mosque of Yazd

The Lame’ Mosque, is a fourteenth-century Islamic conversion of a Sassanian fire temple, rebuilt between 1324 and 1365. The iwan and sanctuary are impressively tall in comparison with most Islamic buildings; two Seljuk minarets of baked brick studded with blue tiles, the highest in Iran, daringly contrasted with the dome’s voluptuously low curve. The tile-work has recently been skillfully restored and a modern library built to house the mosque’s valuable collection of books and manuscripts. Within there is along arcaded court where, behind a deep-set south-east iwan, is a sanctuary chamber. This chamber, under a squat tiled dome, is exquisitely decorated with faience mosaic. Most of the monuments in Yazd are distinguished by bad-girs hose slender elegance may well have inspired Muslim architects to endow Yazdi buildings with the slim pencil-like minarets on the lame’ Mosque(or the Imamzadeh ]a’far, and even the main entrance to the bazaar an opulent stage-setting in its brilliant blue tiles). Yazd displays an original kind of architecture: very high and narrow portals surmounted by two endless twin minarets, which is illustrated by the lame’ Mosque in which the handsome flag-stones under its porch are engraved with several forms of writing.