Islamic Architecture

Islamic architecture is a broad umbrella term used by both art historians and scholars of the history of engineering and technology to refer to buildings erected to celebrate and spread Islam over a period of more than a dozen centuries. Beginning in the region of contemporary Saudi Arabia in the mid-seventh century, Islamic architecture followed the military conquests of Muslim armies, eventually finding expression in a far range of geographical areas. For that reason, codifying Islamic architecture is a particular challenge as Islamic public buildings always drew on elements of native architecture, resulting in a fusion of elements from Romanesque, Byzantine, Persian, Indian, Chinese, African, and European Renaissance architectures. Further, individual rulers in far-flung districts sought to impress their own signature on the architecture they built to sustain their own empires.

Background

Although elements of Islamic architecture influenced domestic edifices such as private homes and were elements of infrastructure projects such as roads and aqueducts, the principal manifestations of Islamic architecture across more than a millennium were realized in grand-scale public building projects: tombs and mausoleums commemorating great Muslim military and religious figures; elegant palaces with spacious gardens and baths, harams, stables, even hospitals, erected often in the most forbidding landscapes; massively conceived forts to protect the vulnerable outlying posts of the Muslim empire; and supremely in grand domed mosques to serve as both community gathering places and for worship. Indeed, despite its eventual realization in ambitious building projects that sought to bring to the concept of enclosed space the grand spiritual dimension of Islam, the beginnings of Islamic architecture (that is, buildings constructed during and in the century following the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad) were modest spaces designed largely to provide prayer space. As open-air, roofed courtyards, mosques initially served simply as prayer halls. As the reach and wealth of the Muslim empire grew, its buildings, particularly those dedicated to service of Muhammad, reflected imperial power. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed in 691 is largely regarded as the first (and among the finest) products of Islamic architecture. It reflects the paradoxical sense of both austerity and sumptuousness that would come to mark Islamic architecture.

The major expressions of Islamic architecture suggest the sheer reach and creative genius of Islam’s builders: the Grand Mosque of Samarra in Iraq (completed in 847); the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia (completed in 670); the sumptuous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (converted to a mosque in the 1450s); the Taj Mahal outside Agra in India (completed in 1653); the walled fort at Agra (completed in 1573); the Shalimar Gardens of Lahore in Pakistan (completed in 1642); the Great Mosque of Djeené in Mali (completed in 1907); the Jameh Mosque of Esfahān in Iran (begun in 771 but renovated throughout the twentieth century); the abandoned capital city of Fatehpur Sikri in India (completed in 1569); the grand minaret of Qutb Minar in Delhi (completed in 1193); the Grand Mosque in Taipei (completed in 1948). These are buildings, regardless of their cultural setting and their moment in history, intended to embody power and grandeur. These are interior spaces constructed to inspire awe, to capture in the rise of vaulted domes and in the sheer width of cavernous congregation spaces a feeling of immensity, a feeling of immersing the individual pilgrim within infinity itself.

Overview

Islamic architecture, whatever its expression, shares basic elements. Most notably, the buildings center on and radiate outward from a bold bulbous double-shelled dome that, like the steeple in Christian churches, is meant to embody the powerful upward reach of prayer. The domes were often tiled using a range of stunning and vivid colors including white, gold, and most often turquoise. Slender minarets balance the exteriors giving the buildings their clean symmetrical look. Over the centuries, Islamic architecture extended to grand landscape gardens with elaborate fountains and divided by paths and water channels. Interiors were characterized by grand vaulted prayer halls, supported by massive columns, each with a mihrab, or elevated platform niche for the imam. Passageways were created and marked by grand horseshoe archways that gave the buildings their spiritual energy and a sense of unbroken circulation. The interiors were decorated not with statuary (facsimiles of humans or animals being prohibited) but rather with elegant calligraphy celebrating passages from the Qu’ran and stunning mosaics of gold and inlaid jewels arranged in intricate floral-like patterns of complex repeating designs. In Islam tradition, repetition in design that appears to go forever represents the nearest approximation humanity has of the reach of infinity itself. Indeed the term arabesque comes from this ornate interior design method. Islamic architecture, conceived to be immodest, produced buildings designed to embody the power of Islamic faith and the sublimity of Allah.

Bibliography

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Carey, Moya, ed. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. London: Lorenz, 2010. Print.

Ettinghausen, Richard, et al. Islamic Art and Architecture, 650–1250. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003. Print.

Frishman, Martin, and Hasan-Uddin Khan. The Mosque: History, Architectural Development, and Regional Diversity. London: Thomas, 2002. Print.

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Hillenbrand, Robert. Islamic Art and Architecture: Form, Function, and Meaning. New York: Columbia UP, 2004. Print.