Menar Jonban (vacillating Minaret)
Menar Jonban is the interesting and strange name that refers to minarets that can vacillate. There are several vacillating Minarets in Iran, the most famous of which are in Isfahan and the other in Ardakan. These minarets are among the most popular Isfahan tourist attractions because of their secret.
We are drowned in thinking. Truly long minarets made by past architects shake without any problem? Or is the shaking of these minarets just a dream?! How can an old structure still have this strength? If you are about to travel to Iran and specially travel to Isfahan, then reading this article helps you to get more information about one of the most popular Isfahan tourist attractions.
There are thousands of questions about the Menar Jonban, whichare only answered by seeing this building. For this reason, we entered the Isfahan Fire Temple road and headed towards Najafabad, Menar Jonban was formerly in a village called Karladan, but now it is part of the city of Isfahan and is located near a neighborhood called Nasr Abad.
Menar Jonban of Esfahan was built in the eighth century AH, a dome-shaped building (1) which is an indicator of Iranian architecture. In the lower part of the roof and just at the end of the building, there is a Sheikh's grave named Amu Abdullah Karladani, shining with its white tombstone.
The ceiling is covered with azure and turquoise tiles that stuns every visitor. On the top of this building there are two beautiful minarets, each with a height of 17.5 meters and a width of 9 meters.

The treacherous secret of the Menar Jonban:

the story is that by shaking each of these minarets, the other minaret shakes clearly and visitors can watch the minarets shaking. In fact, by shaking the minarets, everything shakes, but often, the general public thinks that moving a minaret only causes another minaret to shake.
This valuable building was numbered 349 in 1321 AH in the national monuments list.
So many of Isfahan tours introduce this building to tourists. So if you are travelling to Isfahan for the first time don’t hesitate to take one of Isfahan tours and visit this magical structure. Although Menar Jonban is located 6 kilometers from the city, some of Isfahan hotels are built near it.

The cause of the movement of Menar Jonban
Contrary to the general impression of the people and those who first hear the name of Menar Jonban, this monument is not just moving its minarets, but by shaking a minaret, everything is shaken. The reason for the jolt of Menar Jonabn is the exacerbation or zoonotic phenomenon. Simply put, molecules of any physical body are moving, some are more mobile and some are less fluid. Simply apply force to them to start shaking. By shaking a minaret, the other minaret, which is quite similar to that one, also flows and the force pushed into a minaret is spread throughout the building and shakes the entire building.
The presence of light construction materials in the upper part of the building, the low height of the minarets, the distance between each minaret and the building, the wooden coils used in the upper and lower parts of each of the two minarets have all gone hand in hand and kept the minarets of Menar Jonabn in a good condition for many years.
Because of the greatness of the building and the slight shaking, it's hard to see the tremors of all the points, and only the minarets are easily seen, even more because of the bells placed in different parts of the building to clearly show the movements.
For this reason, there may be some doubts that really the whole building shakes or not. The officials devised a plan for this problem and placed signs in different parts of Menar Jonban to make it easier for viewers to see the shaking of the building. We look at these marks together.

Signs of the vibration of Menar Jonabn
As it was said, there are signs in building that, when trembling, looking at those signs, every visitor will notice shaking in all the elements of the building, signs like:
Bells: There are bells on both minarets that shake and make a sound that reflects the tremors of the minarets and the building.
Clock: The clock is hanging on the wall of the Iwan and at the very end, which shakes clearly when shaking.
Glass: On the grave of Amu Abdullah at the end of the Iwan, a sheet of glass is fixed to protect his tomb so that visitors can not touch the gravestone. This sheet of glass shakes clearly when the building is trembling, and even if you listen carefully, its trembling sound will be heard.
Water bowl: If we place a bowl full of water in a place like the grave of Amu Abdullah, after shaking the minarets, we will see clearly that the water shakes in the bowl. For the past few years, they had placed a bowl of water on the grave of Uncle Abdullah, but nowadays, due to the fact that they often stand on the outer courtyard when the building shakes, to watch the minarets shaking, this bowl of water has been removed.

A more scientific look at the secret of Menar jonban
First of all, you should know that there are similar vacillating minarets in other countries and even as we said in the beginning of the story, there is also in Iran, but one of the reasons that distinguished Menar Jonban from other minarets of Iran and the world is that it shakes more.
For many years, the secrets of the minarets were shaking in a hollow of ambiguity, and the researchers were investigating the minarets in order to discover the mysteries of these buildings. As we know, building these kinds of structures were popular for nearly 30 years but then it became less popular over time.
From those who played an important role in discovering the secret of vibration of Menar Jonban Hamid Shahin can be a good example; he experimented with a slightly more scientific explanation for the vibration of the minarets. He described the main cause of the minarets' movement as the shape and appearance of the minarets, and, to better understand, the two minarets are likened to two similar pendulums that are connected to a horizontal object, for example, two identical threads of the same size grasp them horizontally from one end to the other. In this case, if one shakes a yarn, another yarn will shake, but if the yarns have different lengths, there will be no vibration in the second yarn.
This example shows that if a minaret was different in terms of weight or length with another minaret, the vibration of a minaret would not have produced any vibration at the other. After finishing his experiments and studies on Menar Jonban, Shahin stated that all the vacillating minarets in the world belong to Iranian Islamic architecture.