Thread by @BaytAlFann

In Mamluk Egypt, enameled glass oil lamps were used to light the interiors of mosques. These fragile vessels were suspended from the ceiling by chains attached to the glass loops on their sides

A thread on mosque lamps from Mamluk Egypt, found in museums across the world...

1/ Mosque Lamp
1320-1330, Egypt, Mamluk

This mosque lamp was made for Qijlis, a high official who had been the sultan’s armourer. His emblem was a sword, which can be seen in the large roundels with a quotation from the Qur’an that mentions ‘the mosques of God’

@V_and_A

2/ Mosque Lamp
1310-1314, Egypt, Mamluk

Mosque lamp: made in Cairo, Egypt, in the reign of Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir, enamelled with a verse from the Qur'an as well as the sultan's name

On display in the Out of Storage Gallery at NMI-CollinsBarracks

@NMIreland

3/ Mosque Lamp
1360-1390, Egypt, Mamluk

Mosque-lamp. With depressed base. Made of brown and gilded and polychrome enamelled glass (bubbly).

@britishmuseum

4/ Mosque Lamp
1385, Egypt, Mamluk

During the Mamluk period, various pious institutions founded by sultans & amirs brought a demand for elaborately enamelled and gilt glass lamps to light them. Suspended from their rims were beaker-like containers filled with oi

@KhaliliOnline

5/ Mosque Lamp
1386, Egypt, Mamluk

Inscribed with the name of Emir Tankizbugha
Since Antiquity, light has been perceived as a visible manifestation of invisible powers.

@LouvreAbuDhabi

6/ Mosque Lamp of Amir Qawsun
1329–35, Egypt, Mamluk

Lamp bears the name of its patron Qawsun (d. 1342), amir of the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalaun & was probably intended for one of his two architectural commissions in Cairo a mosque or a tomb-hospice complex

@metmuseum

7/ Mosque Lamp
1330, Egypt, Mamluk

Lamp (mosque). Made for Saif al-Din Shaikhu al-`Umar (d. 1357).
Brownish colourless glass; blue, white, red and yellow enamels; and gold. Free blown, tooled, applied, enamelled and gilded; worked on the pontil.

@britishmuseum

8/ Mosque Lamp
13th-14th century, Egypt, Mamluk

The lamp holds extensive enamelled decoration on the mouth, body and foot, enhanced by gilding; the mouth having a large Qur’anic inscription in thuluth script executed in blue enamel and outlined in red.

@NtlMuseumsScot

9/ Mosque Lamp
13th-14th century, Egypt, Mamluk

Enameled glass lamps like this hung from a mosque ceiling on chains. The illuminated glow of the lamp symbolized divine light and, by extension, the presence of God.

@brooklynmuseum

10/ Mosque Lamp
1299-1340, Egypt, Mamluk

As with this example, such lamps were often decorated with part of a famous verse (Verse 24:35, The Light Verse) from the Qur’an, illustrating the importance of both light and lamps.

@AshmoleanMuseum

11/ Mosque Lamp
1299-1340, Egypt, Mamluk

Its inscription, from the Qur’an, sura 24, the Sūrat al-Nūr (Verse of Light), means, ‘God I the Light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His light is as a niche, wherein is a lamp’.

@WallaceMuseum

12/ Mosque Lamp
13th-14th century, Egypt, Mamluk

Decorated on the upper part of the neck in nashki script with a passage from the Qur'an, Sura XXIV, 35, the Sura of Light, broken by three circular medallions containing a red cup.

@FitzMuseum_UK

13/ Mosque Lamp
14th century, Egypt, Mamluk

Made on the the order of the Amir Shaykhu, either for his mosque or his khanqah, which still survive. Inscribed on the neck with the beginning of a well-known verse of the Qur’an, the Ayat al-Nur (Verse of the Light 24:35)

@LACMA

14/ Mosque Lamp
1360, Egypt, Mamluk

Sultan Hasan (reigned 1347–51 and 1354-61) ordered a great number of these polychrome lamps, including this example, for his celebrated madrasa built in Cairo in 1356-62.

@NatAsianArt

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