Qualla: Sepahsalar Mosque

Sepahsalar Mosque: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aghajanpour, CC BY-SA 4.0. A clock crafted in France in 1880 sits between two minarets atop the Sepahsalar Mosque, its three bells still ringing across the Baharestan district of central Tehran. The clock is a small oddity -- a piece of European precision mounted on a structure built to showcase the flamboyant tilework and geometric mastery of late Qajar Iran. But that tension between influences defines the Sepahsalar. Commissioned in 1879 by Mirza Hosein Khan Sepahsalar, Grand Vizier to Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the mosque took five years to complete and became one of Tehran's most recognizable landmarks, its eight minarets making it unique among Iranian mosques.

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Image: Aghajanpour | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sepahsalar Mosque: Grand Vizier's Monument

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hamidreza Hasani, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mirza Hosein Khan Sepahsalar was a reformist politician who had served as Iran's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire before becoming Grand Vizier. He ordered the mosque's construction during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah, and the first phase was completed in 1884. The Sepahsalar wa...

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Image: Hamidreza Hasani | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sepahsalar Mosque: Beneath the Dome

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The prayer hall dome rises 37 meters, supported by 44 columns. Inscriptions in both Thuluth and Kufic scripts cover the walls, recording the endowment details and religious texts. The tilework throughout favors floral motifs over geometric ones, a departure from earlier Persian t...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Sepahsalar Mosque: Blood in the Courtyard

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antoin Sevruguin, Public domain. In November 1949, the Sepahsalar became the scene of a political assassination. Abdolhossein Hazhir, a former Prime Minister and then Minister of the Royal Court, was shot by a member of the Fada'iyan-e Islam, a militant Islamist group that carried out several high-profile assass...

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Image: Antoin Sevruguin | Public domain

Sepahsalar Mosque: Surviving the Centuries

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hamidreza Hasani, CC BY-SA 4.0. Historical photographs show the Sepahsalar under construction between 1879 and 1884, with workers standing amid half-finished minarets. Later images from the 1930s reveal the mosque surrounded by a Tehran that was rapidly modernizing under Reza Shah's urban planning campaigns. Th...

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Image: Hamidreza Hasani | CC BY-SA 4.0