- Home
- Textiles, Carpets and Tapestries
- Carpets
- What do you mean, "It's a prayer rug?"
What do you mean, "It's a prayer rug?"
- By Price, Steve
- Published 20 March 2008
- Carpets
- Unrated
Price, Steve
Steve Price, collector of tribal arts and editor Turkotek; Tribal Art Forum; VCU's Department of
Physiology. In real life, Professor of Physiology at
How might we recognize a prayer rug that had been used for prayer?
The number of rugs that actually were used for prayer is a very small percentage of the hand knotted pile and kilim prayer design rugs. The reason, of course, is that so many were woven to satisfy the demands created by fashion in Europe and America from about the 17th century onward.
How could we tell if any particular one actually had been used that way? There are a number of clues that we could look for. One is the pattern of wear. A piece that had been used in prayer for many years would probably show much more wear at the lower end than at the upper, since the user got onto it at the lower end and rarely touched the top. We might also find the piece stretched a little in the horizontal direction about one-third or one-fourth of the way up from the bottom. This would be the result of the user putting all of his weight at that level when kneeling.
Lets look at an example. The rug below is a Shirvan prayer rug with a field of an ivory ground lattice of flowers, inscribed with a date corresponding to 1864 A.D. Was this rug used to pray?
It is likely a commissioned work woven for Muslims, not for the Western marketplace. Some prayer rugs are of much higher quality in terms of fineness of weave, use of expensive materials like silk, and workmanship than most others of nominally the same type. These "premium rugs"[4] clearly cost more to produce than the typical cottage industry product of the same area, and the weaver would have had to wait longer than usual to get paid for her work. For these reasons, it would seem more likely that the pieces were commissioned rather than being part of the usual output woven speculatively.
The Shirvan prayer rug above is probably such a piece. It has silk wefts, a property of Caucasian rugs that one writer has called so rare as to be almost mythical, and over 240 knots per square inch, about twice the average for a small Shirvan rug. The drawing and workmanship are superb[5], and it seems completely reasonable that someone seeking the most talented weaver for a commissioned piece would have chosen the person who did this one.
Rugs such as these may have been made for presentations to dignitaries or to imams, or as donations to mosques, all of which are practices in Muslim western Asia. This would increase the chance that the rug was used in prayer.
What about the other evidence? The piece is considerably shorter than most 19th century Shirvan prayer rugs, and is well within the range that might be expected for one intended to be used as a place to pray. Notice, too, the difference in the extent of wear between the fringe and kilim end at the top and that at the bottom, and the slight, but obvious stretching in the width about one-third of the way up from the bottom. This is exactly the level at which the knees of someone around 5'9" hit the rug when kneeling on it in the usual attitude of prayer.
Does all of this really prove that this was a piece woven on commission and used ritually? Of course not, but it certainly has the characteristics that we might expect such a rug to have.
Where does all this leave us?
This was intended to help remind us that the term, prayer rug, has several meanings, and that rather few prayer rugs were ever intended for use during religious observances. This does detract from the romantic notion that we are sort of vicariously sharing someone else's personal life when we handle one, but that shouldn't detract us from the fact that many of them are very beautiful works of the weaver's art, and dearly beloved by collectors for very good reasons.
Notes
[1.] I use the masculine pronoun in the gender-neutral sense that is customary in the English language.
[2.] P. F. Stone, THE ORIENTAL RUG LEXICON, University of Washington Press, 1997.
[3.] R. Ettinghausen, M. Dimand and L. Mackie, PRAYER RUGS, Textile Museum, 1974.
[4.] S. Price, Premium rugs: commercial or commissioned for presentations? Speculations on the history of a silk-wefted Caucasian. ORIENTAL RUG REVIEW 15(1): 36-37, 1994.
[5.] This is evident if one compares it to other published examples, paying attention to the variety of flowers, the fit of the lattice within the borders, and the artistic incorporation of the date into the design.
The number of rugs that actually were used for prayer is a very small percentage of the hand knotted pile and kilim prayer design rugs. The reason, of course, is that so many were woven to satisfy the demands created by fashion in Europe and America from about the 17th century onward.
How could we tell if any particular one actually had been used that way? There are a number of clues that we could look for. One is the pattern of wear. A piece that had been used in prayer for many years would probably show much more wear at the lower end than at the upper, since the user got onto it at the lower end and rarely touched the top. We might also find the piece stretched a little in the horizontal direction about one-third or one-fourth of the way up from the bottom. This would be the result of the user putting all of his weight at that level when kneeling.
Lets look at an example. The rug below is a Shirvan prayer rug with a field of an ivory ground lattice of flowers, inscribed with a date corresponding to 1864 A.D. Was this rug used to pray?
It is likely a commissioned work woven for Muslims, not for the Western marketplace. Some prayer rugs are of much higher quality in terms of fineness of weave, use of expensive materials like silk, and workmanship than most others of nominally the same type. These "premium rugs"[4] clearly cost more to produce than the typical cottage industry product of the same area, and the weaver would have had to wait longer than usual to get paid for her work. For these reasons, it would seem more likely that the pieces were commissioned rather than being part of the usual output woven speculatively.
Shirvan prayer rug, dated 1864.
The Shirvan prayer rug above is probably such a piece. It has silk wefts, a property of Caucasian rugs that one writer has called so rare as to be almost mythical, and over 240 knots per square inch, about twice the average for a small Shirvan rug. The drawing and workmanship are superb[5], and it seems completely reasonable that someone seeking the most talented weaver for a commissioned piece would have chosen the person who did this one.
Rugs such as these may have been made for presentations to dignitaries or to imams, or as donations to mosques, all of which are practices in Muslim western Asia. This would increase the chance that the rug was used in prayer.
What about the other evidence? The piece is considerably shorter than most 19th century Shirvan prayer rugs, and is well within the range that might be expected for one intended to be used as a place to pray. Notice, too, the difference in the extent of wear between the fringe and kilim end at the top and that at the bottom, and the slight, but obvious stretching in the width about one-third of the way up from the bottom. This is exactly the level at which the knees of someone around 5'9" hit the rug when kneeling on it in the usual attitude of prayer.
Does all of this really prove that this was a piece woven on commission and used ritually? Of course not, but it certainly has the characteristics that we might expect such a rug to have.
Where does all this leave us?
This was intended to help remind us that the term, prayer rug, has several meanings, and that rather few prayer rugs were ever intended for use during religious observances. This does detract from the romantic notion that we are sort of vicariously sharing someone else's personal life when we handle one, but that shouldn't detract us from the fact that many of them are very beautiful works of the weaver's art, and dearly beloved by collectors for very good reasons.
© Steve Price
With the permission of TurkoTek
With the permission of TurkoTek
Notes
[1.] I use the masculine pronoun in the gender-neutral sense that is customary in the English language.
[2.] P. F. Stone, THE ORIENTAL RUG LEXICON, University of Washington Press, 1997.
[3.] R. Ettinghausen, M. Dimand and L. Mackie, PRAYER RUGS, Textile Museum, 1974.
[4.] S. Price, Premium rugs: commercial or commissioned for presentations? Speculations on the history of a silk-wefted Caucasian. ORIENTAL RUG REVIEW 15(1): 36-37, 1994.
[5.] This is evident if one compares it to other published examples, paying attention to the variety of flowers, the fit of the lattice within the borders, and the artistic incorporation of the date into the design.