Rugs for prayers

Area Rugs Contemporary

About two hundred years ago small embroidered rugs were largely made in Persia, chiefly at Ispahan.

These were prayer rugs, and on each of them, near one end, was a small embroidered mark to show where the bit of sacred earth from Mecca was to be placed. In obedience to a law in the Koran that the head must be bowed to the ground in prayer, this was touched by the forehead when the prostrations were made, and so the letter of the law was carried out. The custom still prevails.

The Persian women who make the finest prayer rugs seldom weave any other kind of rug. But the encroachments of civilization and commerce have changed the original purpose of the prayer rug. Once it was sacred, and the masterpieces of workmanship in the products of Asia Minor were devotional in character. Upon these rugs many a soul prostrated himself before Allah in reverence; but now in the further interior only is the prayer rug made for aught but commerce.