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An iwan (, , also as ivan or ivān/ īvān, , ) is a rectangular hall or space, usually vaulted, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. The formal gateway to the iwan is called , a Persian language term for a portal projecting from the facade of a building, usually decorated with calligraphy bands, glazed tilework, and geometric designs. Dictionary of Islamic architecture: Pishtaq archnet.org. Pishtaq Britannica.com. Since the definition allows for some interpretation, the overall forms and characteristics can vary greatly in terms of scale, material, or decoration.
Iwans are most commonly associated with Islamic architecture; however, the form is pre-Islamic Iranian in origin and was invented much earlier and fully developed in Mesopotamia around the third century CE, during the Parthian Empire period.
A theory by scholars like Ernst Herzfeld and Walter Bruno Henning proposed that the root of this term is Old Persian , but this is no longer taken for granted. The word appears in what modern scholars call the Apadana palace at Persepolis, where king Darius I declares in an inscription: "I, Darius, ... had this constructed". In this case, the word denoted a type of structure, the iwan proper and not the palace.
The term in Old Persian means "unprotected", and the design allows the structure to be open to the elements on one side. At Persepolis, however, the takes the form of a veranda (a flat roof held up by columns rather than a vault) but is still open to the elements on only one side.
By the time of the Parthian Empire and the , the iwan had emerged as two types of structure: the old columned one and a newer vaulted structure; both, however, carrying the same native name of apadana/iwan, because both types are open on one side to the elements.
Ivan is an alternative form of the name, used in Iran, reflecting the Persian pronunciation.
The feature which most distinctly makes the iwan a landmark development in the history of Ancient Near Eastern architecture is the incorporation of a vaulted ceiling. A vault is a ceiling made from arches, known as arcuated, usually constructed with stone, concrete, or bricks.Doulas Harper, "Vault", last modified 2010, www.dictionary.com. Earlier buildings would normally be covered in a trabeated manner, with post and lintel beams. However, vaulted ceilings did exist in the ancient world before the invention of the iwan, both within Mesopotamia and outside it. Mesopotamian examples include Susa, where the vaulted many of their buildings with barrel vaults, and Nineveh, where the Assyrian people frequently vaulted their passages for fortification purposes.
Outside Mesopotamia, a number of extant vaulted structures stand, including many examples from Ancient Egypt, Rome, and the Mycenaeans. For example, the Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus, constructed around 1250 BCE, features a large dome. Ancient Egyptian architecture began to use vaulting in its structures after the Third Dynasty, after around 2600 BCE, constructing very early barrel vaults using mud bricks.
Iwans were a trademark of the Parthian Empire (247 BC – AD 224) and later the Sassanid architecture of Persia (224–651), later finding their way throughout the Arab and Islamic architecture which started developing in 7th century AD, after the period of Muhammad (–632). This development reached its peak during the Seljuk Turks era, when iwans became a fundamental unit in architecture, and later the Mughal architecture. The form is not confined to any particular function, and is found in buildings for either secular or religious uses, and in both public and residential architecture.
The second iwan building is located across a courtyard, and Walter Andrae, a German archaeologist, suggested that it served as an administrative building rather than as a religious center because there is no evidence of inscriptions or wall carvings. Although the absence of inscriptions or carvings does not equate necessarily to a civic function, it was not uncommon for iwans to serve a secular use, as they were frequently incorporated into palaces and community spaces. Other early sites including Parthian iwans include Hatra, the Parthian ruins at Dura Europos, and Uruk.
/ref> Early photographs and 19th-century drawings show that the remaining part of the hall has reduced since then.
The dating for the Taq-i Kisra has been debated throughout history; however, a variety of documents detailing the arrival of Byzantine sculptors and architects sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, suggest that the correct date for the construction is around 540 CE. The 540 date suggests that the construction of the Taq-i Kisra, and perhaps Justinian's “help” was in response to the victory of Sasanian king Khosrau I over Antioch in 540, which is depicted in the mosaics decorating the interior of the Taq-i Kisra. The Taq-i Kisra was finally demolished for the most part by al-Mansur, who reused the bricks to build his palace complex.
Iwans were used frequently in Islamic non-religious architecture before the twelfth century, including houses, community spaces, and civic structures such as the bridge of Si-o-Se Pol in Isfahan. Furthermore, Islamic architecture incorporated the Sasanian placement for the iwan by making it a grand entrance to the prayer hall or to a mosque tomb, and often placing it before a domed space. The iwan became common in Islamic religious architecture from the twelfth century onward.
Within the Islamic world the iwan was especially important in the architecture of Central Asia and Greater Iran, but it was also adopted into the local architectural traditions of other regions. It was highly adaptable and it appears in a variety of contexts and in different configurations. Iwans could be placed along the sides of the interior courtyards of buildings, as they were in many , or on the exterior of buildings, as at the Taj Mahal and other Mughal Empire mausoleums. Under the Ayyubid dynasty and , who ruled Egypt and the region, it became a common feature of madrasa architecture, although in Cairo the vaulted iwans of earlier periods were replaced with flat-roofed iwans in the later Mamluk period. Starting in the late 13th and 14th centuries, the word iwan in Mamluk Egypt itself seems to have been become more restricted, on the one hand, to secular architecture while, on the other hand, it was used in this context to denote large domed structures in addition to vaulted halls. The celebrated monumental throne hall of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad was thus called the Great Iwan ( al-Iwan al-Kabir) even though its main element was a domed hall, not a vaulted hall.
The history of the evolution of the standard four-iwan plan has been debated by scholars. The four-iwan plan was already in use in palace and temple architecture during both the Parthian and Sasanian periods. The earliest known appearance of the four-iwan plan in Islamic architecture is at the dār al-imāra (governor's palace) in Kufa, as rebuilt by the Umayyad governor Ziyād ibn Abīh in the late 7th century. It only became common in mosque design in the twelfth century, long after the iwan's invention in the first century CE. The first patrons to incorporate this layout into mosques were the Seljuks, with the first example probably being the Seljuk modifications to the Great Mosque of Isfahan in the early 12th century, though the layout also appears in other mosques in Iran built or renovated by the Seljuks around the same time. (2025). 9783848003808, h.f.ullmann. ISBN 9783848003808 (2025). 9780195309911, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195309911 André Godard attributes both the origin and spread of this design to the appearance of madrasas, which also began with the Seljuks, and he further argued that the layout was derived from the style of domestic architecture indigenous to Greater Khorasan. The details of Godard's origin theory have not all been accepted by other scholars, (2025). 9780195309911, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195309911 but it is widely-attested that the four-iwan layout spread to other regions with the subsequent proliferation of madrasas across the Islamic world. In some regions it also spread to other building types such as and . (2025). 9780195309911, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195309911
In the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods of Egypt and Syria the four-iwan plan was prominently used in the architecture of madrasas, with the most monumental example being the massive 14th-century Madrasa-mosque of Sultan Hasan. (1995). 9780300064650, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300064650 In some more distant regions, like the Maghreb, the four-iwan plan was not commonly adopted for mosque architecture, but it most likely influenced the axial designs of local madrasas that began under Marinid and Hafsid dynasty rule. (2025). 9780195309911, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195309911 In early Ottoman architecture, particularly as it developed in Bursa around the 14th century, the four-iwan plan was adapted in a pragmatic way for religious buildings. In these early Ottoman designs the central court is covered by a dome instead of being open to the sky and one of the four iwans is repurposed as the vestibule of the building.
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