Shi' ite Protective Prayer Cloth, Afghanistan (2)

Protective prayer cloth from Afghanistan, used by Shi'ites to cover the small stone that they apply when praying. Protective prayer cloth from Afghanistan, used by Shi'ites to cover the small stone that they apply when praying. © Foto: Ethnologisches Museum der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Acc. no. I B 10949.

The Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin holds an embroidered protective prayer cloth from Afghanistan, used to cover the clay tablet that Shi'ite muslims apply for their three-times per day prayer. It measures 21.5 x 21.5 cm and is made of cotton with silk thread embroidery. 

Such cloths, called dastmal-e mohr in Persian, are used to carry the clay tablet (mohr) of Shi'ites, s well as for putting on the ground with the tablet on top when praying. They generally have an empty or rectangular space in the centre for placing the tablet.

See also the TRC online exhibition Dressing the Stans: Textiles, Dress and Jewellery from Central Asia (TRC, Leiden, 2017). See also Gillian Vogelsng and Willem Vogelsang, Encyclopedia of Embroidery from Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent. 2021. London: Bloomsbury Publishers, pp. 209-210.

The cloth is comparable to another example housed at the Textile Research Centre in Leiden.

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin online catalogue (inaccessible 17 May 2021).

Last modified on Monday, 17 May 2021 15:24
Published in Religious vestments and other textiles
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