Most people in the Western world have seen church steeples and have formed an idea they are symbols of — or pointers toward — the divine reality.  In temporal realms we see similar things. The Statue of Liberty (Lady Liberty) holds her torch of freedom toward the sky in a firm and muscular way, not extended to the side or swinging placidly downward from a relaxed arm. Towers and obelisks show up everywhere. The George Washington monument in the city named after that indispensable man comes to mind.  I spent years visiting prehistoric earthen burial mounds in their hundreds throughout our Eastern states.  Huge hill-like structures still exist along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, a few of them rivaling the Mexican pyramid temple complexes, massive places built up from borrowed dirt transported and added one basket at time.  I imagine the human builders held powerful beliefs, the meaning of which we have lost; however, their faith must have been as strong as any we find in our historical religions like Islam, symbolically represented in the image above.

Below I am sharing an image of a memorial with a home-made appearance, sculpted in modern times in a primitive way, but to me just as robust as any other example. It is located in an obscure place, not at a cosmopolitan synapse like Istanbul. Information about the creators is also uncertain, however the reaching toward the sky seems translucently clear, an exact analog in my estimation for those towering minarets .