Monar - Minaret
Many of the older minarets in Isfahan serve to delimit space. The Monar-e-Sareban (on the right), or Camel-drivers' minaret served,
presumably, to denote space reserved for this particular trade - it is so close to Monar-e-Chehel Dokhtaran (on the left), "The Minaret of Forty
Virgins" that it can hardly have served slowly as a beacon or as a place for calling the rest of the faithful
to prayer. Other examples of the minaret as boundary marker, similar to the Greek concept of
stavros, or "cross" are found in the surrounding countryside. Here, where the land is
predominantly flat, it was not possible to erect beacons such as the one on top of the atashgah are not possible, and so towers were set upon the plain
which were subsequently replaced by Islamic constructions, such as the Minaret at Ziar.
At a symbolic level, therefore, the minaret occupies two planes, the vertical or spiritual and the horizontal
or material. In the former it represents the first letter of the name of God, the Alef, and serves as a symbol
of the flow that exists between the Mankind and his Creator. At the horizontal, material, level it serves as
a delimiter of space, a "milestone" or boundary pole which defines man's position within creation.
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31-January-95
