Vakil Mosque

The congregational mosque of Shiraz, built between 1751 and 1773 under Karim Khan Zand, who made the city his capital. The word vakil means regent — the title Karim Khan chose instead of shah, refusing to be crowned. The mosque is small by Iranian standards and has only two iwans instead of the usual four, but it stands out for its decoration: the tiles here are pink and yellow with a floral pattern uncharacteristic of the stricter Safavid tradition. The main thing inside is the prayer hall with forty-eight twisted columns of solid stone, set in six rows; the vaults between them are low, and the space reads as a forest of stone. The mihrab and the minbar are carved from a single block of marble brought from Azerbaijan, and the minbar has fourteen steps. The mosque stands next to the Vakil Bazaar and the bathhouse of the same complex, built by the same ruler.

On the map