Can’t a man who commissioned the construction of an approximately $24 million (roughly adjusted for inflation) bejeweled golden throne be the same man who is capable of expressing grief over the loss of perhaps the only other living being he ever loved (sure, I mean, perhaps because she posed no threat to the aforementioned throne) through the construction of a complex (comparatively less extravagant than the throne, in way that could argue on behalf of his modesty in his intent) in which is situated a masjid (a building which in and is of itself is
waqf—a property free from corporeal possession) worthy (albeit not at all in need) of appreciation as a building that stands as part of a monument that exemplifies a beauty that transcends self-interests?
Maybe not.
But there’s other ways to go about expressing how this cannot be the case than by using vogue terminology that strips the issue of life or by viewing it through a lens skewed by one’s own criticisms against monuments to vanity attributed to their own faith or by what a person more astute in architecture than me may allege, an address against the Shah’s motives that distracts us from a historical context that is not at all unique to the topic at hand (the influence that religions had on the architecture of public spaces).
And for the record, a man leaves a trail of more than wit and foes when he has a nose for good debate.