DAILY PHOTO: A Few Views of Masjid Selat Melaka

DAILY PHOTO: Heydar Mosque

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DAILY PHOTO: Bibi-Heybat

This is the replica of a mosque that dates back to the 13th century. The original was built at the behest of Shirvanshah Farrukhzad II Ibn Ahsitan II, and was destroyed by the Bolsheviks when the Soviets took over in the 1930’s. The existing version was built in the 1990’s after the demise of the USSR.

DAILY PHOTO: Heydar Mosque, Baku

DAILY PHOTO: Three Qatari Museums

Qatar Islamic Cultural Center
National Museum of Qatar
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha

DAILY PHOTO: Mosque of Tipu Sultan’s Tomb

DAILY PHOTO: Tipu’s Gumbaz

Ramzan Mela [Free Verse]

A fire flares
   up Mosque Road.

Orange flames burn brightly 
    beyond the ovals lit by 
    feeble streetlamps.

Some fat 's hit the fire,
    and the smoke 's
    rising high.

The throngs have arrived --
    hungry & huddled,
    with tiny plates of 
    jiggly cubed meat.

The pious --
    angry stomachs, 
    vibrating to sundown

&

Impious Instagrammers
    (or, at least, substantially less pious,)
    having their eighth tiny meal
    of the day
    (some spit into a bucket, Hollywood-style.)

All gathered to break bread --
    except there is no bread
    (save the occasional roomali roti) 

So, instead, they bite basa or mutton 
    or chicken or camel or prawns --

all smoky

all devoured. 

Strange Geometries [Haiku]

a stone jali
 of strange geometries
  catches viewers.

DAILY PHOTO: Funerary Mosque, Bidar

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