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Δημήτρης Αντωνίου PhD(Hon), FRCS,Γενικός Χειρουργός, Ογκολόγος

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Απαγορεύεται η

αναδημοσίευση και γενικά η αναπαραγωγή του παρόντος έργου (πλήρους

έκδοσης) με οποιοδήποτε τρόπο, τμηματικά ή περιληπτικά, στο πρωτότυπο ή σε μετάφραση, ή άλλη διασκευή, χωρίς γραπτή άδεια του εκδότη και συγγραφέα, σύμφωνα με τον ν. 2121/1993 και την Διεθνή Σύμβαση της Βέρνης (που κυρώθηκε με τον ν. 100/1975).

Contents

1. Islamic History………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7 2. Historic Maps of the Islamic World………………………………………………………………………… 41 3. Islamic Art and Aesthetics (essays)………………………………………………………………………. 99 4. Islamic Painitng and Calligraphy…………………………………………………………………………..117 5. Persian Miniatures………………………………………………………………………………………………….131 6. Ottoman Miniatures…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 136 7. Mughal miniatures………………………………………………………………………………………………… 139 8. Islamic Mettalic Art…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 144 9. Glass Art………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 151 10. Ivory Art……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 152 11. Islamic Pottery…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 153 12. Islamicn Calligraphy……………………………………………………………………………………………… 164 13. Islamic Frontispieces……………………………………………………………………………………………. 183 14. Islamic Carpets……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 185 15. Islamic Aesthetics…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 191 16. Great Mosques, Holly Shrines, Palaces, Tombs and Mausoleums………………………...201 17. Glossary or Islamic and Western Culture and Architecture………………………………...277 18. Author`s Curriculum Vitae…………………………………………………………………………………….339 19. A letter to our Arab Brothers and Sisters………………………………………………………………341

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Islamic History

(external sources) Muhammad and the First Four Caliphs, 570-661 The Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in around 570. The major caravan routes went through the town, and the Kaaba made it the most important place of pilgrimage on the Arabian Peninsula. This cube-shaped shrine held the images and statues of some of the many gods worshipped by the region’s Arab tribes. This is where Muhammad began to preach Islam, the new religion with only one god.

At first, the Meccans opposed the spread of Islam, and in 622, Muhammad had to flee with his followers to Medina. This emigration (hijra) marks the start of the Islamic calendar.

From Medina, Muhammad was able to subjugate local Arab tribes and convert them to Islam within a few years. Mecca was also taken, and the Kaaba was purged of its many idols and given the status of Islam’s most sacred shrine. After Muhammad’s death in 632, the Islamic world was ruled from Medina under the next four caliphs (successors): Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. All were related to the Prophet by marriage, but only his cousin Ali was his blood relative. These four successors are also called the “rightly guided caliphs,” since all had known the Prophet personally.

Right from the time of Muhammad’s death, there was disagreement between those who wanted an elected successor, regardless of kinship (the Sunni Muslims), and those who felt that only Ali’s descendants could be Muhammad’s legitimate heirs (the Shia Muslims).

The caliphs were both religious and political leaders, and the territory under Islamic dominance expanded with enormous speed under their rule. Within two decades, Syria and grain-rich Egypt were conquered from the Byzantine Empire. In Iraq and Iran, the Sasanian Empire was overrun by the Arab armies, which exploited disputes over succession and internal strife.

The conquered territories were divided into provinces, with an Arab governor and soldiers who lived isolated from the local population in military camps. Completely new garrison towns such as Basra and Kufa in southern Iraq were also built. Among the many different peoples in the great new realm, Jews and Christians were for the most part allowed to keep their religion and way of life. They were considered “People of the Book,” whose holy scriptures had been revealed to them by the same God that the Muslims worshipped.

Like other non-Muslims, they were still obliged to pay taxes to the new rulers. Apart from a few examples of Arabic script, there are almost no physical remains from this period, and nothing that would testify to the start of Islamic art proper.

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http://www.davidmus.dk/assets/1017/DS-web_kortgrafik-01.png?1241009367 (map) http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/muhammad

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Islamic History The Umayyad Caliphate, 661-749 When Ali, the fourth caliph and last Islamic religious and political leader with close personal ties to the prophet Muhammad, died in 661, the Arab governor in Syria seized power. Muawiya came from the Umayya clan in Mecca and founded the first hereditary Islamic dynasty, the Umayyads.

The Umayyads continued the rapid conquest of new territories, and the caliphate reached a size that has never been surpassed by a single Islamic realm. The Muslim armies invaded Afghanistan and penetrated into the Indus Valley in northern India and far into Central Asia to China’s borders. In the west, they took all of North Africa, occupied the Iberian Peninsula, and continued on expeditions deep into central France. They maintained pressure on the Byzantine Empire, both on the Mediterranean Sea and on land. Islamic armies invaded Anatolia and besieged Constantinople, but were later forced back to eastern Anatolia.

The center of the Umayyad Caliphate was Damascus, where the caliph resided. The language of the court, the civil service, and the religious class was Arabic, but the realm was administered according to principles adopted from the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. Partly because of conflicts among the Arab tribes, the realm did, however, lack internal stability, and for periods it was virtually in a state of civil war.

The Umayyads took many features from the territories that they had conquered, but a new Islamic culture also slowly began to take form. At the same time, the realm’s new subjects adopted the Arabic language and Islam. A powerful symbol of the new empire was the development of a special Islamic coinage. Large-scale building projects, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque in Damascus, demonstrated the Umayyads’ artistic and political ambitions. They were built on sites where the temples and churches of other religions had stood before, and were embellished with extensive mosaic decorations and monumental Koranic sayings. The Umayyads’ palaces and hunting lodges in Syria were also richly ornamented, both inside and out. Sculptures and murals with princes and dancing girls show that rulers led a life of luxury in these “desert palaces.”

Apart from architecture, there are few artistic remains from the Umayyad period, and they are closely related to Late Antique, Byzantine, and Sasanian art. Works of art are often embellished with figurative elements such as animals and plants, frequently found as parts of large decorative patterns.

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http://www.davidmus.dk/assets/1019/DS-web_kortgrafik-03.png?1241009853(map) http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/umayyads

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Islam, History, Art and Architecture Iraq under the Abbasids, 750-1055 Toward the middle of the 8th century, a revolt broke out against the Umayyads when the recently converted Muslims in the provinces became dissatisfied with their limited opportunities in Islamic society. The Abbasids, who now seized power, were able to trace their lineage back to Muhammad’s uncle al-Abbas. This gave them far greater legitimacy as Islamic rulers than the Umayyads.

Under the Abbasids, the capital of the realm was moved from Syria to Iraq, first to Baghdad in 762 and then to Samarra in 836. The move eastward also meant growing influence from Iranian culture at the expense of the Mediterranean Byzantine culture. This period, considered a golden age, reached its culminations under the caliphs Harun alRashid (786-809) and al-Mamun (813-833). Literature, theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences flourished, and the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-hikma), where Hellenistic works from Antiquity were translated into Arabic, was founded in Baghdad. The caliphs had enormous palaces and palace-cities built that were decorated with legendary magnificence.

The caliphate was not expanded under the Abbasids, and in fact experienced increasing pressure from Byzantine forces in the eastern Mediterranean. In the 9th century, the empire also started to break up from within. A renegade Umayyad had founded an independent realm on the Iberian Peninsula, and in North Africa, the Abbasids’ hegemony was soon only a matter of form. There were similar developments in parts of Iran, where local governors founded independent dynasties that rarely if ever paid taxes to the Abbasids.

The Abbasids finally lost their political power when the Buyids occupied Baghdad in 945 and took over the Abbasids’ Iraqi and Iranian holdings. The Buyids were originally mercenaries that came from northern Iran. In contrast to the Abbasids, they were Shiites.

They let the Abbasid caliphs stay on in Baghdad, but only as religious rulers over the Sunni Muslims. The Buyids stayed in power for nearly a century, until they were defeated by the Seljuk Turks in 1055.

A distinctive Islamic form of decoration was developed under the Abbasids: the Samarra style, featuring geometric and vegetal patterns. Like the Arabic script, the Samarra style was to play an important role in artistic decoration in many contexts, from stucco and stone in buildings to woodcarvings, glass, metal, and ceramics, which also underwent important technical improvements. The new guidelines in art and architecture that emerged from Baghdad and Samarra were copied throughout the Islamic world – from the Atlantic coast to Central Asia.

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http://www.davidmus.dk/assets/1020/DS-web_kortgrafik-04.png?1241009895(map) http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/abbasiderne

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Islamic History Al-Andalus, Muslim Spain, 756-1492 A single member of the Umayyad family, Abd al-Rahman, managed to escape the bloody conflict that ensued after the Abbasids seized power. He fled to Spain, the Islamic empire’s westernmost province, which the Muslims called al-Andalus. This is where he established the Spanish Umayyad Emirate in 756, with its capital in Cordoba. The city soon grew into western Europe’s largest, with more than 500,000 inhabitants. It became a center of Islamic culture, and its schools and libraries attracted Muslim, Christian, and Jewish intellectuals. The Spanish Umayyads reached their political and cultural culmination in the 10th century, when Abd al-Rahman III (912-961) assumed the titles of caliph and “Prince of the Believers” to show that the realm was autonomous in relation to the Abbasids and Fatimids. Art was an important tool in emphasizing the caliph’s status, and a great many resources went into creating refined works of art, frequently with naturalistic depictions of plants, animals, and people. Abd al-Rahman III’s palace-city outside Cordoba, Madinat al-Zahra, set a new standard with its wealth of carved marble, and the mosque in Cordoba was expanded and embellished with palace-like magnificence.

At the beginning of the 11th century, the caliphate of the Spanish Umayyads was dissolved into many little states, called the Taifa kingdoms, which fought one another and also came under increasing pressure from the minor Christian kingdoms that had survived in northern Spain. An appeal for help from abroad led to the North African Almoravids and later the Almohads seizing power. At the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the Almohads were decisively defeated by the combined forces of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. The Iberian Peninsula then fell into Christian hands, apart from a small region in the southeast, where the Nasrids were able to hold their own for a few more centuries.

The Nasrid Sultanate was founded in 1232 in the mountainous area around Granada, Malaga, and Almeria. The realm was under constant pressure, and from 1243 was obliged to pay tribute to the Christian kingdom of Castile and Leon. Many expelled Muslims sought refuge with the Nasrids, whose capital of Granada, in particular, developed into the last flourishing stronghold of Islamic culture in Spain, financed among other things by silk manufacture. A unique complex of palaces, watercourses, and gardens was created in the sultans’ palace-city, the Alhambra, which was surrendered intact when the sultanate fell in 1492.

Muslim culture survived on the Iberian Peninsula through Muslim craftsmen, whose production of inlaid woodwork, polychrome tiles, and luster-decorated ceramics remained in demand among the Christian ruling elite.

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Islamic History Eastern Iran, Afghanistan and Northern India, 10th-12th century-The Ghaznavids and Ghurids The eastern part of the Samanid Empire was ruled by governors, who like most of the army were slaves captured among the Central Asian Turkic peoples. Under Sebüktigin, a process to sever ties began that was completed by his son Mahmud (998-1030). The city of Ghazna became the capital of the new Ghaznavid Empire. Through large-scale military campaigns, it expanded into the former Buyid and Samanid regions of Iran in the west and up to the Oxus River in the north. Mahmud’s military operations were also directed to the east and south, and he carried out a total of 17 campaigns into northern and central India. They were justified as jihad (“holy war”), since they were directed against the heathen Hindus, whose temples were destroyed. From the realms in northern India, Mahmud brought back rich booty, which in addition to financing his large military machine was used to build up Ghazna as a fitting capital. Mahmud also attracted the leading intellectuals of the period, such as Firdawsi, to lend luster to the Ghaznavids’ new court. The Ghaznavid Empire reached its greatest size under Mahmud. Soon it came under pressure from new Turkic dynasties, such as the Seljuks and the Ghurids.

The mountainous region of Ghur in Afghanistan was inhabited by a Turkic people that had been used as slaves in Muslim armies for years. Under the Ghaznavids, however, the Ghurids became Muslims and vassals, but soon gained their independence and grew into a new and expanding power. They captured and plundered Ghazna in 1150 and drove the last Ghaznavids into Punjab, where the dynasty was annihilated in 1186. Their leader was the Ghurid Muizz al-Din Muhammad, who continued the Ghaznavid jihad tradition and penetrated farther into India, where he took Delhi in 1193. He ruled the realm in partnership with his brother Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, whose army in the west invaded Khorasan, extending the Ghurid Empire from the Caspian Sea to Bengal in eastern India.

The realm collapsed soon after the death of Muizz al-Din Muhammad in 1206, partly because of pressure from the Mongols.

Although these Turkic dynasties, the Ghaznavids and the Ghurids, took Persian culture as their ideal in many respects, the effect of Indian culture was also felt in art. This can be seen both in details that were adopted directly from Indian art and in a penchant for figurative, fairly true-to-life depictions.

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Islamic History Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Southern Russia, c. 1250-1400- The Mongol Empire, IlKhanids and the Golden Horde The Mongols were a nomad people, and their colossal conquests started under Genghis Khan (c. 1167-1227), who invaded China in 1213, marking the beginning of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. The Mongol cavalry then moved westward and by 1223 had already conquered Central Asia, Afghanistan, and northern Iran. A few years later, Genghis Khan’s grandson Hülegü Khan penetrated even farther west into Iraq, where Baghdad was destroyed and the last Abbasid caliph, al-Mustasim, was murdered in 1258. The seemingly invincible Mongols’ advance was only stopped when they met the Mamluks in the battle of Ayn Jalut, in Palestine, in 1260. Hülegü now ruled over the part of the Mongol empire that was centered on western Iran and extended across Iraq, into Anatolia, and up to the Aral Sea. He took the title “Il Khan,” or subordinate khan, the subject of the Great Khan in Mongolia.

The Mongol armies’ enormous devastation was followed by a culturally rich period under the Il-Khanids. As a whole, the new rulers largely adopted their subjects’ cultural traditions. The Il-Khanids, who converted to Islam beginning in 1295, had their newly built palaces, mosques, and sepulchral monuments covered with tiles that were more colorful than those favored by the Seljuks. Gold and silver were used lavishly for weaving into textiles and for metal inlays. In addition to traditional motifs, new ones such as lotuses, chrysanthemums, phoenixes, and dragons reflect the Mongols’ contact with China.

When the Il-Khanid Abu Said died childless in 1335, the realm began to disintegrate. The area covered by Iran and Iraq was gradually split into a number of minor realms with local ruling families, such as the Muzaffarids, Injuids, and Jalayirids. These fairly short-lived dynasties underwent violent internal and external power struggles, but many of their princes also became important patrons of the arts and culture.

The area east of the Il-Khanid realm was ruled by the Mongolian Chagatay dynasty, while other Mongol cavalries had already invaded Russia and Siberia, and penetrated far into the Balkans under Genghis Khan. These conquered territories were stabilized into a single khanate, or empire, under the clan that became known as the Golden Horde. The Mongols soon relinquished their nomad existence and founded large cities, such as their capital of Saray on the Volga River. The leaders of the Golden Horde were Muslims from 1313, while their subjects were Russian Orthodox Christians. The works of art from the Golden Horde, whose khanate gradually disintegrated in the course of the 15th century, testify in form and choice of motif to the Mongols’ eastern origins.

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Islamic History

Anatolia, the Balkans, Syria, Egypt, c. 1300-1850 – The Ottomans When the empire of the Seljuks of Rum collapsed, the situation was exploited by a local Turkic ruling family in northwestern Anatolia whose ancestor was named Osman (Othman /Uthman). Invoking jihad (“holy war”), the Ottomans expanded their holdings into Byzantine Anatolia and soon also occupied large parts of the Balkans. Only the Byzantine capital of Constantinople held out until Mehmed II the Conqueror took the city in 1453 and put an end to the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople became the capital of the Ottoman Empire under the name of Istanbul. Conquests continued at the beginning of the 16th century, when Iraq was soon taken, along with Mamluk Syria and Egypt and the Mediterranean ports in North Africa. The Ottomans now dominated most of the Mediterranean with their fleet, and after the conquest of Hungary, they posed a serious threat to the rest of Christian Central Europe. The empire’s political and economic peak coincided more or less with the long rule of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566). The Ottoman Empire was one of the world’s great powers and the strongest Muslim realm, which also ruled over the holy cities of Arabia.

In the course of the 17th century, however, the empire began to lose its position, and a final attempt at expansion in Central Europe failed in 1683, when the Ottomans were rebuffed before Vienna and then abandoned Hungary. The lack of booty from new, conquered lands combined with weak state government increasingly drained the empire’s finances throughout the 17th and 18th century. Although the Ottoman Empire remained very large, it developed in the 19th century into the “sick man of Europe,” which tried in vain to keep pace with the European powers’ reforms in administration, military matters, and trade.

The Ottoman Empire was controlled through a centralized system of government, with power concentrated in the sultans’ capital of Istanbul. Most of the administration’s leading officials and the awe-inspiring Janissaries had been taken as boys from Christian regions, converted to Islam, and undergone careful schooling.

A special design workshop was founded in the Topkapi Palace complex to produce patterns for tiles, woodwork, metalwork, and textiles used for the court’s many construction and decoration projects. The patterns spread to the rest of the empire with the artists who had been trained in the workshop and through the many monumental building projects in the provinces that were commissioned from Istanbul. From having a close kinship with Timurid art, Ottoman art soon developed a number of new and unique forms of decoration, with both more abstract patterns and naturalistic decorations based on local flora.

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http://www.davidmus.dk/assets/1033/DS-web_kortgrafik-15.png?1241010612(map) http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/ottomans

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Islamic History

Mughal India, 1526-1707 The Indian Mughals take their name from the Mongols, since the family traced its ancestry back to both the Mongol leader Genghis Khan and Timur. The dynasty’s founder, Babur, came from Central Asia, but when he was forced to leave his family lands in Farghana, he turned his army to the southeast and invaded India, where he conquered the Delhi Sultanate in 1526. During his grandson Akbar’s long reign (1556-1605), the Mughals established themselves as the Indian subcontinent’s dominant power. The realm was expanded to Bengal in the east, across north and central India, to rich Gujarat in the west.

Gujarat’s ports along the Indian Ocean made it possible to carry out profitable trade with the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Europe.

Under Akbar, the Mughal Empire was given a strong central administration, following traditional Islamic models. The ruling elite consisted of Turks, Afghans, Persians, and Indian Hindus. Akbar was a great statesman and commander, and he was open to the different cultures found in his realm. In the newly built capital of Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra, he created his own religion in 1582. It was a synthesis of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, which had been introduced to the court by Jesuit missionaries. Although Akbar himself could not read, he founded a large workshop to produce books and miniatures. Its artists were Persians, Indian Hindus, and Indian Muslims, and their different backgrounds were reflected in their output. The missionaries’ European art proved an important source of inspiration, since naturalism and perspective fit in well with the local pictorial tradition. In other art forms, Mughal art also had a predilection for naturalistic motifs that was unique in Islamic art.

Akbar laid the basis for the Mughal Empire’s administration, which survived for several centuries. He also established a tradition in the field of art that lived on under his son Jahangir (1605-1627) and grandson Shah Jahan (1628-1657). Both were great art-lovers and the latter was an active builder, who commissioned the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his wife. The Mughal Empire’s period of greatness ended with Aurangzeb, who came to power in 1658. In his later years, he was gripped by religious orthodoxy and devoted himself to building mosques, while pictorial art suffered. The Mughal Empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Aurangzeb. He vanquished the last Shia Muslim sultanates in the Deccan and incorporated several Hindu states that had previously survived as independent realms under Mughal suzerainty.

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http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/mughal-india(map) http://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/mughal-india

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Islamic History The Prophet Muhammad The Prophet Muhammad is considered by Muslims to be the last in a long succession of prophets that also includes Moses and Jesus. In contrast to Christianity’s description of Jesus, however, there is no direct link between God and Muhammad. Neither the Prophet Muhammad nor any of the other prophets have been considered sons of God by Muslims, only His messengers.

Muhammad, whose full name was Muhammad ibn Abdallah, was born in 570 in the city of Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula. From various statements in the Koran we can conclude that Muhammad was orphaned at an early age and grew up among relatives, including his uncle Abu Talib. We can also surmise from the Koran that as a young man, he worked as a caravan merchant for a widow named Khadija, whom he married at some point and became the father of four daughters and two sons. The boys both died in infancy, and the last son that was born to Muhammad later also survived for only a short time.

In around 613, Muhammad began to impart the revelations that were later to make up the Koran. According to his own account, Muhammad had received these revelations from God through the Archangel Gabriel in the mountains near Mecca. In the beginning, a few adopted Muhammad’s new teachings and became Muslims, but as a whole, his preaching as a prophet did not make a major impact in the city of his birth.

When he was confronted with growing opposition from Mecca’s leading families, who feared that the new doctrine of the one and omnipotent God could develop into a threat against the city’s status as a multi-religious place of pilgrimage, Muhammad decided in 622 to emigrate to the city of Yathrib, later called Medina. The year of this emigration (hijra) has since been considered the first in the Islamic calendar.

From Medina, Muhammad began to wage war against the citizens of Mecca, and after eight years and many battles, the Muslim forces were able to take the city in 630. This marked the foundation of a religious center for Islamic civilization, and in the following centuries, the new religion spread to Syria, Egypt, the Persian Empire (Iran and Iraq), North Africa, and parts of India. Muhammad died in 632 after a brief illness.

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Islamic History Sunni and Shia Today, some 85 percent of the world’s Muslims consider themselves to be Sunni Muslims, while the remaining 15 percent are adherents of the different sects of Shia Islam.

The designation Sunni Islam, or Sunnism, refers to the Prophet Muhammad’s customs (sunna_). For Sunni Muslims, it is a guiding principle for each individual and for Muslim society as a whole – when confronted by new challenges – to follow the rules for living that the Prophet himself practiced. Sunni imams consult the traditions (_hadith) that have been written down on the words and deeds of Muhammad when they need to find solutions to problems that are not expressly described in the Koran.

While Sunni Islam emphasizes the importance of Muhammad’s customs, Shia Islam emphasizes the special authority of the Prophet’s relatives (ahl al-bayt). Male descendants of the Prophet’s closest relative, Ali ibn Abi Talib – the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law – are thus considered to be the ideal imams by Shia Muslims. But different views about the rightful succession led to Shiism being divided into many branches, each with its line of legitimate imams. The most important branches are the Fivers (Zaidites), the Seveners (Ismailites), and the Twelvers.

Islamic society split into its two main groups right after Muhammad’s death. In the disagreements about the rightful successor (khalifa) for the position of supreme leader of the Muslim community, the Shiites demanded that power be bestowed on Ali. The word _shia _is in fact an abbreviation of shiat Ali, “the party of Ali.” The other members of the Muslim community – later called the Sunni Muslims – insisted on succession in keeping with old Arab customs, which meant by election.

As a result of these disputes, the Sunni Muslim majority won and the first three caliphs – Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman – were elected from among the Prophet’s especially faithful adherents, and not only among his blood relatives. The fourth caliph elected, Ali, who in fact was a blood relative, ruled for five years.

When Ali died in 661, what proved to be a long and bloody struggle began between Shia and Sunni Muslims over who was to rule the Islamic world. While the fortunes of war changed from time to time, only a minority of the Islamic world’s many dynastic states have rested on a Shia Muslim foundation, however. Egypt under the Fatimids (969-1171) and Iran under the Safavids (1501-1732) are the most famous. Today Iran is the only country in the world where Shiism is the state religion.

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Islamic History The Religious Prohibition Against Images A conspicuous feature of art in the Islamic world is the limited use of naturalistic images of living beings. This is because Islam, like Judaism and in certain periods Christianity, practices a kind of prohibition against the making of images – though a prohibition that has always been interpreted in very different ways.

The Koran provides no specific guidelines for the use of images. The hadith – the traditions of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad – do, in contrast, express a clear antipathy towards figurative depictions. Some hadiths make it absolutely clear that a person who tries to emulate God’s creative force will be hard pressed on the Day of Judgment.

“He who creates pictures in this world will be ordered to breathe life into them on the Day of Judgment, but he will be unable to do so.” Hadith, Sahih Muslim (818-875) The purpose of a prohibition against images was initially to avoid idolatry. As Muhammad himself demonstrated when he purified the Kaaba of sculptures and idols, it was an important aspect of the new doctrine that no one should be induced to worship an object or an image instead of God. The removal of idolatrous images did not, however, put an end to all interest in figurative art. The magnificent buildings and desert palaces of the Umayyad caliphs were decorated in the style of Christian Late Antiquity, which abounded in images. Later Muslim rulers in different periods and in both east and west surrounded themselves with monumental paintings, figurative stone reliefs, sculptures, and miniature paintings. But where figurative decorations were used, rarely were they the dominant form of expression and never were they used in religious contexts.

The non-figurative character of religious decoration has remained a fundamental principle throughout the history of Islam. At no point have images found their way into the interiors of mosques; as far as we know, no Muslim artist has endeavored to depict God; the Koran has never been illustrated; and depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are rare. With the reform of coinage carried out by the caliph Abd al-Malik in 696, even the portraits of rulers were removed from Islamic coins and replaced by calligraphic decoration.

The result of restraint in the use of figurative depictions in time led Muslim artists, more than those in other cultures, to concentrate on abstract forms of expression. In traditional Islamic art, vegetal ornamentation, geometric patterns, and a fascination with script – calligraphy – reached unprecedented heights.

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Historic Maps of Islamic World

Susa Kingdom in 13 ce. B.C. 

http://www.google.gr/imgres?start=258&hl=el&client=firefoxa&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:el:official&channel=np&biw=1230&bih=853&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns &tbnid=2bF0MCvOiAMPTM:&imgrefurl=http://iranpoliticsclub.net/maps/maps01/index.htm &docid=71eS8LISnFhS7M&imgurl=http://iranpoliticsclub.net/maps/images/008%252520Susa %252520Kingdom%252520Igehalkids%252520Dynasty%25252013th%252520Century%252520BC% 252520Iran%252520Map.jpg&w=759&h=652&ei=b0P1T-m8NPQ0QX_5ImaBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=525&vpy=430&dur=8&hovh=208&hovw=242&tx=131& ty=78&sig=109826678027353175186&page=10&tbnh=159&tbnw=185&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r: 7,s:258,i:214

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Historic Maps of Islamic World

Sassanian Persian Empire at 500 AD.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Asia_500ad.jpg

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Historic Maps of Islamic World

The Spread of Islam 622-750. Caliphate of Muhammad (622-632), first 4 Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661) and Umayyad Caliphs (661-750). Byzantine Empire and Franks`, plus Italian Lombard kingdoms in Europe.

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http://www.google.gr/imgres?hl=el&client=firefoxa&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:el:official&channel=np&biw=1230&bih=853&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns &tbnid=Q5CzU4DFx5S2kM:&imgrefurl=http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/medieval/visua l.php&docid=QOjFUyokcx_dgM&imgurl=http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/medieval/ima ges/islam.jpg&w=512&h=428&ei=cjX1T5HyKsKi8QPO5dGBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=573&vpy=311&dur=3084&hovh=205&hovw=246&tx=136&ty=126&s ig=109826678027353175186&page=1&tbnh=151&tbnw=181&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:7 ,s:0,i:91

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Islam, History, Art and Architecture

Caliphate of Muhammad (622-632), first 4 Caliphs (632-661) and Umayyad Caliphs (661750), Byzantine Empire and Franks` plus Italian Lombard kingdoms in Europe.

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http://www.google.gr/imgres?hl=el&client=firefoxa&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:el:official&channel=np&biw=1230&bih=853&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns &tbnid=xw82_MrvFuMs_M:&imgrefurl=http://studyabroad.blogs.bucknell.edu/2011/03/28/c ordoba-and-its-proud-historical-legacy/&docid=3jlBm6uuRshzxM&imgurl=http://www.wallmaps.com/Classroom/Atlas/worldSpreadOfIslam750.gif&w=900&h=693&ei=cjX1T5HyKsKi8QP O5dGBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=677&vpy=403&dur=5646&hovh=197&hovw=256&tx=135&ty=125&s ig=109826678027353175186&page=2&tbnh=149&tbnw=193&start=20&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r: 3,s:20,i:144

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Historic Maps of Islamic World

Caliphate of Muhammad (622-632), first 4 Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661) and Umayyad Caliphs (661-750), Byzantine Empire and Franks` plus Italian Lombard kingdoms in Europe.

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http://www.google.gr/imgres?hl=el&client=firefoxa&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:el:official&channel=np&biw=1230&bih=853&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns &tbnid=JcyLtpRV2L7jkM:&imgrefurl=http://islamichistory.wordpress.com/category/maps/& docid=Y6QlBQkHoOzuSM&imgurl=http://islamichistory.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/age_of _caliphs.png&w=685&h=351&ei=cjX1T5HyKsKi8QPO5dGBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=108&vpy=333&dur=10261&hovh=161&hovw=314&tx=189&ty=94&s ig=109826678027353175186&page=1&tbnh=107&tbnw=209&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:5 ,s:0,i:85

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Historic Maps of Islamic World GREAT and ANATOLIA SELJUKS AND THE KHWARAZM-SHAHS Seljuks: Turkish nomadic tribes originated in Central Asia and spread west from the 8 th ce. onwards.

They adopted the Sunni Islam c.960, under their leader Seljuk.

1038: Beginning of the Seljuk Empire: Seljuk`s three sons and finally his two grandsons, Chaghri Beg (1038-1060) and Tughril Beg (10381063), crossed Khorasan towards west to Afghanistan, where the cities of Merv in 1037, Heart and Nishapur in 1038, were succumbed to them. This heralds the beginning of the Seljuk Empire.Then, the two brothers divided their territory into two: Τhe younger, Chaghri Beg (1038-1060), became the “King of Kings” of Northern Afghanistan (with royal seats in Balkh and Merv) and his older brother Tughril Beg (1038-1063) established himself in Nishapur, from where he expanded towards west, first defeated the Ghaznavids in 1040 and then occupied western Persia, including Rayy (1042), Khwarazmia (1042), provinces bordering the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Khuzistan (105254). In 1055 he invaded Baghdad and replaced the Shiite Buyids as protectors of the Abbasid Caliphate. He then named Isfahan as the capital of his rule.

Tughril`s nephew Alp Arslan (1063-1072) (Chaghril`s son) became the founder of the Unified Great Seljuk State (Empire). In 1071 in Mantzikert, Armenia, Alp Arslan defeated Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes and settled in Nicaea, Anatolia (Asia Minor). Next, Alp Arslan, crossed Oxus River in the east. He was assassinated in 1072. His son, Malik Sah (1072-92), established a cultural golden era for Seljuks and the Empire reached its zenith. He conquered Damascus from the Fatimids in 1076, Konya in 1077 and became ruler of Syria and Palestine in 1078. During his reign the Seljuk Empire extended from the borders of China in the East (including Transoxiana), all the way to Anatolia in the West (including Syria and Diyarbacit) and the whole of Arabia in the south (including the island of Bahrain and Yemen). After Malik`s death, the Empire entered in a decline path, under power struggles for his succession.

1097: Seljuks defeated in Anatolia by the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon. Nicaea was occupied by the Crusades and Konya became the new capital of Anatolian Seljuks.

1097: Beginning of Khwarazmian Empire, inside Seljuk Empire territory (Shah Qutb al-Din Muhammad. Capital Khiva). The Empire included mainly, the current Persia, Uzbekistan and west Afghanistan states.

1117: End of the Seljuk rule in Syria 1118-1157: Sultanate of Seljuk Sanjar 1157: Disintigration of the Seljuk Empire, after the death of Sanjar. Battles against Byzantines, Khwarazmians Turks and Crusades who, under Friederick Barbarossa of Germany, conquered Konya in 1190.

1194: Khwarazmians Tukrs ended the rule of Seljuks in Persia, destroyed Samarqand in 1212 and finally ended Ghurid rule in 1215.

1218: Execution of Mongol merchants by the Khwarazm-Shahs, unleashes the Mongol assault on the West (1220).

1220-1231: Rule of the last Khwarazm Sah, Jalal al-Din. The Khwarazmian Empire in Mongol`s hands.

1258: Mongol assault ends the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.

1260: Mamluks, under Baibar, stopped the western expansion of Mongols in Palestine.

1277: Battle of Elbistan. The Seljuks, supported by Mamluks, pushed Mongols back.

1279: Final Mongol victory over Anatolian Seljuks.

1308: Anatolia subjected to direct Mongol Rule.

1330: The Seltjuk leader Ohran (1326-1360) conquered Nicaea.

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Historic Maps of Islamic World

Eurasia on the eve of the Mongol invasions, c. 1200. Khwarezmian Empire (1097-1231) in the territories of the Seljuk Empire (1038-1157). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PremongolEurasia.png

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Historic Maps of Islamic World Toqtamish (r.1377-1395). He unites the White and Golden Hordes (1378) and plunder Moscow.

1395: Death of Toqtamish and dissolution of the Golden Horde begins (1445-1983), into the new Khanates of: Astrakhan 1466-1556), Kazan (1445-1552), Qasimov (1452-1681), Crimea (1430-1783).

1502: Death of the last Great Kahn of the Golden Horde Sheikh Ahman.

The Tumens of Mongolia Proper and relict states of the Mongol Empire by 1500.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mongolia_1500_AD.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mongol_dominions1.jpg.

Post-Timurid Mongolian Era: Three new Empires and many Khanates developed out of the inheritance of the Timurid Empire: 1. Uzbek Empire (Central Asia, east and south borders of Aral Sea). Shaybanid dynasty (1428-1599), followed by Janid dynasty (also known as Toqay-Temurids) (1599-1747), until the Russia invasion (1852-55).

2. Safavid Empire (Persia) (1501-1722, experiencing a brief restoration from 1729-1736) 3. Mughal Empire (Northern and Central India) (1526-1757) (ended by the British India Company from 1757-1858. Finally, India got its independence in 1947).

4. The Khan Princedoms: From c. 1700 to Russia conquest of Central Asia (1852-1855).

Princedoms of: Kokand (Uzbek tribe) in the Fegana Valley, Princ. of Buchara and Princ. of Khiva (capital of Khwarazmia).

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Islam, History, Art and Architecture

The Deccan sultanates were five Muslim-ruled late medieval kingdoms—Bijapur, Golkonda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar, and Berar, of south-western India. These kingdoms became independent during the breakup of the Bahmani Sultanate. The sultanates were later conquered by the Mughal Empire. Berar was stripped from Ahmadnagar in 1596, Ahmadnagar was completely taken between 1616 and 1636, and Golkonda and Bijapur conquered by Aurangzeb's 1686-87 campaign.

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Deccan_sultanates_from_Sc hwartzberg_Atlas.jpg/349px-Deccan_sultanates_from_Schwartzberg_Atlas.jpg

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Historic Maps of Islamic World

Islamic –Christian clashes in Europe: by Karl Martelos in 732 in Tours of France, 740 in Constantinopoli and 1526 in Hungary (the year of conquest of India by the Mongols, rulling Babur). 

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Islam, History, Art and Architecture JERUSALEM: Contemporary period: British Mandate: Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1917 after the Battle of Jerusalem, during the WWI, between the British and Ottoman armies, the British Army, led by General Edmund Allenby, captured the Jerusalem, and in 1922, the League of Nations at the Conference of Lausanne entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate for Palestine, the neighbouring mandate of Transjordan to the east across the River Jordan, and the Iraq Mandate beyond it. From 1922 to 1948 the total population of the city rose from 52,000 to 165,000 with two thirds of Jews and onethird of Arabs (Muslims and Christians).

Division and reunification 1948–1967:

Israel. Territory held by Israel before and after the Six Day War. The Straits of Tiran are circled, between the Gulf of Aqaba to the north and the Red Sea to the south.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Six_Day_War_Territories.svg

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Plato`s “Politea” and “Oriental Despotism” In his dialogue “Politia” Plato dreams of a State (politea) been governed by an Idea, which takes various names (is realized by) such as “King”, “wise man”, “philosopher”, denying thus entirely the ordinary no-wise people of any political power and authority. Plato argues for a political leader bearing “divine” features, identifying thus the political leader with a divine entity. This is what the Islamic world has fully adapted.

Lastly Plato argues, in his ontology, for an eternal soul, which is embended in an eternal incarnation circle, echoing thus the similar widespread ontologic doctrine in the East, from Induism to Christianity, Jewdism and Islam.

About the Unity of the Human (mind) and Nature, as it is expressed in Architecture The great pre-Socratic Greek metaphysist philosophers (7th-6th ce.b.c), such as Anaxagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitos, were the first Monist Realist, who believed in the unity of the living and the nature. Anaxagoras f.e. named this unit “the universal mind”, Parmenides the “Being” and most extraordinary of all Heraclitos “the contradictory dialectic”, such as the contradictory pairs “death-life” etc. At the same time Budha in the East was claiming: “I am –as a living mindful being- the whole universe”. Later, Pyrhagoras and Plato were the first Dualist Realist who introduced the exclusion duality between the mental-living and the nature. The mental for Pythagora was the “number” for Plato the “Idea”. The Dualism dominated the Western philosophical though up to our days, greatly developed by great thinkers such as Aristotele, Descartes, Hegel. On contrary, in the East the Monistic Unity of the mental (human) and the nature never was denied and abandoned.

And this is reflected, I think, in the Garden-Palace Islamic Architecture, which deeply influenced first the Garden-City conception of Howard in late 19th ce, and the Modern Western Architecture of the 20th ce, in the hands of great architects such as the German W. Gropius, American F.L. Wright and French Le-Corbusier, Avo Aalto, L.M. van der Roche, etc., as I will discuss in my next post. The ontologic unity of human (mental) and the physical (nature) dominated ultimately the philosophy of science and mind of the Western thought!

Here, unity of mind and nature should be conceived as stressing the importance of nature in the development of human (mental) nature.

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Islam, History, Art and Architecture ASSIGNMENT 2: Types to Mosques Introduction: There are two main types of mosques: i) Those in which their functionality determines their architectural form. Functionality here should be undestood as the provision of faccilities and possibilites for the satisfaction of the religious esoteric and exoteric needs and attitudes of the faithfull, but not only (see below). Such a determining factor, is the avalaibility of enough space in the domain of the mosque. Such mosques are the Couryard mosques, ii) Those in which their Form determines their meaning and function. These are the Mosques-Symbols, such as the Sanctuaries and Shrines of Islam, which expicitly communicate a Divine message (meaning) through their Symbolic, or Semiotic Form. Such mosques are the Haram in Mecca and the Dome of the Rock in Jerousalem, Similarly, such mosques-symbols are also those which communicate their meaning through the Tombs of the sacred they encompass, such as the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, the Srhrine of Ali in Najaf and the Shrine of Hussein in Kerbala. We can lastly distinguish a type of mosque which combines features of the above two types, such as the Ottoman type, which, along with the veneration to God, aims also to symbilize the authoritative power, dominance, richness and piousness of its Sultan founder. Such mosque is f.e. the Suleimaniye Mosque in Istanbul.

Mosques in which functionality determines their architectural form. i) Ribat Mosques: They consist of a square ground plan courtyards and a fortified wall around it, with enormous round towers at each corner of the latter and semi-circular tower-bastions in the middle of its courtain walls. The walls surround the courtyard and protects the multi-floor buildings consisting of living quarters, a prayer hall with Mihrab and storehouses for provisions and weapons. They are buitl for prepartaion fot the holly war (jihad) and as a defence against the Crusades, as meeting places of the warriors (almarabitum), as places of refuge and treasure strorage. They are really “militant mosques�. Examples: The Ribat of Monastit in Ifriqiyan (756) and of Sousse (821). Also, Ribat-like was the Great Mosque of al-Mutawakiil at Samara (848-852-see below). ii) Courtyard Mosques: They are the well known Friday Mosques, which function as holly places for the main Friday pray of a large number of followers, but also as places in which the Islamic community exercises and develop its social-political and even economic (such as tax-collections) relations among its members and generally as places of strengthening the Islamic social and religious brotherhood bonds and consciousness. We can distinguish two types of courtyard mosques: i) the Christian Basilika-like Ummayad featuring a three aisle prayer hall (haram), and ii) the mutli-aisle prayer hall of the hypostyle type mosques, mainly of the Abbasid rule, Fatimid reigh in Northern Africa and the Ummayad dynasty in Islamic Spain.

Examples of the basilika-like type are the Great Mosques of Damascus (707-714) and Great Mosque of Allepo (716), built by the two brothers caliphs Walid Sulaiman (715-717) respectively. The Great Mosques of Damascus consists of a wide coryard surrounded by ambulatories around its three sides. On its 4th side there is the prayer hall consisting of three aisles running parallel to the Mecca oriented qibla wall with the Michrab Niche inside it. The aisles are bordered by two columns with ancient Corinthians capitals suppotting round arches parallel to the qibla wall. The entablature formed above the convexes of the arches, supports shorter arched colonades wich in turn support the above

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Islamic Art and Aesthetics flat wooden roof. At right angles to the aisles (and qibla wall) is running a shorter transept, towering high above the roofs of the aisles, and opening in the courtyard throug a dominat main ornamented with folliage faรงade, and pointing directly inside the preyer hall in front of the qibla wall and Mihrab, instituting thus the T shape of the mosque. At the crossing poin of the transept with the aisle in front of the Mihrab enclosure, a prominent dome is towered giving prominence to the side of the magsura. The ambulatory around the three sides of the cortyard (cloister) consists of a single aisle with two stories of archways. In the soutn side of the the courtyard there exists a pavillon-like ritual fountain and on the north side a small ocatgonal domed treasury annex on eight classical colonades.

The hypostyle type of mosque features a preyer hall consisting of many aisles, running parallel or perpendicular to the qibla wall, bordered either i) by many raws of (multi) arched-vaulted (pointed, or horseshoe) collumns supporting a flat timber (wooden) roof, or ii) by arcades on heavy masonry pillars supposting a barrel-vaulted masonry, brick (riwaq), or wooden roof. The same construction form characterizes the ambulatory around th courtyard. Examples of the type i) are the Great Mosques of al Mutawakki at Samara (848852), of Kairouan (Aglabids-9th ce), of Tunis (856-865) and Mosques of Ibh Tulun in Cairo (876-879), al Ashar in Cairo (972, Fatimids), al Hakim in Cairo (990-1013) and of the type ii) the G.M. of Sousse (850), the mosques of Damghan, Nayin (9th ce), Aby Dal af in Samara (with timber roof) and the Ukhaldir palace Mosque (8th ce), Great Mosque of Cordoba, 785988 (Umayyads), G.M. of Tlemcen in Algeria (Mahreb), 1082 (Almoravids), G.M. of Marakech (Kutubiya), 1158, Morocco (Almohads), Friday Mosque of Gulbarga, Deccan (1365-70).

Ottoman style: Agias Sophia, Istanbul, 532-537, built by Ictions and Isidoros, ruling Emperor Justine I and the Suleymaniye Mosque 1550-1557, bilt by Sinan, rulling Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566). This consistis of cross-in-a rectangle ground plan, featuring a compact highly centralized building, communicating authoritative power, dominance, richness and piousness of its Sultan founder.

Interior of Suleymaniye Mosque: Four massive square pillars arranged in in a rectangular layotu are vaulted with huge pointed masonry arches. The apexes of the arches and the bases of the triangular sprandels formed between the adjacent arches, form the supporing bases upon which the enormous central Dome of the Mosque is based. Beyond the rectangular space otuline by the pre-mentioned four massive pillars and in the East-Westw axis of the main Dome, there axtended two deep and spacious semi-cylindrical niches doomed by large semidomes, reaching at a height level lower than that of the main Dome`s.

In the convex walls of each of the semi-coomed niches there is a row of high tripartite niches, of which the two side ones are domed with pseudo-domes, while the eastern central niche of the tripartite complex contains the Mirhab. All the pre-mentioned auxillary semi-domes form a weight supporting buttressing ring around the main Dome, which carry the weight of the Dome to the ground (see below). The architectural form is an immitation of its predecessors Byzantine Cathedral of Agias Sophia, Istanbul, 532-537,

by Ictions and Isidoros.

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Islamic Art and Aesthetics arranged around a “hollowed” courtyard and opened off the latter through large portal facades with deep tympanums. The oriantated towards Mecca larger and most prominent iwan, bearing the qibla wall and Mihrab, serves as the prayer hall and is domed in the standard “transitional zone” mode, which, in elevation plan, consists of the transformation of the base square dome chamber into an octagon, which in turn supports a 16-sided zone that supports the hemispheric base (drum) of the dome (see Veramin Mosque, Ilkanid period in Iran1322-1326, south of Tehran). The other 3 iwan halls are barrel-vaulted in the standard mode. The 4-iwan halls are inter-comminicating by mutlistoried vaulted nichescells, quarters, rooms and halls, all open off to open, arcaded on collumns, two storied galerries, around the inner-coryard. The 4-iwan commplex layout allocate its 3 less prominnet iwans as madrassas (legal scholls), the 4th as a prayer hall and a Michrab in it and the niched cells between them as student residence and libraries. Similarly it can comprise a monastery and/or kanqua of the Sufi brotherhood`s congregations and residence. Due to increasing building density in the densely populated cities in the Mamluk era in Egypt, the 4-iwan laytout was originally reuced to a 2-iwan style, or the 3 side iwanhalls of the 4-iwan style, are spatially reuced to swallow niches. Eventually a roof is placed over the couryard, rendering the 4-iwan cortyard layout to a closed cubic-like builidng very similar to other secular builidngs, functioning as a madrassa with a Mihrab in it. The latter closed 4-iwan laytout was also adjoined by a mausloleum, constituting thus a mutlifunctional complex of builidngs, which could also include a 2-iwan mosque. The mausoleum per cecould be conceived as structues very similar, in their arctitectural form, with the above mentioned qibla iwan hall domed in the “transitional zone” mode. The mausloleums had religious character, featured by their qibla wall with Mihrab and their spacious halls included the kenotaphs of the venerated royal or religious personalities, buried right below the kenotaph of behind the qibla wall. The madrassas or kanqua of the closed 4-iwan complexes are adjoined to the mausoleum as a salient closed projection from its qibla wall. As such, in thse mausoleum complexes, is the mausoleum the structure with the most prominent significance, not the mosque per ce (if it exists). The mausoleums can thus be classified as Symbolic Religious Complexes, communicating the political or religious significance of the deadand aiming to the immortal remembrance of the latter (see below).

Examples of 4-iwan Complexes: Great Mosque of Isfahan (4-iwan with domed qibla iwan)(1611-1630), rec. by Shah Abas (1587-1629), which replaced the old Seltzuk Friday Mosque of 1121/22, Friday Mosque of Heart (1200, Ghurids), Madrass complex al Fridaus in Allepo (1235-1241-Ayyubids), Sultan-Hasan complex in Cairo (1356-1362-Mamluk), Sultan Qalawun`s complex (with Byzantine tyle domed mausloleum), in Cairo (1284-5, Mamluk), Monastery of Sultan Faraj Ibn Barquq, Cairo (1400-1411, Mamluk) (not iwan-like, but coutyad like G.M. of Damascus, Mamluk), Mausoleum complex of Sultan Qaitbal al in Cairo (1472-1474, Mamluk), Qajmas al-Ishaqi complex in Cairo (1480, Mamluk), Mausoleum of Emir Hairback in Cairo (1502, Mamluk), Kwasau Pasha`s Mosque complex in Cairo (15371546, of Ottoman style, by Sinan), Royal Tomb Complex of Uljaitil at Sultaniya (1315-1325, Ilkhanids), Khoja Ahmad Yasawl Mausolem Complex in Turkestan (1389-1399, Timurids), Gur-I Mir Mausoleum Comples in Samargand (14-15th ce. Tombs of Timur and his descendants), Mir-I Arab Mausoleum Complex in Bukhara (1535-6, Timurids), Pakhla Mahmud (poet) Mausoleum in Khiva (14-20th ce, Timurids), Akbar`s Mausoleum (with garden), Sikandra(1612-1614), Mughal India, Ibrahim Rauza Mausoleum Comlex (with garden) (1626), Bijanpur, Deccan, Mughal India, Taj Mahal Masoleum (with garden and pool), (1632-1643), Agra, Mughal India.

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Islamic Art and Aesthetics Platonic and Islamic Aniconism- A comparative study-Part-I Islam, in its aim to reconcile ancient Greek philoosphy with Quran`s new relevation, favoured and adopted the classical arguments for a divine unite, as those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotele and later on by Plotin (Nepplatonism).

For Pythagoras (6th century B.C.) the God is mathematics and numbers: “All things are made of numbers”. Plato, by analogy, introduced in his ontology the “Ideas” (Forms), abstract entities which constitute the unesperienced and unconceived logically, Real World, in constrast to our false physical world which is a mere “phenomenon” (phenomenalism) and an imperfect coly of the former. This is the Platonic Realism. Plato consideres as “God” the “Idea of all Ideas” which he identified with the “Idea of the Truth”, which further is identified with the “Idea of Beaty and Morality” (Καλό). The Ideas are “self-determined” and as such do not correspond to anything else in the physical world and thus they are meaningless, since they are the source of the meaning of everything in the world. Ideas (such as the greatest of all, i.e. the Idea of God) are not either perceptible by experience, or even by logical concpetion. We can approach them vaguely only through instict and mystical, ecstatic union, such as when we have been fallen in love (eros), meaning here the “erotic hapiness” rather than the erotic passion. Plato, following Pythagora, identified finally the Idea of God and Beuaty, with that of Mathematics and Geometry. But now Platonicn Geometry should be conceived –not in the usual figurative manner- but as been expressed in terms of Cartesian Analytical Geometry, that is, geometry which is expressed in terms of abstarct trigonometric algebra. Thus Platonicn Geometry is not geometric figures, but instead abstract “algebraic relations”.

Thus Platonic Geometry loses any element of the common physical realism. Geometry is the essence of God and any attemtp to immiate and represent it with any pepceptible physcial figure is unacceptable and constitutes an offense to God himself. The same applies for any attempt to describe or represent God with any anthropomorphic manner.

Furhter it is an offence to him even to represent the human body, which is the “house” of the Soul, of Divine Substance and origin. Hence Plato`s low appreciation for representativ arts, considering them ‘a copy of a copy’, or ‘a third removal from the truth’. And for these reasons, Plato favored only music amongst the arts, as being a type of purely abstract art. Plato`s Ideas were continued by Plotinus (200-269 A.D.), been Born in Alexandria of Egypt, and spread all over the early Arab world. Hence the considerable influence of Plato`s ideas on Islamic philosophy, mysticism (Sufism) and Aesthetic.

Accordingly, in the Arabic intellectual domain, philosophy was reformulated to theological sensibilities, rather than the other way round. Now we undesrstand Plato`s aniconism, fully adapted by Islam, in its Aestheric domain.

Final comment: Plato in his last “dialgogue” Fedro, argus –extrapolating his above ideasargus that the “Beautifull Body” is not only this which express perfect Geometric qualities, such as harmony, proportinality, symmetria, but this which behaves and acts Morally intact. That body carries a morally perfect soul (of Divine substance), which is the “abstract form” of the material body. In the end: A moral soul “constructs” (inhabits) a beautifull body (in Geometric terms), which as such behaves morally perfectly. But still the body cannot expess the unparallel beuaty of its soul and any attempt to mimic the last in terms of the former is an offenst to her.

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Islamic Art and Aesthetics The psychoanalysis of (an)Iconism An essential requirement for the images (painting, or sculpture) to be classified as real art works, is the attitude of their art-creator, during their creation, to be overwhelmed by the pseudo-illusion that he is a real creator of life who is breathing life into his/hers work of art. From this view then, the images, as real art-works, are “living” existences. This is an archetype instinct and belief of all artists in the whole history of art. And it is impressive that this attitude has passed on to the non-artist humans as well. Hence the magic and influencial power the images are exercising on humans in ritual and religious festives and actions, up to nowadays, in primeval or civilized societies. We all know the myth of Narcissus who fell in love with its river image and was drawn in his attempt to kiss it. We also know that Pygmalion fall in love with his female sculpture, which, with the aid of Afrodite (Venus), became real. Finally we know that Dorian Gray also fell in love with his own mirror-image. The artist`s pseudo-illusion of being a life-creator and giver, is impressively exhibited in the following passages: 1) Lucian Freud (a British painter of German origin, born in 1922 and one of the greatest expressionistic artist of 20-21st ce, the grandson of Sigmund Freud), wrote: “A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation, but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then, that the painter realises that is only a picture he is painting. Until then, he had almost dared to hope that the picture might spring to life”.

2) Vasari tells that, Donatello at work of his Zuccone, looking at it suddenly and threatening the stone with a dreadful curse, was shouting: “Speak, speak….”!

3) Leonardo da Vinci, praised the artist as “the Lord of all manner of people and of all things. If the painter wished to see beauties to fall in love with, it is in his power to bring them forth and if he wants to see monstrous things that frighten or are foolish or laughable, or indeed to be pitied, he is their Lord and God”. And Leonardo continues: “Painters often fall in despair….when they see that their paintings lack the roundness and liveliness, which we find in objects seen in the mirror….but it is impossible for a painting to look as rounded as a mirror image…except if you look at both with one eye only”.

Perhaps this passage may explain Leonardo`s reluctance to reach the fatal moment of completion and explain his many unfinished works. He probably turned to mathematics and to engineering, in order to become a real creator by his attempt to create the “flying machine” as a live “flying bird”.

But it is that artist`s pseudo-illusion of been a creator of living images, which constitutes his rivalry with Religion of all monotheistic dogmas (including to some extent even the eastern Orthodox Christians, who ban sculptures from churches as been too real!). It has been argued that the Old Testament`s ban on “graven images” is connected non only with a fear of idolatry, but with the more universal fear of encroaching on the Creator`s prerogatives.

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Islamic Painting and Calligraphy

The assignment1 that follows has been written by, and is entirely the work of, <Dimitrios Antoniou>

Two Lovers, 1630 Riza Abbasi, (c. 1565–1635). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Twolovers.jpg

Riza Abbasi,Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, (c. 1565–1635) was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Sha Abbas I. He is considered to be the last great master of the Persian miniature, best known for his single miniatures for muraqqa or albums, especially single figures of beautiful youths.

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Islamic Painting and Calligraphy Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353) (external source) The Mongol invasions of the Islamic world began in 1221 with the conquest of eastern Iran. A more devastating wave of conquest, however, came with Genghis Khan's grandson Hülegü, when Mongol forces subjugated all of Iran and by 1258 had also taken Baghdad, thus bringing to an end the cAbbasid caliphate (750–1258). Establishing rule over most of West Asia, including Iraq, Iran, Khorasan, the Caucasus, and parts of Asia Minor, Hülegü (r. 1256–65) assumed the title of "Il-Khan," meaning lesser Khan, subordinate to the Great Khan ruling in China. This branch of the Mongol dynasty, which became known as the Ilkhanids (1256–1353), centered its power in northwest Iran.

Although Mongol conquests initially brought devastation and affected the balance of artistic production, in a short period of time, the control of most of Asia by the Mongols—the so-called Pax Mongolica—created an environment of tremendous cultural exchange. Following the conversion to Islam of the Il-Khan Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) in 1295 and the establishment of his active cultural policy in support of his new religion, Islamic art flourished once again. East Asian elements absorbed into the existing PersoIslamic repertoire created a new artistic vocabulary, one that was emulated from Anatolia to India, profoundly affecting artistic production.

During the Ilkhanid period, the decorative arts—textiles, pottery, metalwork, jewelry, and manuscript illumination and illustration—continued along and further developed established lines. The arts of the book, however, including illuminated and illustrated manuscripts of religious and secular texts, became a major focus of artistic production.

Baghdad became an important center once again. In illustration, new ideas and motifs were introduced into the repertoire of the Muslim artist, including an altered and more Chinese depiction of pictorial space, as well as motifs such as lotuses and peonies, cloud bands, and dragons and phoenixes. Popular subjects, also sponsored by the court, included well-known stories such as the Shahnama (Book of Kings), the famous Persian epic. Furthermore, the widespread use of paper and textiles also enabled new designs to be readily transferred from one medium to another.

Along with their renown in the arts, the Ilkhanids were also great builders. The lavishly decorated Ilkhanid summer palace at Takht-i Sulayman (ca. 1275), a site with preIslamic Iranian resonances, is an important example of secular architecture. The outstanding Tomb of Uljaytu (built 1307–13; r. 1304–16) in Sultaniyya, however, is the architectural masterpiece of the period. Following their conversion to Islam, the

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Safavids, 16th ce.

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Saki, album miniature, 1609, by Reza Abbasi (c. 1565â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1635).

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations. In the most strict definition of the term, an illuminated manuscript only refers to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saki_-_Reza_Abbasi_-_Moraqqa%E2%80%99e_Golshan_1609_Golestan_Palace.jpg

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Islam, History, Art and Architecture

The Prophet and his companions advancing on Mecca, attended by the angels Gabriel, Michael, Israfil and Azrail. Siyer-i Nebi: The Life of the Prophet 1595.

Hazine 1223, folio 298a. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/Pictures2/ul167.jpg

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Mughal Miniatures

1561-The Submission of the rebel brothers Ali Quli and Bahadur Khan-Akbarnama.

ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1561The_Submission_of_the_rebel_brothers_Ali_Quli_and_Bahadur_Khan-Akbarnama.jpg

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Mughal Miniatures

Nur Jahan Begum Nur Jahan (alternative spelling Noor Jahan, Nur Jehan, Nor Jahan, etc.) (31 May 1577â&#x20AC;&#x201C;17 December 1645), also known as Mehr-un-Nisaa, was Empress of the Mughal Empire that covered much of the Indian subcontinent. She was an aunt of Empress Mumtaz Mahal, Emperor Shah Jahan's wife for whom the Taj Mahal was made. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nurjahan.jpg

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Islamic Metallic Art 7) LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art): ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=jump;dtype=i;startat=85

Ewer, Iran, 12th ce.

Bronze casted ewer with repouse foliage medallion in the neck and engraved body.

Decorative casted mythical creature in the neck.

Crystal Fatimid Ewer, Louvre.

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture If by eternity is understood not endless (inside time) temporal duration, but timelessness (outside time), then he lives eternally who lives in the presence. Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit”. Wittgenstein: “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”: Prop. 6.4311 ii) “…The solution of the riddle of life (in conjunction with the problem of the temporal immortality of our soul, that is its eternal survival after death) in space and time lies outside space and time”.

Wittgenstein: “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”: Prop. 6.4312 

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_5_5c.html

The Pisa Griffin, probably created in the 11th century in Al-Andaluz, is the largest Islamic figurative sculpture to survive. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Pisa-Opera_del_DuomoGrifone_islamico000.jpg/576px-Pisa-Opera_del_Duomo-Grifone_islamico000.jpg

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Islamic Pottery The Book of Human`s Philosophy in the Form of a humble Ceramic clay earthenware-II

This is white tin-glazed earthenware with one short and yet not-deciphered under-glazed Kuffic script in blue, belonging to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;white and blueâ&#x20AC;? era commencing in the 9th ce, in Iraq. I vastly like this, made of humble earthly clay, ceramic art work, because I conceive, interpret and therefore I see! in it its whiteness as a sign of the Infinite unconceivable and unobserved Divine Form (Platonic Idea), which (ontologically) exists as a mindindependent substance, timeless, eternal and spaceless.

And I also conceive and see the Kuffic script in blue as a symbol of the finite human wisdom and mind. Form and meaning, divine and physical coexist in absolute harmony in this earthenware. The Essence and absoluteness of the World condensed in one simple humble piece of clay! The book of human being`s philosophy in the form of a humble piece of earth. Indeed it is calling us into a philosophical dialogue with it, rising question as such: a) Does the Divine (whiteness) exists ontologically independently of the human mind (Kuffic blue script)? b) Which comes first? The Form (Divine) or the Human Mind? c) Does the Divine contains in itself its own meaning (truth)?, or it requires always an earthly physical referred counterpart?. Does this Divine`s physical reference requires the intervention of the logic of the mind or not?. First the non-speculative metaphysical Philosophers, such as Plato and Heidegger, would say that the Divine (Form-Idea) is truth self-determined. On contrary, the speculative philosophers would agree that a truth self-

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Islamic Pottery

The monumental style, characterised by centrally arranged bold motifs reserved in white on a solid lustre background.

The miniature style, characterised by designs that are painted in lustre on the white background, while the designs are also smaller and sometimes organised in natural settings or divided registers.

The Kashan style, characterised by a lustre background with scratched motifs and figures drawn in reserve and filled with lustre motifs.

Inv. no. 50/1966: Fritware dish painted in lustre over an opaque, white tin-glaze; outside glazed blue. Iran, Kashan; end of twelfth century. Height: c. 11 cm; diameter: 47.5 cm. Inv. no. 50/1966. It is of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;monumental style,â&#x20AC;? in which the unpainted in reserve whith motif emerged on a brown luster background after firing.

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Islamic Pottery

1) Fritware bowl in minai style with in and under glaze polychrome figural painting in haftrag palette.

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture

Thuluth script is characterized by curved letters written with barbed heads. The letters are linked and sometimes intersecting, thus engendering a cursive flow of ample and often complex proportions. Thuluth is known for its elaborate graphics and remarkable plasticity. It is still the most important of all the ornamental scripts.

Deewani script is an Ottoman development parallel to Shikasteh (broken style). The script was largely developed by the accomplished calligrapher Ibrahim Munif in the late 15th century from the Turkish/Persian Ta'liq. Deewani reached its zenith in the 17th century, thanks to the famous calligrapher Shala Pasha.

Like Riq'a, Deewani became a favourite script for writing in the Ottoman chancellery.

Deewani is excessively cursive and highly structured with its letters undotted and unconventionally joined together. It uses no vowel marks. Deewani also developed an ornamental variety called Deewani Jali which also was known as Humayuni (Imperial). The development of Deewani Jali is credited to Hafiz Uthman. The spaces between the letters are spangled with decorative devices which do not necessarily have any orthographic value. Deewani Jali is highly favoured for ornamental purposes.

Riqa. This script, also called Ruq'ah (small sheet), evolved from Naskh and Thuluth.

Although Riq'a has a close affinity with Thuluth, Riq'a developed in a different direction.

Riq'a became simplified. The geometric forms of the letters are similar to those of Thuluth but are smaller with more curves. Riq'a is rounded and densely structured with short horizontal stems, and the letter alif is never written with barbed heads. Riq'a was one of the favourite scripts of Ottoman calligraphers and underwent many improvements at the hand of Shaykh Hamdullah al-Amasi. Later, Riq'a was revised by other calligraphers and went on to become the most popular and widely used script. Today, Riq'a is the preferred script for handwriting throughout the Arab world.

Farsi. Ta'liq (hanging) script is believed to have been developed by the Persians from an early and little known Arabic script called Firamuz. Ta'liq, also called Farsi, is an unpretentious cursive script apparently in use since the early 9th century.

The calligrapher Abd al-Hayy, from the town of Astarabad, seems to have played an important role in the scriptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s early development. He was encouraged by his patron, Shah Isma'il, to lay down the basic rules for the writing of Ta'liq. The script is currently in great favour with Arabs, and it is the native calligraphic style among the Persian, Indian, and Turkish Muslims.

The Persian calligrapher Mir Ali Sultan al-Tabrizi developed from Ta'liq a lighter and more elegant variety which came to be known as Nasta'liq. However, Persian and Turkish calligraphers continued to use Ta'liq as a monumental script for important occasions.

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Object Name: Non-illustrated manuscript, folio: Muhaqqaq Style.

Title: Qur'an Manuscript.

Calligrapher: Ahmad ibn al-Suhrawardi al-Bakri.

Date: A.H. 707/ A.D. 1307â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8.

Geography: Iraq, Baghdad.

Medium: Ink, colors, and gold on paper.

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Page of a 12th century Qur'an written in the Andalusi script. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/AndalusQuran.JPG/514pxAndalusQuran.JPG

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17th century Ottoman velvet cushion cover, with stylized carnation motifs. Floral motifs were common in Ottoman art. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ottoman_cover.jpg

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Islamic Aesthetics in Islam; doctrines that affirmed a divine unity, such as those of Plato and Aristotle were, naturally, more favourably received.

The Neoplatonists themselves traced their roots back to the semi-legendary Pythagoras (6th century B.C.) and the school that developed his ideas. The Pythagoreans were the first to believe that the structure of the universe was to be found in mathematics – ‘All things are made of numbers’ - and it can be fairly said that they laid the foundations of both arithmetic and geometry. This school was much concerned with ratios and proportions (they also uncovered the laws of musical harmony), and seem to have ascribed mystical properties to both numbers and geometrical figures. For the Pythagoreans, numbers and proportions took the place of the Gods. They had a separate existence of their own, entirely independent of men’s minds, the contemplation of which was a form of devotion or prayer.

Plato was greatly influenced by these theories and adopted their belief that number and form were the keys to a deeper understanding of the universe. He was also sympathetic to their perception of the gross material world as a place of corruption and illusion. Plato’s philosophical ideas are extensive and not easily summarised, but one consistent theme was that of a supersensible realm of ‘Forms’, of which the world of ordinary experience was an imperfect copy. He was deeply interested in geometry and clearly felt that its method, which produced clear and definite proofs, could be more generally applied. In the Platonic view the world of Forms or Ideas is separate and superior to our world of ordinary experience – and free of its illusions.

This proposition, the existence of a place, beyond our immediate sense-experience, of timeless perfection, colours the whole range of Plato’s thought. He had a very low regard for the art of representation, seeing this as ‘a copy of a copy’, or ‘a third removal from the truth’. For Plato the truly beautiful could not be conveyed by any work of representation or imagination; at best these could only ever be conditionally beautiful.

True beauty had to express at least some of the eternal quality of his ‘Forms’, the terms of which he seems only to have found in geometry.

Philosophy in Islam The Neoplatonists, who conveyed Plato’s philosophical ideas to the Islamic world, had in fact elaborated his philosophical system into a complex cosmology of their own. This movement originated in Alexandria in the 3rd century A.D. (long after the decline of Classical Athens). It was eclectic and was influenced by Pythagoras, Aristotle and the Stoics as well as Plato. In its later development it absorbed Jewish and Christian precepts. The main aim of its founder, Plotinus (200-269 A.D.), was to connect with the supreme unity, the source of all existence and all knowledge, through mystical, ecstatic union. In this system, the lower, material levels of existence are a sort of overflow of the divine fullness. These, and later Neoplatonic speculations, exerted a considerable influence on Islamic philosophy, and on Islamic mysticism (Sufism).

In time, as they became more discriminating, Muslim scholars were able to separate out the older Classical philosophies from later accretions, and to make their own

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture aesthetic sensibilities appear to crystallise around essentially Platonic (geometric) notions of beauty. In fact (again ironically), the geometric and arabesque decorative modes, which are now so completely associated with Islam in all its manifestations, were originally adopted as the identifiable style of a renascent, Sunni orthodoxy.

Classical philosophy, always treated with suspicion by the narrowly religious, could not thrive in the spiritual and political turmoil that characterised the Islamic world from the 12th/6thcentury on. But pure Geometry could never be considered as heretical, and the interplay of Platonic figures on the Euclidean plane, clearly did not violate any injunction in the Holy Qur’an or the Hadith. But the connection with the Classical past was never entirely forgotten. In a revealing passage in the Introduction to his ‘History of the World’, the famous 14th/8thcentury author Ibn Khuldun makes various observations, presumably of fairly widespread currency, about the craft of carpentry …

‘In view of its origin, carpentry needs a good deal of geometry of all kinds. It requires either a general or specialised knowledge of proportion and measurement in order to bring forms from potentiality into actuality in the proper manner, and for the knowledge of proportions one must have recourse to the geometrician. Therefore the leading Greek geometricians were all master carpenters. Euclid, the author of the ‘Book of Principles’, was a carpenter, and known as such. The same was the case with Apollonius, the author of the book on ‘Conic Sections’, and Menelaus and others.’

‘The Craft of Carpentry’ in the Muqaddimah.

Islamic aesthetics Islamic art is not, properly speaking, an art pertaining to religion only. The term "Islamic" refers not only to the religion, but to any form of art created in an Islamic culture or in an Islamic context. It would also be a mistake to assume that all Muslims are in agreement on the use of art in religious observance, the proper place of art in society, or the relation between secular art and the demands placed on the secular world to conform to religious precepts. Islamic art frequently adopts secular elements and elements that are frowned upon, if not forbidden, by some Islamic theologians.

According to Islam, human works of art are inherently flawed compared to the work of God; thus, it is believed by many that to attempt to depict in a realistic form any animal or person is insolence to God. This tendency has had the effect of narrowing the field of artistic possibility to such forms of art as Arabesque, mosaic, Islamic calligraphy, and Islamic architecture, as well as more generally any form of abstraction that can claim the status of non-representational art.

The limited possibilities has been explored by artists as an outlet to artistic expression, and has been cultivated to become a positive style and tradition, emphasizing the decorative function of art, or its religious functions via non-representational forms such as Geometric patterns, floral patterns, and arabesques.

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Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām with the Kaaba, in Mecca, built at Prophet`s time (570-632).

Links:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Kaaba_mirror_edit_jj.jpg/6 40px-Kaaba_mirror_edit_jj.jpg  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_mosques

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Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, built in 691. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/110409_042.jpg/640px110409_042.jpg

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Great Mosque of Damascus, built in 715. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Umayyad_Mosque%2C_Dam ascus.jpg/640px-Umayyad_Mosque%2C_Damascus.jpg

Great Mosque of Damascus, built in 715. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Umayyad_Mosquee_panora mic.jpg/640px-Umayyad_Mosquee_panoramic.jpg

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Great Mosque of Damascus, built in 715.

The shrine of John the Baptist (or Yahya) inside the mosque's prayer hall ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/StJohnInUmmayad.jpg/640 px-StJohnInUmmayad.jpg

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Shrine of Ali ar-Ridha, the 8th Twelver Shia Imam, built in end of 9th ce., in Mashhad, Iran. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/RezaShrine.jpg/640pxRezaShrine.jpg

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Mosque of Uqba (Kairouan), Tunisia, built from 670 by Abbasids and Aghlabids (9th century). It is a courtyard Hypostyle Mosque. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Kairouan_Mosque_Stitched_ Panorama.jpg/640px-Kairouan_Mosque_Stitched_Panorama.jpg

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(800-909, conquered by Fatimids)

The Ribbat of Monastir, Tunisia, founded in 796, under Aghlabids (800-909, conquered by Fatimids). ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/TUNISIE_MONASTIR_RIBAT_ 02.jpg/681px-TUNISIE_MONASTIR_RIBAT_02.jpg

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture

GHAZNAVIDS (967-1186) fallen to GHURIDS (1169-1215), fallen to Khwarazmians (Turko-Monglolic tribes)

The Jamkaran Mosque in Jamkaran, 984, Qom, Iran. This Mosque is significant because of the wide spread belief that the hidden Imam, the 12th Imam, Zaman will reappear from Jamkaran well at the appointed time. ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Jamkaran_Mosque3855.jpg/640px-Jamkaran_Mosque-3855.jpg

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture

The Kharāghān twin towers, in Iran, is the burial of Seljuk princes.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Kharaghan.jpg/610pxKharaghan.jpg

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Great Mosque (Cathedral) of Cordoba, Spain, built from 750 (Umayyads). Now a cathedral known as the Mezquita.

ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Mosque_Cordoba.jpg/640px -Mosque_Cordoba.jpg

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Sultan Hassan Moschee in Cairo, Egypt. Its construction began 1356.

ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/Kairo_Sultan_Hassan_Mosch ee_BW_1.jpg/628px-Kairo_Sultan_Hassan_Moschee_BW_1.jpg

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Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, 1389-1399, Turkestan in southern Kazakhstan.

ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Turkestan.jpg

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Great Mosques, Shrines, Madrasas, Mausoleums

2.

(1501-1722, experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736).

Great Mosque of Isfahan (Shah Mosque), Iran, built from 9th ce. by Abbasids, to 10th ce. to Buyids and mainly by the Seljuks in 12th ce. Its renovation continued 611-1629 by the Safavid Persian dynasty ruled from 1501 to 1722.

Links: ď&#x201A;ˇ ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Shahmosque.jpg/640pxShahmosque.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_architecture

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3.

, (1526 to 1757).

The Taj Mahal in Agra (1648) India, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife, represents the pinnacle of Mughal Islamic architecture in India and is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world.

Brief History of India: Invasion in India from 711 by Arab Muslims and Mongols. 1398: Invasion by Timur (1370-1455). 1526: Victory of the Mongol Babur (over the Lodi ruled of Delhi, Ibrahim (1517-1526) and beginning of the Mughal Empire (*) ended in 1858 by the British India Company. India becomes a British viceroyship in 1858. India got his independence in 1947. (*) Mughal Empire included Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of northern India

ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Taj_Mahal_2012.jpg/640pxTaj_Mahal_2012.jpg

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Great Mosques, Shrines, Madrasas, Mausoleums

The Badshahi Masjid, literally the “Royal Mosque”, India, was built in 1674 by Aurangzeb. It is one of Lahore's best known landmarks, and epitomizes the beauty and grandeur of the Mughal era.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Badshahi_Mosque_July_1_2 005_pic32_by_Ali_Imran_%281%29.jpg/640pxBadshahi_Mosque_July_1_2005_pic32_by_Ali_Imran_%281%29.jpg

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture

Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey, 1550-7. The Süleymaniye Mosque was built on the order of Sultan Süleyman (Süleyman the Magnificent) "was fortunate to be able to draw on the talents of the architectural genius of Mimar Sinan" (481 Traditions and Encounters: Brief Global History). The construction work began in 1550 and the mosque was finished in 1558.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Istanbul__S%C3%BCleymaniye_camii_dal_Corno_d%27oro_-_Foto_G._Dall%27Orto_28-52006.jpg/640px-Istanbul_-_S%C3%BCleymaniye_camii_dal_Corno_d%27oro__Foto_G._Dall%27Orto_28-5-2006.jpg

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Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia, built in 1961-1978, by architect F. Silaban.

The foundation stone was laid by Sukarno (*) on 24 August 1961 and the construction took 17 years. Indonesian president Suharto (**) inaugurated the Indonesian national mosque on 22 February 1978. (*) first President of Indonesia (r. from 1945 to 1967, died in 1970), who replaced by (**) his general Suharto, the 2nd Indonesian President (r.1967-1998, died in 2008).

ď&#x201A;ˇ

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Istiqlal_Mosque_Monas.jpg/ 640px-Istiqlal_Mosque_Monas.jpg

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Great Mosques, Shrines, Madrasas, Mausoleums

The Bahá'í House of Worship in New Delhi, India, popularly known as the Lotus Temple because of its flowerlike shape, is a Bahá'í House of Worship and also a prominent attraction in Delhi. It was completed in 1986 and serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent. The surface of the House of Worship is made of white marble from Penteli mountain in Greece, the very same from which many ancient monuments and other Bahá'í Houses of Worship are built. The architect was an Iranian, who now lives in Canada, named Fariborz Sahba. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/LotusDelhi.jpg/640pxLotusDelhi.jpg

The Bahá'í House of Worship in New Delhi, India. Interior view. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Temple

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture

Ablaq: Specific examples include the use of the ablaq technique of alternating stones of different colors, particularly red and white,or black basalt and white limestone.

The ablaq is the decoration style which features red and white masonry, prevalent in the Mamluk era.

Ablaq.

Islamic History, Art and Architecture Arch:

Treffoil, cross, romanesque, horse-shoe (3 last).

Architrave: Architrave (also called an epistyle; from Greek επίστυλο, epistylo or door frame) is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical architecture. The word architrave is also used to refer more generally to the mouldings (or other elements) framing a door, window or other rectangular opening.

In classical entablature, it is the lowest part of the entablature consisting of architrave, frieze and cornice.

Architrave.

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture Archivolt (or voussure): An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental moldings (or other architectural elements) surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the architrave in the case of a rectangular opening. The word is sometimes used to refer to the under-side or inner curve of the arch itself (more properly, the intrados). The word originates in the Italian (or French) equivalents of the English words arch dn vault.

Archivolts and tympanum from Strasbourg Cathedral (left) and Archivolts at Speyer Cathedral, Germany (right).

Archivolts of Church of Santiago (left) and Eglise St-Lazare, Avallon, Burgundy (right).

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture Buttress: A flying buttress is a specific form of buttressing most strongly associated with Gothic church architecture. The purpose of any buttress is to resist the lateral forces pushing a wall outwards (which may arise from stone vaulted ceilings or from wind-loading on roofs) by redirecting them to the ground. The characteristic of a flying buttress is that the buttress is not in contact with the wall all the way to the ground; so that the lateral forces are transmitted across an intervening space. Flying buttress systems have two key components - a massive vertical masonry block (the buttress) on the outside of the building and a segmental or quadrant arch bridging the gap between that buttress and the wall (the 'flyer').

Buttresses.

Celadon glaze refers to a family of transparent, crackle glazes, produced in a wide variety of colors, generally used on porcelain or stoneware clay bodies. Its pale green color is produced by iron oxide in the glaze recipe or clay body, mimicing the green shades of hade (nephrite and jedite).

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture Cloister: A cloister (from Latin claustrum, "enclosure") is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a warm southern flank, usually indicates that it is (or once was) part of a monastic foundation, "forming a continuous and solid architectural barrier... that effectively separates the world of the monks from that of the serfs and workmen, whose lives and works went on outside and around the cloister."

Cloister.

Columns: A) Classical Orders:

General: Each style (order) has distinctive column capitals and entablatures. The shaft is sometimes articulated with vertical hollow grooves known as fluting. The shaft is wider at the bottom than at the top, because its entasis, beginning a third of the way up, imperceptibly makes the column slightly more slender at the top. The capital rests on the shaft. It has a load-bearing function, which concentrates the weight of the entablature on the supportive column, but it primarily serves an aesthetic purpose. The necking is the continuation of the shaft, but is visually separated by one or many grooves. The echinus

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture The Composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic with the leaves of the Corinthian order. Until the Renaissance it was not ranked as a separate order.

Instead it was considered as a late Roman form of the Corinthian order. The column of the Composite order is ten diameters high.

An illustration of the five orders engraved for the EncyclopĂŠdie, vol. 18, showing the Tuscan and Doric orders (top row); two versions of the Ionic order (center row); Corinthian and Composite orders (bottom row).

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture Cross-shape ground plan: In western christian religious architecture, from the Gothic era onwards (from 12th ce.) the cathedral`s ground plans were of the cross-shape. In this, the west-eastern long leg, commencing as its western main entrance and continued as its nave (consisting of its central-main and two side aisles), which in turn ended up eastwards to chancel (high altar), was intersected perpendicularly near its eastern end, by a shorter trasnverse north-southern leg (transept), being constructed so, a cross-shape ground plan.

If the long leg (main aisle) is shortened becoming equal to the transverse transept, it provides the composite-cross-shapd ground plan, initially of the Byzantine (Aghia Sophia) and later of the Ottoman style cathedrals and islamic mosques respectively (see also to Tshape ground plan of islamic mosques, at right angles to this one).

T-Shape Western Cathedrals: Entrance from left (west) to right (east), along the central nave (long arm of the Tâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;shape). High Altar towards the east (at the end of the nave).

Cuerda Rasa: Underglaze tile painting with different color glazes (haftrang) on a ingle tile, fired on a common temperature. It should be compared with the mosaic (cut) colored tiles, which consist of the luting of propriately cut tiles in various ornamental forms, which (tiles) have been individually painted with one individual glaze and each fired at various each temperatures.

Dome: a) A true dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory. True, or real, domes are formed with increasingly inward-angled layers of voussoirs which have ultimately turned 90 degrees from the base of the dome to the top.

Comparison of a generic "true" arch (left) and a corbel arch (right).

The construction of the first technically advanced true domes in Europe began in the Roman Architectural Revolution, when they were frequently used by the Romans to shape

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Islamic History, Art and Architecture b) Semi-domes: A semi-dome, also called a "half-dome", is the term in architecture for half a dome ("cut" vertically), used to cover a semi-circular area. Similar structures occur in nature. Semi-domes are a common feature of apses in Ancient Roman and traditional church architecture, and mosques and iwans in Islamic architecture. Lastly, it can be defined as an arch with niches or squinches.

Basilica di Sant' Apollinare in Classe 15th ce, Ravenna, Italy (left), Aghia Sofia, 15th ce, Istanbul, Turkey (right) (5th ce).

St. Mark`s Cathedral, 1063-94, Venice, Cupola at the transept crossing (left)and The Church of St. Panteleimon, Nerezi, FUROM-Macedonia has five domes in a quincunx pattern (right).

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture Maqsura: The vaulted dome at the crossing of the middle aisle with the transept, right in front of the Quibla and Michrab (rulen`s precinct).

Mashahids: Places of “witnessing” to the Islam faith.

Masjid as-jami : Friday mosque.

Maugarnal vault: over the main portal of the mosque protecting the foundation inscription.

Mihrab: Niche indicating Qibla wall which point to Mecaa- Prayer`s niche.

Minai (enamel) 11th ce, Persian Ceramic technique of over-glazed painting with 7 Persian colors (haftrang), making possible to paint coloured detailed narrative themes.

Minaret (Turkish: minare, from Arabic manārah (lighthouse) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery. Styles vary regionally and by period.

Minarets provide a visual focal point and are used for the call to prayer (adhan).

Minbar: Stepped pulprit, or reading podium, or sermon (khurba).

Miraj: Ascension of the Prophet form the Dome of the Roch in Jerusalem.

Muezzin: The prayer caller, who summons believers to prayer, from the minaret of teh mosque, before the five daily acts of worship.

Muharam: The 1st month of the Musli calendar. Hussein1s (Ali`s son) death is commemorated for 10 days (October).

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture Rose Window:

Notre Dame, Paris.

Reims Cathedral, France.

Rubble masonry is rough, unhewn building stone set in mortar, but not laid in regular courses. It may appear as the outer surface of a wall or may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or cut stone.

Sanctuary: A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a safe haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a safe place for humans, such as a political sanctuary; and non-human sanctuary, such as an animal or plant sanctuary (see also, high alrat, chancel, apse).

Saz: An under-glazed ceramic ornamentation style developed by Iranians masters of Tabriz in 13-14th ce and fully flourished under the Ottoman ruling. It features serrated leaves, lotus blossoms and rossetes, inhabitant with birds and mythic creatures, in blue and turquoise palette in a white background.

Shahabah: The Muslim profession for faith.

Shahnama: Firdawsis`s (100 ad) narrative of the life of Persian Kings.

Sharia: The totality of the Islamic legao and moral order, which is based on teh prescription of the Koran and the Sunna, determining all aspects of Muslim society`s life, from individual religious acts, hygiene, and family life, ot the structure or the state and society. The Saria is regarded as divine law, and is therefore incontrovertible, unlike human legislation (fiqh).

Shia: The party of Ali, Muhammad`s cousin and son-in-law. Its supporters, the Shiites, narrowed down the Prophet`s succession legal rights to chosen descendants of Ali, as e member of Muhammad`s family. Following the series of recognized imams, the last of whom retrieved into â&#x20AC;&#x153;occulationâ&#x20AC;? (ghalba), but remain present on earth, a distinction is

327

Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture Tracery: In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.

Tracery Soissons Cathedral (c.1200), France (left) and Bar tracery in the clerestory windows at Reims Cathedral (1230's) (right).

Triforium: A triforium is a shallow arched gallery within the thickness of inner wall, which stands above the nave of a church or cathedral. It may occur at the level of the clerestory windows, or it may be located as a separate level below the clerestory. It may itself have an outer wall of glass rather than stone. Triforia are sometimes referred to, erroneously, as tribunes.

Malmesbury Abbey (right), showing the location of the triforium. It lies between the lower (aisle) windows and the upper (clerestory ) windows, as arrowed.

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture T-Shaped ground plan:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cross in a Rectangularâ&#x20AC;? plan of Aghia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

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Glossary on Western and Islamic Architecture Tympanum: The area of solid masonry between an arch and an opening-like a door- which it surrounds. The segmental space above a portal or on a gable (see also, archivolt, voussure).

Tympanum.

Vault: An arched ceiling of a roof, usually composed of a wedge-shaped stones of voussoirs. Forms: Barrel (or tunnel), Cross or groined, Coffered Muqarnas, Stalactite, Cantilever.

Vaults.

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