Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Ira Shems Friedlander, The Whirling 

Dervishes (New York: MacMillan, 1975); Talat Sait Hal-

man and Metin And, Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi and the 

Whirling Dervishes (Istanbul: Dost, 1983); Franklin D. 

Turkish children enact a Mevlevi samaa dance at a 

school in Nigde, Turkey. 

(Juan E. Campo)

K  472  

Mevlevi Sufi Order

---

Lewis,  Rumi: Past and Present, East and West (Oxford: 

Oneworld, 2000).

mihrab

Mihrab is a term associated with the architectural 

vocabulary of 

mosqUe

s, where it denotes the 

prayer

niche and prayer orientation. Mihrab  entered En-

glish usage through the accounts of 19th-century 

travelers whose objectives were to observe, de-

scribe, and catalogue Muslim behaviors and Islamic 

forms. To these European sensibilities familiar 

with the altars, chapels, and icons of churches, the 

concavity in the 

qibla

 wall of mosques stood out 

in what may have seemed rather stark interiors. 

Located left of the minbar, the mihrab marked 

the position of prayers leaders and the direction 

of  m

ecca

, and it held the promise of symbolic 

content. The religious emphasis was enhanced by 

rug dealers and collectors who, early in the 20th 

century, distinguished a type of rug with niche rep-

resentations, dubbed “mihrab prayer rugs.”

Most historical and contemporary mosques 

have mihrabs. In the past, these usually echoed 

the shape of the rounded niche that was the 

first form adopted for a mosque mihrab and that 

appeared in a series of state-sponsored monu-

mental mosques of the early eighth century. 

Anatolian and Iranian mihrabs evince regional 

variations of this theme with their elaborate 

and gradated profiles, while 13th-century Ayyu-

bid-Syrian ones are distinguished by geometric 

designs of inlaid marble. Today, some mihrabs 

are sculptural interpretations of the idea of the 

original; the mihrab of the King Faisal Mosque, 

i

slamabad

, is an open book designed by the artist 

Gulgee. Mosques that omit the mihrab keep alive 

an historical controversy regarding the permis-

sibility of mihrabs.

The mihrab has also generated a great deal 

of scholarly controversy among art/architectural 

historians and linguists who have attempted to 

fix its origins in a variety of architectural lan-

guages and contexts. However, the prevalence of 

the niche in late antique architecture, the con-

tinuing Arabic usage of the word in diverse ways, 

and even the appearance of mihrab in the q

Uran

(where none of its five occurrences means niche) 

have not supported such positivist efforts.

See also 

architectUre

.

Nuha N. N. Khoury