| Today the modern mosque, built in 419 AH or 1028 AD faces Mecca in Saudi Arabia. No evidence remains of the original mosque or its qilba. Reconstruction also took place in 480, 515 AH, 776 851, and 1077 AH. Located in Isfahan, 340 km south of Tehran, the current Friday mosque of Isfahan is a prominent architectural expression of the Seljuk rule in Persia (1038-1118). In 1051, Isfahan became the capital of the Seljuks, who arrived in Khwarazm and Transoxiana from central Asia in the eleventh century. Defenders of Sunnism, they aimed at the restoration of the Abbasid Caliphate. The conquest of Isfahan by Tughril Beg elevated the city's status, which was manifested in the rich architectural projects representing the Seljuk's powerful empire - the first of which was the Friday mosque. |
