Doek voor gebedssteen

1950

Prayer cloth. Embroidered cloth with geometric figures, mainly squares. In the middle is a rectangle with squares in diamonds. It is a multicoloured cloth without religious representations. In the middle of the cloth is a rectangle with perpendicular diagonal lines, which form lozenges. In these lozenges are squares. Around the rectangle is a strip of Holbein motifs (motifs that consist entirely of running stitches and are embroidered in two passes). Holbein embroidery looks the same at the front as at the back; see lit. 3: p. 13). Around the strip with holbein motifs there's a strip with little checks, these are spacing motifs (lit. 3: p. 16). Strips of holbein motifs and strips of checks (always with the same images) alternate. In total there are three strips of holbein motifs and two strips of checked motifs. The cloth looks almost the same on the front as on the back.\ The prayer stone cloths are used to hold the prayer stone (mohr or turba) used by Shiites. The prayer stone consists of baked clay from Kerbela. The prayer stones are kept wrapped in the cloths in the house or on the body. When praying one puts the prayer stone cloth on the prayer rug. Prayer cloths and stones are placed on the prayer rug in such a way that one touches the stone with one's forehead when bending over during prayer. The cloths may be used by any clean person. The cloths belong to the sacred objects; when they are worn out they are buried, so that they cannot be touched with the feet. The cloths may not be sold or used for any other purpose. Nevertheless, some use the cloths as wall decorations or pillowcases (Janata & Jawad 1983: 172-173).‖ The cloth is of cotton and the thread used to embroider is probably glossy cotton. The cotton cloth is machine-made, the same is presumably true of the thread. The cloths are embroidered by women and girls. According to the literature, embroidering the motifs requires extraordinary skill (Janata & Jawad 1983: 173). It is difficult to determine what stitches are used in the embroidery. The stitches presumably used are flat stitches (e.g. for tessellations), stitching stitches (both for tessellations and for the hem) and running stitches (holbein designs).