ʿENĀYAT-ALLĀH

 

ʿENĀYAT-ALLĀH, Timurid builder or tile maker of the 15th century. He reportedly built or decorated the dome of the Qobba-ye sabz (Green Dome) in Kermān. Sir Percy Sykes, the first European to refer to the building, reported that an inscription (now lost) was read to him stating that the building was the work of the master Ḵᵛāja Šokr-Allāh and the master ʿEnāyat-Allāh, son of the master Neẓām-al-Dīn, the architect (meʿmār) from Isfahan, and was constructed in 640/1242, which is probably a misreading since stylistically the building dates to the 15th century. All that remains of the building (Persian National Monument 124), which was probably a madrasa with founder’s mausoleum, is a fragment of the portal. It is decorated with a large panel of fine tile mosaic showing small floral ornament and vines, which can be attributed to the late 15th century on stylistic grounds. Pope (Survey of Persian Art, pp. 1100-1102) identified Hājī Beg—the person who made and signed the tile mosaic meḥrāb in the congregational mosque at Kermān that was apparently added to the mosque along with repairs undertaken under Shah Ṭahmāsb in 967/1559-60—as ʿEnāyat-Allāh’s son, but that would mean a gap of more than a century, which is untenable.

 

Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):

L. Golombek and D. Wilber, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, Princeton, 1988, I, p. 394.

P. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia or Eight Years in Iran, New York, 1902, p. 194.

(Sheila S. Blair)

Originally Published: December 15, 1998

Last Updated: December 15, 2011

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Vol. VIII, Fasc. 4, p. 429