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Rang

City of saints and blue tiles

Multan

Brick shrines of Sufi saints are banded with blue, turquoise and white tiles, a craft still alive in the city.

The Tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam located in Multan, Pakistan, is the mausoleum of the Sufi saint Sheikh Rukn-ud-Din Abul Fateh. The shrine is considered to be the earliest example of Tughluq architecture, and is of the most
Photo: Yaarahmadd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Multan is multani blue

Multan, in the south of Pakistan's Punjab, is one of the oldest cities of the region and is known as the city of saints for its many Sufi shrines. The greatest is the 14th-century tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam, an eight-sided tower of red brick under a white dome. Its walls are set with glazed tiles in cobalt blue, turquoise and white, a style called kashi work. The same three colours are used in Multani blue pottery, painted by hand with flowers and leaves on a white ground. The palette links the city to Persia and Central Asia. Multan is also famously hot and dusty, so the cool blues are a relief to the eye.

Multani blue#1F5FA8Turquoise glaze#2FA6A6Tile white#F2EFE6Baked brick#A6563A

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Multan

Cobalt blueA strong, stable blue pigment made from cobalt and alumina since the early 1800sTurquoiseA blue-green colour named after a prized mineral long used for gems and decoration
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Multan" on Wikipedia. If you know Multan and we have it wrong, tell us.

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Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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