Founded in the twelfth century, the current structure dates to several building phases during the fourteenth century with significant addition during the fifteenth, and eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
The plan consists of a courtyard, lined with a single story arcade on three sides, and a single iwan on the southern façade; a soaring entrance portal is situated within the eastern arcade. The high barrel-vaulted iwan leads to an expansive domed sanctuary. Large rectangular winter prayer halls flank the sanctuary and iwan, a layout that resembles the Sasanian triple-iwan plan.
Fourteenth century construction includes the southern iwan and dome chamber with flanking halls, and the recently restored entrance portal with minarets and entrance vestibule (the vault of which is not original). A plan incorporating domed sanctuary with single or multiple closed winter halls, of which this mosque represents the earliest dated example, is typical of fifteenth century mosques in the Yazd area.
The mosque is also significant for the early and substantial use of transverse vaulting in the rectangular winter prayer halls, a system that also has precedents in Sasanian structures. In the northwest prayer hall the system is perfected, with narrow supporting arches and wide vaults pierced with fenestrated octagonal cupolas.
The tile decoration is also noteworthy, although much is restoration. The dome is articulated with geometric decorative brickwork in turquoise and white on an unglazed buff field. Decorative brickwork laid in epigrams cover most wall surfaces within the sanctuary, above a turquoise tile dado with mosaic medallions that continues into the iwan. The mihrab is sheathed with naturalistic vegetal designs rendered in remarkable faience mosaic. The winter prayer halls are painted white, contrasting with the vibrant multi-colored sanctuary.
Lisa Golombek and Donald Wilber, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)
Renata Holod-Tretiak, The Monuments of Yazd, 1300-1450; Architecture, Patronage and Setting. Diss. Harvard University, 1972.
Arthur Upham Pope, The Fourteenth Century, in A Survey of Persian Art ed. Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman. (Tehran: Soroush Press, 1977), 1052-1102.
Maxime Siroux, La Masdjid-é Djuma de Yezd, Bulletin de lInstitut Français dArchéologie Orientale, vol. 44. (Le Caire: Institut francais d'archeologie orientale du Caire, 1947), 119-176.
Donald N. Wilber, The Architecture of Islamic Iran, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969).
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