minbar

minbar, in Islam, the pulpit from which the sermon (khutbah) is delivered. In its simplest form the minbar is a platform with three steps. Often it is constructed as a domed box at the top of a staircase and is reached through a doorway that can be closed.

Muhammad originally delivered his khutbahs while leaning against a palm-trunk pillar in the mosque at Medina. Hadith (accounts of Muhammad’s life and sayings) report that Muhammad later used a seat with two steps for receiving delegations in the mosque and also that he preached from this portable minbar, which was fashioned from tamarisk wood by a Greek or Abyssinian carpenter. His successors, the caliphs, used his minbar as a symbol of their authority.

During the first century of Islam, provincial governors also came to use the minbar, from which they made speeches and heard petitions, primarily in their capacity as rulers. When the khutbah lost its informative, political, and discursive character and became a purely religious sermon during the reign of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs, the minbar also became a religious object. It became more permanent in nature, the number of steps increased, and it was commonly executed in stone or brick. It was even covered with a cloth, the qaṭīfah.