In the United Kingdom, purpose-built mosques frequently source their carpets from Turkey, a trend that may be driven by aesthetic tradition, financial or logistical practicality, or emulating established practices. The aesthetic history behind world-renowned Turkish carpets is mystical, and may even aid worshippers in cultivating one of the most elusive elements of prayer: focus and stillness of the inner senses, which are often as ephemeral as the morning mist.
The art of carpet weaving originated with the Turkomans of the Central Asian steppes, the ethnic group to which the Ottomans, as well as contemporary Turks, belong. The oldest known carpet making centre in history is Konya, modern-day Turkey, the capital of the legendary Anatolian Seljuks, and the resting place of the sage, Rūmī. From here, the Seljuks spread the art of carpet-weaving across the Islamic world.
The Turks are credited with inventing the symmetrical hard-wearing and durable double knot, known as the ‘Turkish Knot’, thus eclipsing its rival from the East, the Persian ‘towel technique’ carpet. From the era of King Louis IX of France, they were highly coveted ornaments in the West. Ironically, they were considered too precious to be laid down on the floor, instead serving as wall decorations and table coverings. Even Renaissance painters began to feature Turkish carpets as objects of their paintings, owing to their decorative styles and bold colour schemes.
But there is more to Turkish carpets than raw stylistics.
They played a central role in the early nomadic society of the Turks. For pastoral Bedouins, migrating from one fresh pasture to another, carpets were often the only item of furnishing in their rugged tents. It effectively transformed their austere, impersonal houses into homes. Having to brave the harsh outdoor elements, forced to migrate in the face of unforgiving Mongol encroachment, dealing with competition from rival tribes, and living hand-to-mouth by selling their livestock at local markets to survive, the presence of a hand-made carpet served as a perennial reminder of their enduring hope. This idea was reinforced by specific artistic flairs stroked into each carpet. The subtle floral designs radiated a sense of warmth, fertility and the yearning for peace. The rugs were ringed with protective borders resembling fences encasing paradisiacal spaces full of natural beauty.
Although this powerful rug-symbolism offers a portal into the pre-Islamic Turkic notions of myths and omens, the Turks believing such designs would ward off demonic agents by harnessing the forces of the natural world, the retention of these motifs after mass conversion is elegantly representative of deliberate Islamic undertones.
Returning to the concept of fostering inner stillness during prayer, the famous Turkish influenced variant of woven prayer rugs (which most Muslims will have stored somewhere at home) are a formidable tool to achieve this end, considering Anatolia’s status of having historically produced the largest number of prayer rugs.
Similar to the story of the Turkic carpet and their weavers, humans are itinerant denizens of an ephemeral domain, as the Prophet (may divine benedictions cascade upon on him) exhorted us to become wayfarers, seeking the pasture of the hereafter. This inevitably results in a perilous journey across worldly terra-incognita, just like the nomads. Parallel to how their embellished rugs offered momentary escape from the tensity beyond their tents, heartening and reminding the Turks to brave the temporal upheaval for the eventual greener grounds of morrow, our five daily prayers transport us to a higher realm where our souls are destined to rest, revitalising our battered bodies to trudge through one more day until we too are admitted into the luscious pastures of Eden.
حَدَّثَنَا عَلِيُّ بْنُ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ أَبُو الْمُنْذِرِ الطُّفَاوِيُّ، عَنْ سُلَيْمَانَ الأَعْمَشِ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنِي مُجَاهِدٌ، عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عُمَرَ ـ رضى الله عنهما ـ قَالَ أَخَذَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم بِمَنْكِبِي فَقَالَ “ كُنْ فِي الدُّنْيَا كَأَنَّكَ غَرِيبٌ، أَوْ عَابِرُ سَبِيلٍ ”. وَكَانَ ابْنُ عُمَرَ يَقُولُ إِذَا أَمْسَيْتَ فَلاَ تَنْتَظِرِ الصَّبَاحَ، وَإِذَا أَصْبَحْتَ فَلاَ تَنْتَظِرِ الْمَسَاءَ، وَخُذْ مِنْ صِحَّتِكَ لِمَرَضِكَ، وَمِنْ حَيَاتِكَ لِمَوْتِكَ.
“`Abdullah bin `Umar said, “Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) took hold of my shoulder and said, ‘Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveler.” Ibn `Umar used to say, “If you survive till the evening, do not expect to be alive in the morning, and if you survive till the morning, do not expect to be alive in the evening, and take from your health for your sickness, and (take) from your life for your death.””1
The tropes of rug design can be observed in traditional Turkish and Turkic inspired prayer mats: borders enclosing labyrinthine floral patterns and vegetation can be equated to Paradise, the ultimate abode shielded from the vicissitudes of life, saturated with greenery and lusciousness. The sustained stylistic usage of flowers infuses them with spiritual lustre, signifying fertility and rebirth, exactly how the Prophet (may peace be upon him) analogised the prayer with a tree shedding all of its leaves, heralding a fresh, sinless restart for the believer. Spectacularly profound symbolism!
I fondly reminisce, as a child, tracing the floral patterns on the mosque carpets: beginning at, what I perceived was the starting line, expecting to end at another. In reality, the seamless arrangement of shrubbery never ceased. You can marvel at the various internal compartments of the prayer mat, bulging whilst trying to contain the sea of decoration. This is hardly a hap-hazardous accident. This free-flowing style, in fact, exudes an underlying theme of Islamic art, intended to mirror a reality of Allāh: without a starting or finishing point, or of infinity stretching endlessly in all directions. In prayer, pursuing these floral trails on the mat should evoke the timeless essence of Allāh and his limitless, pre-eternal grandeur. Surely, only such an almighty entity is worthy of complete deference. The one before whom nothing existed, attesting to his supremacy and primacy, and the one who will endure eternally, after all else perishes.
He is the First and the Last, the Most High and Most Near, and He has ˹perfect˺ knowledge of all things.
The same can be said for the dizzying geometric tile designs plastered all over monuments like Turkish mosques and, notably, the Dome of the Rock. Bizarrely, this concept is difficult for many Western artisans to comprehend, as they see art as requiring a hierarchical system and fixed points in a recognisable structure, indicative of a lack of transcendental vision in their myopic worldview.
The centre of the compartmentalised prayer mat is a prayer niche, pointing the worshipper towards the direction of prayer, as well as the only route to his destination, so lavishly woven into his prayer: the serene gardens of Paradise.
One of the most comprehensive explanations of Turkish carpet symbolism can be found in a museum in Gaziantep, south-east Turkey, in a series of nine panels displayed in the upstairs room of a 400-year old dervish lodge. The interplay of carpet symbols and Sufi spirituality in the small shared space of the rug reveals how intimately the two are connected in Turkish culture.
This ensemble of stylistic and decorative elements, neatly compacted into your prayer mat, should help induce the worshipper into a meditative, almost enraptured state.
As short-sighted as I am, I would often find myself stuck in the rigid mode of a juridical literalist, fixated, to an extent, with hyper-legalisation of Islam, asserting to my family that no prayer mats were needed when we would pray collectively, after being asked to fetch our legacy mats from the cupboard. Having overlooked the ethereal utility of the prayer mat, I now come to appreciate the sanctified retreat for introspection and reflection a payer mat, undoubtedly of Turkic inspiration, offers to the ever so disturbed and disorientated worshipper.
Disclaimer: Material published by Traversing Tradition is meant to foster scholarly inquiry and rich discussion. The views, opinions, beliefs, or strategies represented in published articles and subsequent comments do not necessarily represent the views of Traversing Tradition or any employee thereof.
References:
- Sahih al-Bukhari 6416 [↩]
Leave a Reply