Prayer Rug with Plain Field

The Koran requires Muslims to pray five times a day in a clean place facing the holy city of Mecca. Ideally, Muslims are supposed to pray in a mosque, but if that is not possible, the prayers may be performed on one's own in the local surroundings. Many Muslims in Western and Central Asia historically performed these private prayer sessions on a special type of woven rug that featured an arch-shaped motif at one end. This arch represents the mihrab, the niche in the mosque wall that orients worshippers toward Mecca. By using these special prayer rugs, faithful Muslims were able to satisfy the Koranic requirements by creating a clean space that was always symbolically pointed in the direction of Mecca.

Prayer rugs were woven across the Islamic world in many different regional variations. This rug was produced in the Turkish village of Ladik, located in central Turkey not far from the town of Konya, a major weaving center from as early as the fourteenth century. Ladik rugs often feature stylized images of tulips, the emblematic flower of the Ottoman Turks who ruled Turkey between the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. These rugs are also known for the clarity and brilliance of their red and yellow dyes, both of which are used to great effect in this rug.

The rug is one of fifty eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Islamic rugs that were donated to Oberlin College in 1915 by alumnus Charles Martin Hall (OC 1885). A native of Ohio, Hall was a gifted student who became fascinated with chemistry and engineering while at Oberlin. Shortly after graduating, Hall discovered an inexpensive method of producing aluminum and went on to make a fortune in the metals industry. He later became one of the College's most important benefactors.