Vault and colored ceiling of the Iwan of an Imamzadeh at the tomb of Omar Khayyam, 1962, Photo by By dynamosquito via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Just a Second: Iwan

29 Apr ’14

Iwan (noun)

An iwan is a vaulted room open on one side, usually onto a courtyard in an Islamic mosque. The iwan in Omar Khayyam’s tomb in Neishabour, Iran is decorated with characteristic Islamic geometric and vegetal motifs.