Definition of "mihrab" []

• Islam A niche in the wall of a mosque or a room in the mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca. (noun)
• Islam A niche design in the middle of a Muslim prayer rug, pointed toward Mecca during worship. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Though he was so ignorant still of eastern lore, that he hardly knew the meaning of the word mihrab, the arched recess looking towards Mecca, in the Mosque of the lawyer-saint Aboul"
• "What a mihrab means to the Wahhabists, the Khomeini-ists and the other Salafists explained the meaning of a Mecca-direction indicator (called a mihrab), like the one now being planted on the Flight 93 crash site:"
• "In the last moments of his life he put on a girdle and seated himself in the "mihrab" [19] of the mosque."