The Mihrab Tile is one of my favorite pieces from the collection. It is from the Ilkhanid period in Iran from 1206 to 1353, dated A.H. 722/A.D. 1322-23. It is stonepaste and painted under transparent glaze. This is a religious piece and the inscription translates to “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, and keep up prayer in the two parts of the day and in the first hours of the night; surely good deeds take away evil deeds; this is a reminder to the mindful.” It is supposed to face Mecca, which all prayers must be directed towards. The reason it is my favorite is because I find the colors, white and blue, very ascetically pleasing and just imagining the walls covered in these patterns adds more value to this tile.
One important fact I learned from this trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is that Muslims do not use literal figures in religious pieces. If you just see patterns and inscriptions, it most likely was found in a religious setting. One interesting thing was how they adapted the game of chess to their culture. They enjoyed chess and I believed played around religious settings, therefore, they had to adjust the shapes of the pieces. The pieces were very abstract but clear enough to distinguish what piece is what. Items that weren’t made for the mosque included animals and humans.
So far, I can make two connections between The Arabian Nights and the pieces in the Islamic collection. One is the constant repetition. I am used to their being repetition in stories but I feel like this book exceeds what I am used to. Everything from how each time a story starts and ends, the sisters and the King repeat the same thing. And also, you can see a lot of repetition in their art, since they mainly use patterns. The other connection I made was their reference to God or more so, the importance of religion in their everyday lives. A lot of these pieces had inscriptions devoted to God and in the book, they constantly make oaths to God and swear by him.