architecture of islam

8/2/2019 Architecture of Islam

1/13

Part Three

THE ARCHITECTURE OF ISLAM

(c) The Royal Institute of British Architects and the University of London. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the University of London are the joint trustees of Sir Banister Fletcher's History of Architecture.


2/13



3/13

The Architecture of Islam

561

Chapter 15

BACKGROUND

Islam and its Predecessors

This part is concerned with an architectural continuitythat ran parallel with the history of western archi-tecture from the second century BC. The easternmovement of Greek and then Roman classicalarchitecture merged with locally generated styles Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanian, and peripheraleastern variants of localised Hellenistic styles toprovide the basis for a thousand years of architecturalcreativity extending across Asia and Africa andspreading into Europe.

No architectural style, other than Muslim, isdesignated by concordance with a religion. This is forthe special reason that Islam has created a coherenceof lifestyle over wide geographical areas. Thisfocuses on the requirements of the religion, thebehaviour that derives from it and a living language,Arabic, which is understood throughout the Muslimworld. The consequence is a centrality created by,among other things, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca

in the Hejaz in western Saudi Arabia. Within Islam,however, the variation in styles is distinctive: somuch so that to many Muslim scholars the commonpattern is blurred to the extent that they deny thatthere is any such thing as Islamic architecture. Thesevaried styles have evolved around tribal or dynasticfoci by which they are known.

Muslim architecture may be seen as the one greatproduct of two streams of development, one in theMediterranean and the other in south central Asia.The coalescence took place over a period from about300 BC to 800 AD with a melding of influencesspread over a very much longer period. Initially therewere two very different traditions. In the Medi-terranean, Greek architecture rose in Periclean Athens

to a level of extraordinary perfection, to be echoedand repeated in the west down the ages. In the east theAchamaenid traditions culminating in the great royalpalace at Persepolis demonstrate a powerful andseparate evolutionary pattern of trabeated building.Their intermingling began with the injection into theeast of Greek culture carried in the wake of the thrustsof Alexander, a Macedonian prince who by 332 BChad overcome the rulers of this wide region, founding

separate cities in the Greek administrative mouldwherever he passed. His loosely arranged empire fellto his generals, collectively known as the Seleucidsand Ptolemies, who controlled or ruled an areaapproximating to that now known as the Middle East.The fusion of Greek culture was as inevitable as itwas deliberate but the sheer weight of local popula-tions determined the ultimate subfusion and integra-tion of the cities of Seleucid and Ptolemaic founda-tion in the burgeoning of later empires.

Among their greatest cities were Alexandria on thewestern edge of the Nile Delta and Seleucia on theTigris, close to modern Baghdad; of these and manyothers not a trace of the original buildings remains asa standing structure. The most impressive archi-tectural monument of this injection of classical designinto the East is the palatial core of a desert city atHatra, now in Iraq (see Chapter 16), but the passingand the influence of these extreme eastward penetra-tions of Greek culture are still to be found ininscriptions, and works of art, such as the classically

modelled statues of the Buddhist kingdoms at Gand-hara in northern India.The incursions of the Seleucids halted an evolution

of native styles for some hundreds of years and it isnot until the time of Christ that strong local traditionsre-emerged on and about the Iranian plateau. Therethe Parthian dynasty focused a nationalism whichallowed the East again to confront the West militarilywith thrust and counterthrust across Asia Minorsucceeded by Roman incursions into Mesopotamiaand Persia. Some lasting works were built by Romanprisoners who brought their skills of masonry andengineering to the bridges and perhaps to the earlydomes of their Parthian captors. These long conflictsleft a trail of detritus across the region in terms of

peoples and influences. Captive Romans were set towork in Persia Persian forts were thrown up inEgypt. Byzantine architects built towns on theEuphrates and bridges on the Orontes. Trade routestraversed the regions carrying men with skillsbetween opposing Empires and an important channelof influence arose in a new and pervasive religion Christianity. Initially the Apostles proselytised mostsuccessfully south and eastwards. Until the fourth



4/13

BACKGROUND562

century their incursions into the Roman heartlandwere resisted. They were seen as a threat to

established power. The extent to which the eastwardtraffic carried with it the classical style well estab-lished in Palestine has yet to be fully evaluated but inthe design of churches it is to be seen clearly in themovement of the religion southwards and in the earlychurches of the monotheistic versions of the faith inthe Nile valley where the Copts, inheritors of thereligion of the Pharoahs, found no difficulty inabsorbing the concepts of the afterlife and the faith of

the one God. The early churches stylistically tookover the forms of Greek and Roman temples or

basilicas and a gentle tide of influence movedeastwards with the adherents of the religion.

Contemporary Parthian royal building has survivedsufficiently to be reconstructable. The great royalpalaces of Sarvistan and Firuzabad demonstrate anarchitectural evolution which was to provide a basisfor much that followed in the architecture of Islam in particular the dome and iwan. The resolution of asquare sub-structure to a ring by squinches is

The Islamic World



5/13

BACKGROUND 563

apparent by the third century AD and the evolution ofthe iwan an open-fronted barrel vault had by thenalso reached monumental proportions. Both had adeterminant effect upon plan forms.

The predominant eastern dynasty until the comingof Islam arose in Fars southern Persia ruling from

the fourth until the seventh centuries when anenfeebled king, Yazdegerd II, fled before the invadingMuslims and was slain by one of his followers.

The Sassanian dynasty built its winter capital,Ctesiphon, within a mile of the flourishing Seleucidcity, Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, on the opposite bank ofthe river. Few Sassanian buildings have survived inrecognisable state although a number of their palatialcomplexes are sufficiently complete to allow ade-quate reconstruction and at Ctesiphon itself theresurvives the iwan and one wing of the greatest royalpalace of all, known from its traditional attribution toChosroes II as the Tak-i-Chisra. It was under thisruler that the Persian empire expanded finally, and toits greatest extent in antiquity. Pressures from thewest restrained the Byzantine emperors such asJustinian I on their eastern frontiers, with the resultthat Chosroes and his successors were able toestablish and maintain their hold on territories as farwest as Syria, Palestine and Lower Egypt. Theseareas had long been Roman provinces and architectu-rally were replete with a distinctive classical style.Moreover, the fabric of Christianity lay across theregion and although fire worship was the religion ofthe royal families of the Sassanian era easternChristianity was widespread and influential in bothOrthodox and Nestorian forms.

In its eastern and southern provinces the ByzantineEmpire produced local patterns of architecture in

which the occasional work of architects from theMetropolis stands out distinctly. Destruction in theselands of the eastern Byzantine Empire has been socontinuous that their architectural significance in theearly Christian era is shrouded. War, pillage and theagricultural changes that followed misgovernmentand exploitation have left much of these landsdesolate and their buildings robbed. In northern Syriathe great ruin fields of the Dead Cities testify toonce-rich populations with a highly developed archi-tectural style and the story is repeated throughout theMediterranean littoral into Sinai and Egypt. In Cairo,at a few desert sites and in ruined Coptic towns in theNile valley some understanding of these rich andextensive cultures can be gained but where the great

cities survive, Alexandria being an extreme case, thebasilicas, the baths, the library, the port have all beenso completely effaced that they are only to beunderstood from inference and literary record. Theseeastern marchlands of the Roman Empire had anarchitectural heritage which was intrinsically Graeco-Roman in background but distinctively local in itsinterpretation and since very little of the work wasassociated with major dynastic achievements much of

it has escaped historical attention. The church,however, was a major influence in these pre-Muslimcenturies, modelling and remodelling forms ofRoman temples and meeting halls and adapting tonew rituals structural forms and designs which hadserved purposes as diverse as fire temples and the

rites of Isis.These eastern frontier lands in the first centuries of

our era were architecturally inventive and beneath thebroad mantles of Persian and Roman suzereigntycontained many local groupings, vassal states orprovinces where architecture evolved distinctively. Innorth-east Asia Minor Georgia and Armenia gave riseto developing forms of centralised church buildingechoed on the Euphrates in that earliest of Christianstates, the Kingdom of Edessa (present-day Urfa).Likewise, the early church flourished in northernMesopotamia. On the steppe lands on both sides ofthe Arabian desert Christian Arabs, the Lakhimids,and Ghassanids continued the Roman traditions thathad left forts and towns scattered across the region.The deserted city of Resafa in northern Syria is one ofthe better-known surviving examples. Towards thecoast a rich architectural heritage was developed innorthern Syria focusing on Antioch and Damascus,leaving a legacy today in scores of ruined anddeserted townships. Here in the region betweenAleppo and the coast and in southern Syria nearBosra in the Hauran there emerged an inventive,tradition of sophisticated and magnificently executedstone buildings indicative of high levels of socialorganisation where great domed churches, such asKalat Semaan, immense basilicas and fine houseswere wrapped in wreathing string courses andadorned with sumptuous carving in a manner unparal-

leled elsewhere. This group of cities, known as theDecapolis, of which Jerash is the most prominentsurvivor, adhered to the classical tradition on amonumental scale but in powerfully and distinctivelyremodelled forms. These influences are to be tracedsouthwards through the Nabatean kingdoms wherethe baroque exuberance of Petra still carries itsastonishing message of classical design in cliffscarved from red and yellow sandstone, and down tocities such as Sanaa where the Syrian tradition ofdomed churches faced in mosaic was to be found inthe long-destroyed cathedral church.

The Monophysite doctrine was strong across thisregion and nowhere more than in the Nile valleywhere the Copts had readily taken to Christianity

following the arrival of the Apostle Mark. The ancientchurches here are of the basilican form with a widetransverse space before the triple-apsed east end andsome of the very early churches in Egypt may be theearliest of all survivors of Christian building. It was inEgypt also that the monastic traditions began in thefourth and fifth centuries, being carried westwardsthrough the Roman Empire after its formal accep-tance of Christianity. Under Diocletian imperial



6/13

BACKGROUND564

authority had persecuted the native churches soferociously that the reign of that emperor is still usedby the Copts to mark the beginning of their era. By thesixth century Byzantine churches were being intro-duced at the exhortation of the Emperor Justinianwhile his Empress Theodora supported the Monophy-

site cause and the Coptic Church. Where they survive,as in ancient Cairo (Deir Bablun) they are architectu-rally a different breed. The native church can still befound here and in the monasteries, now deserted, of theUpper Nile or those still extant on the Red Sea and inthe Wadi Natrun. From this southern part of the regionto northern Mesopotamia and even to Central Asia theeastern form of church with triple isolated sanctuariesfacing a broad transverse nave can be found coupledsometimes with a basilican form.

At the beginning of the seventh century the Persianemperors controlled the land from the Caucasus to theNile Delta and they were restored again to theByzantine Empire by the heroic exploits of Heracliuswho defeated the Sassanian armies in their heartlandat Ctesiphon and recovered Jerusalem in 628. Histremendous exertions in the military and politicalfields were simultaneously and more lastingly paral-leled by the Prophet Mohammed, pursuing histheological enquiries with Christian monks as hetraversed the caravan routes from Mecca into Pales-tine and then in his later years receiving revelationsand leading the first adherents of the new monothe-ism. Heraclius, enthroned in Constantinople, failed torecognise the significance of these events and madeno effort to check or respond to this new expressionof the worship of the one God.

Islam means literally submission, and Muslims arethose who submit to the expression of the will of God

by the Prophet Mohammed. Emnities have cloudedthe inherent relationship between Christianity, and itspredecessor Judaism, with Islam. The fact of theemergence of Islam from Christian theology hasimportant parallels with the emergence of Christian-ity from Judaism and it is intrinsic to Islam that thepeoples adhering to these earlier religions weretreated with sympathy and given protection as beingpeoples of the book. The architectural consequenceof this keystone of Muslim philosophy was thenatural acceptance of buildings appropriate to thecircumstances of the new religion. Although from atwentieth-century viewpoint the emergence of Islamseems revolutionary it was in fact an evolution intheological, philosophical and architectural terms.

In his maturity Mohammed received revelationswhich Muslims accept as the Word of God. Thesewere revolutionary in terms of Mohammeds status asa member of one of the leading cities of Mecca in theHejaz the western region of Arabia where idolatrywas the literal stock-in-trade of the city whichdepended even then on pilgrim traffic. Hence theMuslim retreat to Yathrib the Hegira and thebeginning of the Muslim era.

Mesopotamia and Persia

Both brick and rubble masonry were the primebuilding elements in the Seleucid East, Parthia andthe Sassanian Empires. These materials are generallynot used for roofing and it must be recognised that

much roof construction was of timber, probably laidas pole joisting with brushwood and palm frondcovering finished with mud. In more monumentalbuildings vaulting and arching were used and domeconstruction is apparent for the first time in theOrient. Fired brick therefore came to be used in thevaults, squinches, arches and domes and somedistinctive techniques of construction were evolved.To take advantage of the effects of quick setting ofgypsum mortars (the set of plaster of Paris) flat firedbricks were laid radially as voussoirs but with theirlong axis on the line of the arch being formed. Theeffect was to give a large area of adhesion so that thevoussoir would stay fixed in position without thesupport of centring within minutes of its application.In such vaults and occasionally in arches the initialcourses would be corbelled in for up to one fifth ofthe height to be succeeded by arches of ring-archconstruction. Over openings such as windows anddoors a flat light timber lintel would be set at thespringing line and on top of it temporary centringwould be formed in mud brick, perhaps to the fullwidth of the lintel, forming a wider arch than theopening below and producing on removal of the mudbrick the distinctively Parthian and Sassanian keyholearch. Arch forms in this period varied from thepredominant half-round to the vertical semi-ellipseand broken segments giving arches with quite sharplypointed profiles. The barrel vault was the pre-

dominant structural device throughout the region andthis is true also of Upper Egypt. To avoid the use oftimber centring arches were built inclined against anend wall, the work on the lower voussoirs of theadvancing vault being several rings ahead of thecompletion of the upper segments.

In this period the squinch (arch or small vaultacross a corner) first makes its appearance. Largerdomes rose over the great halls of palaces in Parthianand Sassanian Iran. Here also appeared the talar andiwan open-fronted spaces serving ceremonial andliving functions. The emergence of these spaces canbe traced archaeologically as sheltered recessesfronting unroofed areas in homes and ceremonialbuildings. They came to form an important part of the

architectural vocabulary in the Middle East, appear-ing as rationalised cave-like openings, arched orsupported by columns, sometimes being a high orlarge central unit flanked by two similar smalleropenings and also appearing as two or four opposedopenings facing each other.

A large vocabulary of decorative elements isassociated with this period. Facades were regularlyenlivened with blind arcading, frequently carried on



7/13

BACKGROUND 565

coupled colonettes or sometimes even triple colo-nettes. Applied stucco decoration was widely used fordados, friezes, linings and framings to openings,roundels in spandrels, string courses and crestings.The Classical orders were entirely absent exceptwhere Greek influence persisted in and after the

Seleucid period. Distinctive crenellations were adop-ted, each being stepped three or four times giving asawtoothed profile and crenellations of this stylebecame used as a frieze. Stucco was regularly incisedand modelled with patterning and was enriched withpaint. Large clay sculptures were created in additionto the stone carvings. Strong pigments were regularlyused to heighten patterns and sculptures.

In urban planning there was a marked contrastbetween the formal concepts introduced by theGreeks where reticulate straight-line layout contrastswith the native form of city development which isentirely organic and tends to produce a near-circularperimeter as at Takht-i-Suleiman.

Syria and Egypt

Classical influences pervaded the Mediterraneancoastline reaching inland to Western Asia Minor, to theSyrian steppes inhabited by the Ghassinid Arabs, to theNabataean Arab Kingdoms and into the Nile Valleybeyond the Delta. Traditions of finely worked trabea-ted masonry predominated in monumental buildingand the Corinthian Order was predominant, giving riseto variations such as wind-blown acanthus and basketcapitals. Architecturally this was an inventive landsufficiently beyond the Pale to develop its own

idiosyncratic versions of Classical orders and theirhandling. From Jerusalem to Diyarbakir, in theDecapolis and around Antioch the extant remains ofmonumental buildings in finely worked masonry carrycomplex and elaborate ornament of powerful and fluiddesign matched nowhere else. Elaborate string courseswreath around windows ropelike and in the finest workheavy torus moulds are deeply undercut with fretteddetail. Much of the architecture was entirely lithic withdoor leaves and window shutters in stone and floorsand roofs formed with long stone planks. Timber wasextensively employed and surviving masonry clearlyindicates the seating for large timber domes. Incontrast to lands further east arching was almostinvariably round although with occasional slight

accentuation to a central point. Plate tracery in stonewas in regular use and vaults were buttressed bycontraforts. Occasionally these were detached asprimitive flying buttresses. Burned brick was rarelyused, and where it is found the origins may be tracedto metropolitan influences.

Further south, Nabataean building developed withan exuberance that can only be called baroque,broken pediments and stylised urns on steeples

featuring prominently. Although nothing is left ofcoastal Egypt in this period much Coptic churchbuilding survives in the Upper Nile and at the head ofthe Delta. Churches supply our principal evidence fora basilican form terminating in a broad cross-choirfronted by three haikals (chapels). The aisles and

nave are divided by colonnades of Corinthian col-umns carrying a massive timber entablature while theroofs are invariably of timber.

Sites identified and excavated have tended to bethose which ceased to be cities. Where they continuedin use, such as at Alexandria in Egypt, evidence ofthis early period lies deeply buried or destroyed inredevelopment.

The transition from Seleucid to Parthian rule camewith the ascendancy of the native population over theincursive Greeks. Henceforward Rome, and thence-forward Byzantium, was to be the natural enemy.

History of Islam

At the end of the sixth century, when the prophetMohammed was a young man (his date of birth is notknown), Sassanid Persia stretched from the Medi-terranean to the Indus, and from the Aral Sea to theIndian Ocean. In the first twenty years of the seventhcentury the last great monarch, Chosroes II, moved torevenge the death of his one-time ally Maurice, theByzantine Emperor, at the hands of a usurper. Heoverran Syria, took Jerusalem in 615, and in the nextfew years invaded Egypt. His armies even approach-ed Constantinople itself. This Persian threat to theheart of the Byzantine empire coincided almost

precisely (in 616) with the final overthrow of theRomans in Spain by the Visigoths. Byzantium wasrescued by Heraclius, who as soldieremperor madeincursions deep into the Sassanian empire, sackingCtesiphon in 628 to rescue the True Cross, with whichhe returned in triumph to Jerusalem.

Two other factors complicate the background ofIslam at the beginning one religious, the othersecular. Although for a time officially toleratedOrthodox Christianity was largely eschewed in Zor-oastrian Persia whereas Manichaeism (which unitedJewish and Christian beliefs, with Persian mysticism)and Nestorian Christianity were both accepted, thelatter because it had been banned by Rome. Incur-sions from eastern and central Asia continued as

successive tribes were displaced in the westwardmovements that had begun over a thousand yearsearlier. They reduced the settled oasis cities Samarkand, Bokhara, Merv and Khiva and movedwestwards, allying themselves expediently with thegreat powers. In the first quarter of the seventhcentury the Huns were succeeded first by the Avarsand then by Turkic tribes (Khazars, and others) whoseprovinces ran from the Pamirs to the Oxus.



8/13

BACKGROUND566

In Arabia the provinces of Rome had indeterminateboundaries eastward. The struggles in Palestine bywhich the Jews had been subjugated or expelled werenot reflected in the marchlands of the Empire, whereNabataean and other groupings were peripheral to thedictats of the Caesars. Along the trade routes of

Romanised Arabia culture and architectural stylesreached beyond the writ of Roman and Byzantine lawalthough the cultural influences extended further.

The Prophet Mohammed, to whom Islam owes itsexistence, was born into an important family (theKureish) in the mountain city of Mecca in westernArabia in the late sixth century. He travelled as amerchant into the Arabian provinces of the Romanempire, then vibrant with Christianity. He is believedto have debated intensively with philosophers andclerics, contrasting the long religious traditions andmultiplicity of forms of worship in the area withtheorising upon monotheism under Christianleadership.

In his maturity Mohammed received revelationswhich, to Muslims, represent the Word of God. Thethreat this posed to established religious practices inMecca caused the Prophet, with a small band of hisfollowers, to be driven from the city in 622. He tookrefuge in Yathrib, a town to the north, whichthereafter became the City of the Prophet or, simplyal-Medina The City. The flight from Mecca theHegira marks the beginning of the Muslim era. Thefaithful became a coherent body and adopted thepractice of praying towards Jerusalem, but on recon-ciliation with Mecca turned towards that city in theirprostrations. The Prophet remained in Medina untilhis death in 632, establishing the framework of thereligion and the beginnings of a military organisation

charged with spreading the Faith.The explosive expansion of Islam carried the faithnorth-east into Mesopotamia, west into Egypt andbeyond and into the fertile lands of the Mediterraneanlittoral (present-day Israel, Lebanon, Jordan andSyria). One prime objective was the defeat andconversion of the Byzantine emperor. In Con-stantinople the Emperor, Heraclius, was astonishinglysupine in the face of a threat he underestimated. TheArab armies aimed first at Jerusalem, then atDamascus and finally, but unsuccessfully, at Con-stantinople. Their northward advance was deflectedeastwards as it entered the southern foothills of themountains of Asia Minor and then it petered out.

The parallel attack carried another Muslim army

north-eastwards into the Tigris and Euphrates basin,the heartland of the Sassanian empire. Defeated in thefirst encounter at Qadisiyeh the Sassanians crumbledfinally at Nihavand in 641, but in the west Jerusalemgave way only after long resistance. The Byzantineempire established an erratic frontier with Islam inthe mountains of Asia Minor, and despite an auda-cious direct seaborne attempt on Constantinople theArabs were held at bay.

Blocked by Byzantium in the north-west andstretched perilously far in the north-east, the Arabsopened new fields of conquest by turning westwardsalong the coast of Africa. In 640 they conqueredEgypt, and within 30 years had gained control of thewhole of the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. By

711 they were established in southern Spain, and 50years later had conquered almost all the peninsula,striking deep into southern France before being haltedin 732 by a major defeat at Poitiers at the hands ofCharles Martell, hence called the Saviour ofEurope. Poitiers marked the limit of Arab expansioninto western Europe.

Settled in Palestine, the Umayyad Caliphate was,to a considerable degree, Hellenised, by contrast withthe overtly Persian influence on their forces penetrat-ing the Iranian plateau into Central Asia and beyondeven into China. Rivalry developed into a rift underthe banner of the Abbasids.

The first century of Islam is imbued with Byzan-tine overtones, and its architecture owes much to thevigorous Hellenism of Syria, Palestine and LowerEgypt. In 750 the Abbasids swept this influence aside.They eliminated almost the whole of the Umayyadclan and for two centuries or more Palestine becamea cultural vacuum. Syrian administrators and court-iers made their way westwards to the new Umayyadcapital at Cordoba to perpetuate in Spain (where theyposed no threat to Abbasid power) the values andcharacteristics brought from Syria.

The Caliphate itself was moved first to a brieflyinhabited site in northern Mesopotamia and then in762 to the City of Peace (now Kadhimain nearBaghdad) and then in 832 to Samarra. There for sixtyyears, the Abbasids ruled as autocrats. They were

immensely powerful and, in volume, their materialachievements far outstripped those of their Umayyadpredecessors. They returned to Baghdad towards theend of the ninth century to rule a diminishing Empire.While retaining pre-eminence as leaders of theFaithful the Abbasid Caliphs were never again to ruleon their earlier scale and the government of the regionfrom Afghanistan to Syria lay with the interrelatedSeljuk and Zengid dynasties whose architecturalachievements were both diverse and inventive. As theAbbasid Caliphs became weaker their authority wasusurped in central Asia, Afghanistan and in AsiaMinor, Syria and Egypt, where the Tulunid andFatimid dynasties were dominant.

By the twelfth century much of Palestine had

become the focus of incursion from the west. TheCrusades brought to Asia Minor, Palestine and, in thethirteenth century, to Egypt new and more fearsomeantagonists than the armies of Byzantium. Latinkingdoms were established in Syria, Palestine and onthe upper Euphrates, but the Asian provinces ofByzantium fell piecemeal to Turkish invaders, whoreached the Meditarranean on the Ionian coast. Far tothe east the Ghorids, a Muslim dynasty of Turkish



9/13

BACKGROUND 567

origin, established Islam in northern India at thebeginning of the eleventh century. Meanwhile theMuslim kingdoms in Spain were pressed increasinglyhard by Christian forces from the north and theCrusaders footholds in the Holy Land became moreand more precarious although the Christian kingdoms

of Edessa, Outremer and Jerusalem survived into thethirteenth century. In 1291 Acre (Akka) fell and thepower of the Frankish knights was broken (see alsoChapter 13).

In Egypt the Tulunids were succeeded eventuallyin the eleventh century by the the Fatimids, whoseMamluks (slaves from Asia Minor and Russia) in turnsucceeded them. The Mamluks ejected the Crusadersfrom the Holy Land. Subsequently they met andsuccessfully resisted the Mongol challenge in Syria toconsolidate what was to be a long-sustained politicaldominance. Ultimately they were defeated by theOttomans in 1517. Henceforth Egypt was to lie withinTurkish sovereignty.

From the Scythian incursions of the middlecenturies of the first millennium BC (Scyths overranthe post-Seleucid Bactrian kingdoms as late as141 BC) through invasions by the Hsing-Nu (Huns)and the Juan-Juan (Avars) to the later movements ofTurkish tribes from Mongolia, the corridor acrosssouthern central Asia had continued to attract theeastern barbarian peoples to the settled oasis towns ofcentral Asia and then across northern Persia into AsiaMinor. This flow became a raging torrent in the earlythirteenth century under Genghis Khan and hissuccessors. His grandson, Hulagu, swept from centralAsia into Persia, Syria and Asia Minor, and withterrifying rapacity flooded westwards into Europeitself. In 1258 Baghdad was sacked by Mongol

armies whose declared aim was the utter destructionof everything and everyone daring to resist them. Acentury later under Timur (Tamurlane, a khan ofcombined TurkishMongol origin) there ensued afurther period of destruction. Timur made Samarkandhis capital in 1370, invaded Persia ten years later andwas in Asia Minor inside a decade. He tookSultaniyeh, captured Baghdad in 1393, and Damascusa few years later. Timur was never defeated in battleand at the turn of the century ruled from central Asiato the Nile, and from northern India virtually to theBosphorus, having reduced Delhi in 1399. Heembraced Islam, and proclaimed the faith across histerritories. Under his rule Samarkand became thefocus of architectural development and its influences

spread widely across the lands in Timurid rule. Hisdefeat of the rapidly rising Ottomans in 1400 gave abrief respite to the Byzantine emperors before theireclipse half a century later.

Timur himself commissioned buildings across theLevant and from the Aral Sea to Delhi. Unfortu-nately the Timurid architecture of the region inHerat, Merv, Tashkent, Bokhara and, above all,Samarkand survives only in badly shattered form

but its influence is to be seen in Moghul India andSafavid Persia.

The Timurids were active patrons who gatheredtogether the inventive skills of Seljuk architects.Some of their own work survives, despite losses inthe cities of Afghanistan and Turkestan. In this

period, the Timurids created and perfected the formalparadise garden which later became so essential afeature of Persian and Indian architecture, anddeveloped the art and techniques of tilework andthree-dimensional surface decoration.

Mongol dynasties in Persia and northern India alsobegan to create where once they had destroyed. Thecreative energies of the Timurids persisted throughthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries producing intheir capital, Samarkand, an architecture of powerand influence. But as Timurid rule in central Asiadiminished minor dynasties were established aroundcities such as Merv, Kiva, Kokand and Bokhara. InAfghanistan and northern India a series of independ-ent princedoms emerged, their capitals being atJodhpur, Ahmadabad, Gaur, Gulbarga, Golkonda andBijapur.

On the south-west fringe of Europe the Ottomanscaptured Constantinople in 1453, and had masteredthe whole of western Islam within a hundred years.They extended their power from the gates of Viennato the Barbary Coast, from Egypt and the Hejaz to theCrimea, while in the east they reached out intoMesopotamia and to Baghdad by the early sixteenthcentury. Their distinctive style with steepled minarets,leaded domes and clear ashlar walling is to be foundin Egypt, the Balkans, Turkey and Syria. Over-whelmingly, Thrace, Istanbul and western Asia Minorare its homeland, where the requirements of the

greatest of the Ottoman Sultans and their viziersproduced architecture of impeccable quality.The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the

great period of imperial achievement. In addition tothe Ottomans, two great dynasties arose to dominatetheir minor neighbours. In Persia the Safavids unitedthe country and extended their rule across thehighlands to reach intermittently into southern Rus-sia. By the end of the sixteenth century the Moghulempire covered much of northern and north-westernIndia. Their courts were at Delhi, Agra, FatehpurSikri and Lahore. Here Islamic forms were developedusing red sandstone, trimmed and embellished withcarved marble. As wealth and confidence increased,sandstone was replaced by marble. The finer stone

was used in ever more elaborately carved forms, suchas pierced screens and lightly framed structures. Inlaytechniques were used in which semi-precious andeven precious stones were embedded in marble in anextension of the pietra dura technique.

These three great powers of later Islam Ottoman,Safavid and Moghul rose and flourished in parallel,and each faded gently into insignificance. The historyof the westernmost sultanates of Islam in the



10/13

BACKGROUND568

Mahgreb is less dramatic but runs a similar course.The relative stability of each of the local powers wasreflected in the considerable architectural achieve-ments of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in the face ofEuropean expansion and colonialism. In microcosmthe city of Fez, which continued an astonishingly

even tenor of creative architecture, exemplifies thepersistence of the mature Muslim style into moderntimes.

Although there has been a tendency in Islamicarchitecture to make use of the resources of thelocality, a series of common characteristics evolvedwhich called for similar craft skills without regard tolocation. Nevertheless a great variety of local andregional influences, including climate, produced sig-nificant effects upon building form and construction.Some areas produced styles entirely specific to smallregions such as the mountainous terrain of the Yemen,the oasis towns of the Nejd (northern Saudi Arabia)and further-flung Muslim communities in the Hima-layas, Indonesia, north central China, East Africadown to Zanzibar and West Africa below the desertsdown to Timbuctoo.

In modern (but necessarily approximate) terms, thefollowing countries have been governed by Muslimrulers and substantially populated by Muslimpeoples.

European Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, southernYugoslavia: fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Sicily: eighth to eleventh centuries Southern and central Spain: eighth to sixteenth

centuries Cyprus: sixteenth to twentieth centuries North Africa: fifteenth century onwards

Turkey in Asia: eleventh and twelfth centuriesonwards Syria, Palestine, the Gulf States, Iraq, Iran, Afgha-

nistan and south-central Russia: eighth centuryonwards

Northern India: twelfth century onwards East Africa: fourteenth century onwards Indonesia: seventeenth century onwards.

Other important Muslim communities were estab-lished in isolation outside these areas in places suchas Zanzibar, Madagascar and western China, andtwentieth-century mobility has brought Islam tooutposts throughout the world, with architecturalconsequences in places as far apart as Sydney and

South Shields.Islamic building types developed originally in the

hot dry climate of the Middle East, where the impactof solar radiation produced the need for shadedcourtyards and cool spaces darkened against the sunby day; and for heavy construction to retain andreradiate heat internally by night. As Islam spreadacross the world it embraced an ever-increasingvariety of climates, but the forms evolved for the hot,

arid areas of the Middle East and western Asia wereretained; in some cases (for example, the monsoonareas of India) concessions were made to encouragethe better flow of air so essential to comfort in humidconditions. Nevertheless many of the traditionalforms to be found in temperate climates are more

related to ritual than to function. Combinations ofIslamic features with the local vernacular wereinevitable. As might be expected, therefore, in placessuch as the islands of Indonesia or the jungles ofcentral Africa, variants have arisen which run counterto otherwise fair generalisations.

Philosophy and Lifestyle

Islam is the third great monotheistic religion to havesprung from the Semitic peoples. By its adherents it isregarded as the natural successor to Judaism andChristianity and, like them, it looks back to theProphets and Patriarchs which it shares with thepreceding faiths. Its foundation was, in essence, anattempt to purify the established pattern of worship,rejecting paganism and providing a fundamental basefor monotheism free from idolatry.

Islam is the description for the religion itself,Muslim is the word for one who professes the Faithwhich took its authority from revelations vouchsafedto the Prophet Mohammed in the years 610622,during which times its articles were codified and itsessential characteristics established. The preceptsgoverning the lives of Muslims imply requirementsfor buildings peculiar to believers. The annualpilgrimage, or Haj, brings the faithful from all parts

of the Muslim world to Mecca. This imparted adegree of unity which justifies a separate category forIslamic architecture to encompass a group of stylesspread widely across Asia and Africa in manydifferent climates and kingdoms, and in time overmore than a millennium. It includes all thosebuildings previously termed Saracenic, Moorish andMohammedan.

Muslim thought is codified in three works. Ofthese, the Koran is regarded as a revelation throughthe medium of the Prophet Mohammed; the Hadith isa collection of his sayings or injunctions, and is oflesser weight; while the Law is extracted from theProphets instruction, from tradition and example. Onthese basic compilations rests the whole philosoph-

ical structure of the Islamic world. The faith producedin successive generations of its followers a way of lifeand a set of attitudes which had great influence ontheir architecture. These may be summarised as anacceptance of the dominance of Islam and theimmutability of its revelations and an abhorrence ofimage-worship. The effects of these beliefs onIslamic architecture can be seen in the followingcharacteristics: there is no essential differentiation in



11/13

BACKGROUND 569

techniques between buildings with a directly religiousconnotation and other buildings; important archi-tectural endeavour is normally expended on buildingshaving a direct social or community purpose, includ-ing that of worship; decorations tend towards theabstract, using geometric, calligraphic and plant

motifs, with a preference for a uniform field ofdecoration rather than a focal element; decoratedsurfaces are controlled by framing and an inherentconservatism discourages innovations and favoursestablished forms.

The Islamic system of thought was partly producedby the use of Arabic as a common language and as theonly language of the Koran. This cultural concen-tricity did much to unify the philosophies of theIslamic peoples, to govern their way of life, and tounify their architecture. The synthesis of the styles ofmany conquered peoples under the impact of onephilosophy and one religion in the many differentcircumstances of the first four centuries of Islam wasa cultural achievement of which only one facet is anarchitecture fundamentally centred upon worship. Atits heart is the mosque, an inward-looking buildingwhose prime purpose is contemplation and prayer. Itsprayer space is removed from the immediate impactof worldly affairs, although it is not designed to beemotionally uplifting nor to produce a sense ofexultation. There is no positive object of adoration. Itis entirely a place of congregation for the faithful andfor appropriate communal activities. Although it isnot set apart, it does become an exemplar, embodyingarchitectural styles and fashions which, even thoughthey may have evolved elsewhere, are codified andstabilised in the mosque and its associated mon-umental buildings.

Above all things, the mosque is democratic. In themosque all have equal rights, and the building mayserve many functions other than prayer. It is stillcommonly used as a school, business transactionsmay be made there and treasures may be stored.Proclamations are made there and consultations held.Under the complex pressures of modern society,however, some of the historically important functionsof the mosque have been transferred elsewhere.Although the mosque may retain its libraries these toohave been superseded, and travellers reaching a townno longer go first to the mosque and its ancilliarybuildings, where shelter and hospitality once wereprovided to the newly arrived traveller and to thepoor.

Nevertheless, although it is now less possible forthe community to bathe, eat, sleep, debate and beschooled there, the mosque complex remains thefocus of Muslim life something between a forumand a prayer-house. Historically the mosque was ofsuch central importance to the life of the communitythat it became the dominant building, and this form isechoed in structures built for other purposes. It isalways planned on an axis directed towards Mecca.

With the exception of the earliest instances, this axiswas always terminated on the inner face of themosque by the mihrab, usually a niche, where theleader of the congregation makes his prayers. Thisact, which involves prostration, must be observedfrom other parts of the prayer chamber, and lateral

vision is therefore important. The congregationassembles in lines traversing the main axis and takesits cue from the leader or those in the centre of theline in a position to observe him. A multi-columnedhall with transverse aisles makes an acceptable space.Ideally there should be no columns, hence thepopularity of the dome. Since there is nothingsacrosanct about the mihrab, secondary mihrabs areoften placed in other positions of convenience for theuse of smaller congregations or individuals. Theprayer space is furnished only with the mimber, fromwhich formal pronouncements can be made, althougha part of the prayer space may be railed-off or fittedwith a balcony for special uses those of a dignitaryor ruler, or of muezzins or women. There may also bea fixed reading desk or preaching stool.

Apart from the buildings, with their numeroussubtleties of form and their range of decorativetechniques, Islamic culture produced many otherrequisite artefacts such as carpets and ceramics. It isheld, however, that Islams greatest cultural mediumis the spoken and written word, and although littlesurvives from very early Islam, this is to be set besidethe vast quantity of literature, much of it scientific,which has survived often unknown to Westernscholars: indeed a proportion of the manuscriptsremains unread.

Arabic as the lingua franca has made possible theessential synthesis of Islamic cultural achievement.

Through it Greek philosophy and science becameavailable and to it Hellenistic, Christian, Jewish,Zoroastrian and Hindu ideas brought further intellec-tual vigour, leading in mediaeval times to profoundachievements in science, mathematics, history andgeography.

Arabic numeration provides a significant exampleof the inventive mode which had been systemised andapplied in a practical context ideas derived fromelsewhere in this case from India. Medicine,astronomy and commerce are among other areaswhich owe major debts to Muslim scholarship andenterprise.

Architectural Character

The countries into which Islam first expanded werealready rich in building tradition, and the importanttechniques of exploitation of natural resources forbuilding work and trade in building materials hadlong been established. Brick-making and walling inmud brick and pise were almost universal in the



12/13

BACKGROUND 571

alluvial plains: in the stone-bearing areas the arts ofselecting and quarrying stone were well established.Marble was generally available as an article of tradeif not native to the locality. Lime and gypsum formortars and plasters were usually readily procurable.A rich variety of building stones is found in areas

reaching from Asia Minor and Egypt to northernIndia, and the techniques of working them andbuilding in masonry had been highly developedbefore the advent of Islam. Cyclopean masonry hadsurvived from antiquity, and Roman quarries such asthose at Baalbek still yielded massive stones. Thebuildings in such areas commonly had suspendedfloors and roofs of stone planks, stone windowshutters, stone leaves to doors and even interlockingstone rings used structurally to tie in the haunches ofstone domes. Decorative marble slabs and grilles,plate tracery and mosaics were commonplace. Mostmasonry structures of importance were in arched,vaulted or domed forms (p.570A), however, continu-ing the Roman and Byzantine building traditions.True voussoirs were used in the curved shapes, andinterlocking voussoirs guarded against earthquakes.Glass manufacture was sufficiently advanced toprovide window glass, and there was a long history ofceramic production. Cements, plasters and stuccowere used for bas-relief carving, and the highlydecorative muqarnas techniques employed in domes,vaults and arches (p.570B). Coloured external sur-faces were achieved first with mosaic but thedeveloping skills of mediaeval potters solved theproblems of producing brilliant colour in glazedearthenware, which was used first in small areas asinlay. In the earlier periods complex patterning wasachieved by making or cutting to the necessary

shapes tiles of a single colour.Timurid architects employed tiles fired at tem-peratures to suit each individual colour. In thefifteenth century a method of firing was developedwhich enabled tiles of regular size to be producedbearing the painted pattern. This change allowedmuch larger surfaces to be covered and the intricaciesof pattern-making became the purview of the potterrather than the tile cutter and mosaicist.

Lead-working, bronze-casting and the use of ironwere well-established techniques. Domes, roofs andsteeples were often weathered in lead and iron waswidely used in tie-bars, grilles and cramps.

The skills and techniques for wood-working andtimber engineering were used from the earliest period

for roof construction including early domes. Timbercomponents such as doors, windows, fittings andfurniture were built in interlocking geometric assem-blies of rare timbers, mother-of-pearl, metals, ivoryand various stones. At a simpler humbler level flattimber roofs were extremely common and timber-framing was used extensively in walling and theconstruction of upper floors. Timber structures wereinevitable in forested areas such as Indonesia and

Malaya but it also played an important structural rolefrom the Balkans through Asia Minor, the Caucasusand the mountains of Iran, to the Himalayas andnorthern India.

No history of Muslim building can overlook theextensive use of unbaked brick and other forms of

earth construction. Lime and gypsum were sometimesused to stabilise earth-bricks. Fired-brick was some-times used in conjunction with earths to achieveribbed and groined domes and vaulting. By far thegreatest volume of building in Islamic lands has beenachieved with earth walling.

Taken as a whole, the architecture of Islam must beseen primarily as a matter of arcuated masonryconstruction in which its artisans achieved the highestlevels of finish and invention. The prevalence ofearthquakes across much of the centre of the Muslimworld gave particular importance to the inventiveskills of masons and resulted in the employment ofspecialised structural techniques.

It remains only to add that the constructiontechniques used to meet climatic conditions, whileusually simple, contributed significantly to the char-acter of the buildings. From the use of small windowopenings in thick walls to the sophisticated wind-scoops (p. 570C) used to carry air into the interiors,the technical mastery of climate in the hot and aridMiddle East, was a notable achievement in construc-tional terms.

The essence of any style is the specific handling offorms, spaces and massing; the combination offeatures, the decoration and the inflections of individ-ual elements in the vocabulary. While Muslimarchitecture shares with other styles many individualfeatures having borrowed some and donated others, it

is only by collective description that it can beidentified satisfactorily.Among the notable outwardly characteristic fea-

tures of Muslim architecture are the pointed arch, andthe horsehoe arch in which the lower segment iscarried below the normal springing point. The originsof both may be traced back to the pre-Muslim era inthe eastern territories of Byzantium, and to theSassanian Empire. The pointed arch itself appears inthe earliest significant Muslim monuments, and bothwere carried to the western Mediterranean by Mus-lims in the eighth century. Thereafter, the pointedarch is as typical of Islamic architecture as it is ofGothic. Although in the West the horseshoe shape isfrequently round-headed, in the East the round arch

virtually disappeared after the ninth century, when thefour-centred arch was evolved.

Less crucial was the use of cusping and of guardingcolonnettes or nook-shafts. Cusping has a pre-Muslimhistory in church buildings in Syria in the sixthcentury, but it was first used regularly in decorativefrets to arches in late eighth-century Iraq. Nook-shaftsare found in Coptic and Hellenistic Christian archi-tecture of the fifth and sixth centuries. Intermittently



13/13

BACKGROUND 573

they have appeared at all periods but their regular usein Muslim architecture can be firmly dated to theninth century, after which they were used widely forentrance openings of significance.

By the eleventh century other important decorativeelements had also become established, among them

the peculiarly Islamic muqarnas or stalactite corbel.Muqarnas are superimposed corbels, angled so thatthe quoin of the lower corbel is coincident with thegroin of two superimposed corbels above. From thetenth to the fifteenth centuries they were developedinto a range of astonishingly varied, intricate andimaginative patterns of crystalline brilliance tobecome one of the most distinctive features ofMuslim architecture (p. 572). Initially colour wasachieved by the use of mosaics, and sometimesquartered marble panels, but mosaic eventually gaveway to coloured glazed earthenware.

The absence of figurative design in Islamicimagery has given rise to much misunderstanding andnot a little debate. The prohibitions do not arisedirectly from the injunctions of the Prophet, but fromcomments based on the impropriety of man attempt-ing to usurp the function of God in creatingrepresentations of living creatures. Early Islam was inrivalry with the established Christian churches wheniconoclasm was at its height, and the teachings of thechurch affected the attitudes of early converts toIslam. Consequently, calligraphy and pattern-makingtook the place of figures.

The most comprehensive range of features, how-ever, does not make a coherent architecture. Thisarises only from the methods of handling form andspace. It is typical of Islamic building that there isno attempt to collect numerous spaces and volumeswithin one great envelope whose facades then

describe a single mass. Each component standsidentified in its own right, and is expressed as partof a sequence of linked structures. The coordinationand articulation of the individual componentstogether supply the prime discipline. Dome, iwan,cloister or portal may be emphasised or diminishedas required within its proper station, and eachcontains elements which display the essential struc-tural form.

Some fundamental aspects of building derivefrom use and lifestyle. The actual form of themosque is unique to the faith. So are its madrassas(medreses) or schools and colleges. The emphasisupon privacy and public segregation of the sexesleads to specific handling of the house, theentrance, the sheltered window and the streetfacade. The uniform height of many settlementsderives from the requirement for privacy of roomsused for sleeping. The intricate street structuregives privacy of access. The great mosque may beall but invisible from within the city because theurban matrix engulfs it completely. The externalfacade is unusual and the formal urban space isequally rare.


architecture of islam

Documents