One of the most beautiful mosques in Shiraz is Nasir Al-Mulk which belongs to Qajar era. This intriguing place is located on Qavam neighborhood or district and used to belong to Qavam family, the same as the garden near this mosque which is called Narenjestan garden of Qavam. In this neighborhood you can visit some other historical places. This mosque is also known as Pink Mosque. Here is one of the most popular sightseeing places of Shiraz for tourists.
Nasir al-Mulk mosque of Shiraz was built at the behest of Mirza Hasan Ali whose nickname was Nasir al-Mulk. The architect was Mohammad Hasan Memar (= Mohammad Hasan the Architect in English).
It took twelve years for them to build this mosque. From 1293 to 1305 AH. The area of Nasir Al-Mulk Mosque is 2980 m2. Restoring, rebuilding and maintenance of the mosque is being performed according to international standards by experienced engineers under the control of Islamic Republic of Iran’s tourism minister. In farsnameh book written by Naseri, is written that in terms of stability and strength this mosque seems like Moshir Al-Mulk mosque, but a Nasir Al-Mulk is little bigger than that. Some fields in adjacency would add to this place later and made here more extensive.
Arcitecture
Entrance
The same as other mosques in Iran the importance of entrance made architects build this corridor so beautiful and delicate. They implemented tiling art on the ceiling with multi-colored tiles. The design and layout of tiling on the ceiling is called Rasmi Bandi and the technique of putting them next to each other and cutting the tiles is called Ma’arraq. Above two wooden doors there is a marble stone on which a poem from Shoorideh Shirazi and also date of completion of this monument have been written with Persian calligraphy.
Western Arcade
There are two main arcades in the yard, western and eastern arcades which are built face to Qibla directions for saying Muslims’ prayers. The walls in western arcade are more decorated than the eastern one which is decorated with brick. Ceiling of the western arcade is located on the 12 stone pillars. Pillars are decorated with spiral lithography. This seven-door arcade with seven wooden door and multi-colored glasses opens to the yard. This arcade was being used in winter.
If you stand outside and look at the wooden doors of this arcade you can see 8 frames in the same size. As I said seven of them are the wooden doors which separate the yard and western arcade and one of them is the entrance of yard after the corridor. Above these 8 doorways there is another beautiful design of tilling and in the line above all of them a holy Quran text has been written in Naskh calligraphy. I’d better say that you can see the same art and design in Moshir mosque of Shiraz.
Eastern Arcade
Like the western arcade ceiling is decorated with turquoise tiles in Rasmi Bandi design but the floor in this part of the mosque is covered with marble stone. The floor is a little deeper than another arcade. Now the utilization of here has been changed to a museum. At the end of this corridor there is a marble stone on the wall on which a poem in Nastalik calligraphy has been written and also the date of completion is mentioned there (Started in 1293, ended in 1305 SH).
Northern altar
The yard of the mosque also includes two other stunning northern and southern porches which are not the same. The ceiling in northern porch is divided to four altars.
The middle one that is higher than ceilings of left, right and northern altar, is called “Morvarid vault”, we have almost the same thing with the same name in Karim khan mosque. Both techniques of Moqarnas and Rasmibandi design are used in this ceiling.
On the ceiling of northern altar, you can see Muqarnas which is a Persian architectural technique. But the ceilings of left and right altar are designed with Rasmi Bandi that is another Persian architectural technique.
Southern altar
Eventually, the southern altar in the yard is just one-part altar. The design that you can see here is Muqarnas.
