End of the year: time to look back and see what you have done this 2017. Among the many things, it’s also good to think about the books that have been published and that you should not have missed. And if you have, it’s not a big deal: there is always time to buy a…
The Imamzada of Khvajah Rabi’ by Byron, Yate, and Pope
It suits my mood. After having gone as far East as Herat, Afghanistan, around Christmas 1933 we find Robert Byron once again in Mashhad, where he had already been in the first half of November 1933. Between late November and mid-December 1933, Robert Byron tried to move further East, to Turkestan, but bad weather and…
The Friday Mosque of Herat: photos of changes
For seven centuries the people of Herat have prayed in it. They still do so, and its history is their history. On the 25th of November 1933, after nearly two months into his journey in Iran and Afghanistan, Robert Byron finally visited his first Friday Mosque: the Masjid-i Jami’ of Herat. And it happened apparently…
Blaming the murderer: an inscription of the Ziyarat-i ‘Abd Allah Ansari
Everyone goes to Gazar Gah After his visit to the citadel of Herat, where he fancied for a second about becoming a spy for His Majesty the King of England, on the 24th of November 1933, Byron took a cab that drove him to what he calls “the shrine of Gazar Gah”. In fact, the…
Actual visit or narrative device: Byron at the Qal’a Ikhtiyar al-Din
It was interesting to discover, from personal experience, how spies find their vocation “Herat citadel has a long and stormy story”, Nancy Hatch Dupree wrote in 1977 in her Historical Guide to Afghanistan. And in fact, the story of the Qal’a Ikhtiyar al-Din is strictly connected with the turbulent history of Herat itself. Alexander the Great…
The Madrasa of Baiqara and the Stone of the Seven Pens: unveiling post-editing in the Road to Oxiana
The lyrical and less stately beauty of these minarets reflects the reign that produced it. The last monument that Byron visited when at the Musalla Complex in Herat, on the 23rd of November 1933, was the Madrasa of Baiqara, or better, its minarets. The description he provides of the four minarets is beautiful and…
What remains of the Madrasa of Gawhar Shad
The origin of this baffles me. On the 23rd of November 1933, while visiting the Musalla Complex and its monuments, we can imagine Robert Byron lingering a while in front of a solitary minaret. In his own travelogue, he records that he was quite perplexed. He then wrote: “Next, on the east of the mausoleum, stands…
Arabia Felix: why everyone should read the story of a failure
“On a calm winter morning, on 4th January, 1761, a company of five men, clad for a journey, were rowed out from the Tollbooth into the shipping roads of Copenhagen. […] They were bound for “Happy Arabia”, but none of them seemed particularly happy at the thought”. This is how Thorkild Hansen starts his book ,…
Gawhar Shad Mausoleum and its missing tombstones
Few architectural devices can equal a ribbed dome for blind, monumental ostentation. During his visit to the Musalla Complex in Herat, on the 23rd of November 1933, Robert Byron carefully recorded what remained of the monuments that once were part of the magnificent project, commissioned by Gawhar Shad. The construction of her mausoleum was completed in…
Gawhar Shad Mosque in Herat: what remains
there was never such a mosque before or since Byron saw what remained of the Gawhar Shad Mosque on the 23rd of November 1933, together with the other monuments part of what is called Musalla Complex. During his visit, anyway, Byron seems not to give much attention to the mosque. He refers to it maybe when…
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