Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

LXI ARCHITECTURE UNDER MONGOLS 235
The nightingales warbled their enchanting notes,
And rent the thin veils of the rosebud and the rose ;
The jasmine stood bathed in dew,
And the violet also sprinkled his fragrant locks.
At this time Zulaykha was sunk in pleasing slumber ;
Her heart was turned towards the altar of her sacred vision.
It was not sleep
: it was rather a confused idea :
It was a kind of frenzy caused by her nightly melancholy.
Her damsels touched her feet with their faces,
Her maidens approached and kissed her hand.
Then she removed the veil from her cheek, like a tulip besprinkled
with dew ;
She opened her eyes, yet dim with sleep ;
From the border of her mantle the sun and moon arose ;
She raised her head from the couch and looked round on every side.
The Tomb of Khudabanda at Sultania. To deal at any
length with the architecture of the period is beyond my
powers and the scope of this work. I therefore propose
to do little more than make a few remarks about buildings
with most of which I am personally acquainted.
The most important city of the Mongol Il-Khans was
Sultania, situated about one hundred miles to the west of
Kazvin. This city was founded by Uljaitu, or Khudabanda,
in A.H. 705 (1305). He entertained the project
of transporting the bones of Ali and Husayn from Najaf
and Kerbela respectively, and erected a superb building to
receive the sacred remains. His plan was never realized
and the building became his own mausoleum.
Octagonal
in plan, with a minaret rising at each angle,
it is surmounted
by a dome measuring 84 feet in diameter, the
largest in Persia. According to Josafa Barbaro, 1 "the
great cowpe is bigger than that of San Joanni Paulo in
Venice." The tomb of Khudabanda is certainly the finest
building of its kind erected under the Mongols. As
Creswell 2 points out, its beautiful outline is not spoiled
by the piling-up of material on its
haunches, as in the case
of Santa Sophia at Constantinople and of the Pantheon at
Rome.
The Shrine ofthelmamRiza. The great pile
at Meshed, 3
1
Travels of Venetians in Persia, p. 68.
2
"The History and Evolution of the Dome in Persia," by K. A. C. Creswell
(Journal R.d.S., Oct. 1914).
3 Vide my Historical Notes on Khorasan," Journal R.A.S., Oct. 1910.