for this particular purpose, which in the Masjed-e Shah stands on top of the west iwan. Religious buildings Inside, the acoustic properties and reflections at the central point under the dome is an amusing interest for many visitors, as the ingenuity of the architects, when creating the dome, enables the Imam to speak with a subdued voice and still be heard clearly by everyone inside the building. The mihrab, a large marble tablet ten feet tall and three feet wide on the southwestern wall, indicated the direction of Mecca. Above it the Shah's men had placed a gold-encrusted cupboard of allow wood. It held two relics: a Quran, said to have been copied by Imam Reza, and the bloodstained robe of Imam Hussain. Although never displayed, the robe was said to have magical powers; lifted on the end of a pike in the battle field, the belief was that it could rout an enemy. From the main courtyard, the iwan pointing to east contained a religious school, or madrasa. It contains an inscription by calligrapher Muhammad Riza Imami praising the Fourteen Immaculate Ones (i.e., Muhammad, Fatimah and The Twelve Imams). The iwan in the western corner leads to another madrasa and a winter mosque. In its own, private courtyard, one can find the famous sundial made by Shaykh Bahai. The dome After the introduction of domes into Islamic architectural designs following the 7th century spread of Islam, domes appeared frequently in the architecture of mosques. The oldest Persian building containing a dome is that of Palace of Ardashir at Firuzabad, Fars, Iran, pre-dating Islam by about four centuries. The Grand Mosque of Zavareh, dating 1135. is the oldest Muslim building with a dome. The Persians had constructed such domes for centuries before, and some of the earliest known examples of large-scale domes in the World are found in Iran, an example being the Maiden Castle. So, the Safavid Muslims borrowed heavily from pre-Islamic knowledge in dome-building, i.e. the use of squinches to create a transition from an octagonal structure, into a circular dome. To cover up these transition zones, the Persians built rich networks of muqarnas. Thus, came also the introduction of this feature into Persian mosques. A renaissance in Persian dome building was initiated by the Safavids. The distinct feature of Persian domes, which separates them from those domes created in the Christian world or the Ottoman and Mughal