TELMAN İBRAHİMOV AZERBAIJAN NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
SYMBOL “ KEY OF THE WORLD” IN PRAYER CARPETS ( The origin of the motive) For a person praying, the prayer carpet is a symbolic mosque. According to the Islamic tradition - the mosque is the House of Allah. "The House of Allah" in Arabic - Beytullah. Simultaneously, Beytullah is the second name of the sacred Kaaba in Mecca. Images of a cube-shaped motif are found in the mihrab arches of some prayer carpets. Along with them, there are prayer carpets, in which there is a symbolic image not only of the cube-shaped Kaaba, but of the entire sacred complex of Mecca. These prayer carpets are spread in the 15-18 centuries. At the end of the 19th century, figurative (realistic) images of the sacred Kaaba and the Mosque appeared on the prayer carpets, which was caused by the appearance of photography. But the earliest images of the complex of the sacred Kaaba are on the Ottoman carpets of Anatolia and Safavid carpets. These images mimic the existing images of the complex of the sacred Kaaba in manuscript books and miniatures.