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We then visited the Friday Mosque of Qazvin, referred to as Masjid-i Jami and believed to be one of the oldest Mosques in Iran. Said to have been built in 1106 over the ruins of a Zaroastrian temple and subsequently developed and expanded over several different periods it looked less impressive than some of the Mosques I had visited before, though some of the decorative patterns still made a strong impression on me.
A funeral ceremony was going on within its premises which distracted me for a while, not only because I do feel disturbed by such events but also because there was some inexplicable motive to find out whether such ceremonies were too different from ours.
Some of the Iwans were undergoing restoration, so we just managed to stroll around for a while in its courtyard and envisage what it must have been like in the past.
We made our way along a huge avenue, lined by yet again several Municipal election candidates, amongst which a rather distint looking lady, under the extreme sun which we could barely avoid, so as to get on the bus and head towards another Mosque, this time the Masjed al-Nabi.
Occupying a huge area of around 14,000 m2 and bearing inscriptions indicating that it was built during the Qajar dinasty, though it is not certain, the Masjed al-Nabi was quite impressive particularly in regards to its entrance pathway.
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