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Providing an introduction to the artistic and architectural traditions of the Islamic world, A Story of Islamic Art explores fifty case studies, taken from different regions of the Islamic world and from the seventh to the twenty-first centuries. The novel aspect of these case studies is that they are presented as fictional narratives, allowing the reader to imagine art and architecture, either in their original cultural settings or at some later point in their histories. These stories are supported by a scholarly framework that allows the reader to continue their exploration of the chosen artefacts and their historical context.The fifty case studies take the form of short stories, each of which focuses on one or more object from the Islamic world. These encompass portable items in a wide variety of media, book illustrations, calligraphy, photographs, architectural decoration, buildings, and archaeological sites. The book also provides a detailed introduction, maps, timeline, glossary, and guides for further reading. This book offers accessible answers to key questions in the scholarship on Islamic art and architecture from its earliest times to the present. The issues dealt with in each of the stories include iconography, attitudes towards representation, the role of script, the elaboration of geometric decoration, the creation of sacred and secular spaces in architecture, and the socio-cultural context of art production and consumption. Artistic interactions between the Islamic world and other regions including Europe and China are also discussed in this book.A Story of Islamic Art is an engaging and informative introduction for interested readers and students of Islamic art, history, and architecture.

Canada has seen the study of Islamic art and archeology grow steadily over the last five decades, with growth in research and teaching across numerous Canadian universities as well as important collections of Islamic art and archaeological materials, most notably at the Royal Ontario Museum and the Aga Khan Museum.Made for the Eye of One Who Sees uncovers the contributions of scholars and museum curators at Canadian institutions to current scholarship on Islamic art. Employing a wide range of approaches and theoretical perspectives, contributors cover topics from across the Islamic world dating from the eighth century to the present. Subjects include the iconography of architectural design and decoration, the role of Qur'anic inscriptions, the representation of symbolic animals in sculpture, and the interpretation of Persian manuscript painting. The book also juxtaposes modern and contemporary worlds, providing insightful reflections on the early history of the Islamic collections at the Royal Ontario Museum, Matisse's creative encounter with Byzantine and Islamic visual culture, and the ongoing dialogue between new media and the traditional concepts underpinning Islamic art.Bringing together recent scholarship on Islamic art, architecture, and archaeology, Made for the Eye of One Who Sees provides an overview of the important contributions Canada is making to this rich and evolving field of study.

Bilingual edition (English/Arabic) / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (englisch/arabisch) Designing Modernity: Architecture in the Arab World 1945–1973 is the result of a fascinating investigation by international experts into the influences of modernist architecture in the Arab world. Ten case studies provide the foundation for a thorough exploration of the relevant cultural-historical, sociopolitical, climatic and demographic aspects. Questions concerning the region's reciprocal relationship with modernist architecture in the period from 1945 to 1973 are investigated through the biographies of selected buildings and building complexes from Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco. Texts, contemporary images, architectural drawings and archival material are used to document the process from commissioning and design through to completion and building use.

The Place of the Mosque: Genealogies of Space, Knowledge, and Power extends Foucault's analysis, Of Other Spaces, and the “ideological conflicts which underlie the controversies of our day [and] take place between pious descendants of time and tenacious inhabitants of space.” This book uses Foucault's framework to illuminate how mosques have been threatened in the past, from the Cordóba Mosque in the eighth century, to the development of Moorish aesthetics in the United States in the nineteenth century, to the clashes surrounding the building of mosques in the West in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Akel Kahera uses Foucault's genealogy to elaborate on and study the subjects that are caught in the emergence of a battle—the social and political will to power, the networks of power, and the rituals of power—within the interstitial space. In going beyond individual buildings to broader geographical and genealogical dimensions of the power struggles, The Place of the Mosque reconciles the public space experience, governmentality, and micro powers, paving the way for a new philosophical language. Expanding architectural and urban regional approaches, Kahera shows the biopolitical significance of the problem of space.

This lavishly illustrated volume – with many images previously unpublished in colour – collects 18 articles by Bernard O'Kane on a wide variety of topics in Arab architecture. The essays range from from Morocco to India, and from the earliest periods of Islam to the present day.

This volume collects Yasser Tabbaa's investigative and interpretive articles on medieval Islamic architecture, ornament and gardens in Syria and Iraq, with comparisons to Anatolia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain, within the context of the political divisions and theological ruptures of the Islamic world between the 11th and 13th centuries.

Explores how Islamic art and architecture were made: their materials and their social, political, economic and religious context

A fascinating biography of one of the Middle East's greatest architects whose life story is intrinsically connected to that of Iraq.'Makiya was Baghdad and Baghdad was Makiya.'These words sum up the life of one of the Middle East's most famous architects. Mohamed Makiya's career spanned seven decades and included projects in more than ten countries. He was a master of incorporating traditional and classical styles into modern architecture. For Makiya, the continuity of tradition as a'living dimension'was the justification for his work. Makiya was revered as a teacher of architecture in Iraq, where he set up the first Department of Architecture at Baghdad University in 1959. Makiya was also a promoter of Iraqi art, which he displayed at his Kufa Gallery in London that was set up to build a bridge between the East and the West. This compelling biography reveals the life of a visionary who achieved remarkable feats in Iraq and whose philosophy and humanity crossed all borders and cultures.

يقول المؤلف إن امتياز مصر بما حوته من مجاميع أثرية جعل لها المقام الأول بين بلاد العالم، فقد تمثلت في تلك المجاميع مختلف الحضارات المتعاقبة عليها، وهي أصدق مقياس لمقدار رقيها وحضارتها. ومصر الإسلامية قد احتفظت بالكثير من أخطاطها، وأسواقها، وفنونها، وآثارها، فيجد الباحث في تاريخها، وتاريخ العمارة الإسلامية، مادة غزيرة للدرس، حيث يرى العمارة الإسلامية والصناعات. ممثلة تمثيلًا كاملًا. لكافة عصورها منذ الفتح الإسلامي. حتى محمد علي باشا الكبير. فلا عجب أن تستهوي بجمالها هواة الفنون ومحبي الآثار.

Expertise and Architecture in the Modern Islamic World explores how architectural traditions and practices were shared and exchanged across national borders throughout the world, departing from a narrative that casts European actors as the importers and exporters of Islamic designs and skills. Looking to cases that touch on empire building, modernization, statecraft and diplomacy, this book examines how these processes have been contingent on a web of expertise informed by a rich and varied array of authors and contexts since the 1800s. The chapters in this volume, organized around the leitmotif of expertise, demonstrate the thematic importance and specific utility of in-depth and broad-ranging knowledge in shaping the understanding of architecture in the Islamic world from the nineteenth century to the present. Specific case studies include European gardeners in Ottoman courts, Polish architects in Kuwait, Israeli expertise in Iran, monument archiving in India, religious spaces in Swedish suburbs and more. This is the latest title in Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East, a series devoted to the most recent scholarship concerning architecture, landscape and urban design of the Middle East and of regions shaped by diasporic communities more globally.

The art of the object reached unparalleled heights in the medieval Islamic world, yet the intellectual dimensions of ceramics, metalwares, and other plastic arts in this milieu have not always been acknowledged. Arts of Allusion reveals the object as a crucial site where pre-modern craftsmen of the eastern Mediterranean and Persianate realms engaged in fertile dialogue with poetry, literature, painting, and, perhaps most strikingly, architecture. Lanterns fashioned after miniature shrines, incense burners in the form of domed monuments, earthenware jars articulated with arches and windows, inkwells that allude to tents: through close studies of objects from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, this book reveals that allusions to architecture abound across media in the portable arts of the medieval Islamic world. Arts of Allusion draws upon a broad range of material evidence as well as medieval texts to locate its subjects in a cultural landscape where the material, visual, and verbal realms were intertwined. Moving far beyond the initial identification of architectural types with their miniature counterparts in the plastic arts, Margaret Graves develops a series of new frameworks for exploring the intelligent art of the allusive object. These address materiality, representation, and perception, and examine contemporary literary and poetic paradigms of metaphor, description, and indirect reference as tools for approaching the plastic arts. Arguing for the role of the intellect in the applied arts and for the communicative potential of ornament, Arts of Allusion asserts the reinstatement of craftsmanship into Islamic intellectual history.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

This volume deals with the formative period of Islamic art (to c. 950), and the different approaches to studying it. Individual essays deal with architecture, ceramics, coins, textiles, and manuscripts, as well as with such broad questions as the supposed prohibition of images, and the relationships between sacred and secular art. An introductory essay sets each work in context; it is complemented by a bibliography for further reading.

Even a casual observer can spy traces of Islamic architecture and design on buildings all over the world, a reminder that artistic traditions and visual culture have never been limited to their region or country of origin, but rather are highly diffusible. This book brings together scholars from architectural studies, design, art history and other fields to challenge and expand concepts of Islamic architecture. Ranging from eighteenth-century Ottoman tents to manifestations of Islamic motifs in 1960s Hawaii, this richly illustrated volume raises key questions about Islamic architecture, and, more broadly, about how we can rethink our understanding of material, artistic and cultural mobility in the modern world.

Ouvrez ce livre et laissez-vous guider par Mohamed Benjouad dans l'univers fascinant de la zakhrafa - l'art des motifs géométriques islamiques. Largement représentée dans le monde arabo-musulman, la zakhrafa, d'un point de vue spirituel, exprime la perfection du mystère caché de la création. Artistiquement, elle trouve sa dimension universelle à travers les mouvements qu'elle décrit, qui semblent se déployer à l'infini. Elle orne l'architecture des plus beaux édifices comme les objets artisanaux les plus modestes. En suivant les instructions de l'auteur passionné par son art autant que par l'idée de le transmettre, vous apprivoiserez pas à pas l'élaboration de motifs géométriques à complexité croissante à partir des formes basiques que sont le cercle, le carré et le triangle. Après avoir percé les secrets de la zakhrafa, vous n'aurez plus qu'à laisser parler votre créativité pour découvrir l'artiste qui est en vous et créer vos propres motifs...

In tenth-century Iraq, a group of Arab intellectuals and scholars known as the Ikhwan al-Safa began to make their intellectual mark on the society around them. A mysterious organisation, the identities of its members have never been clear. But its contribution to the philosophy, art and culture of the era - and indeed subsequent ones - is evident. In the visual arts, for example, Hamdouni Alami argues that the theory of human proportions which the Ikwan al-Safa propounded (something very similar to those of da Vinci), helped shape the evolution of the philosophy of aesthetics, art and architecture in the tenth and eleventh centuries CE, in particular in Egypt under the Fatimid rulers. By examining the arts of the Fatimids, focusing on painting and architectural works such as the first Fatimid mosque in al-Mahdiyya, Tunisia, Hamdouni Alami offers analysis of the debates surrounding the ethics of the appreciation of Islamic art and architecture from a vital time in medieval Middle Eastern history, and shows their similarity with aesthetic debates of Italian Renaissance

Extrait :'À l'extrémité sud-occidentale de l'Asie, s'avance dans l'océan Indien une presqu'île dont l'histoire très reculée nous est peu connue. Entourée de deux côtés par la mer Rouge et le golfe Persique, qui baignent ses côtes arides et inhospitalières, elle se rattache au continent par des steppes pierreuses et désertes...'À PROPOS DES ÉDITIONS LIGARAN : Les éditions LIGARAN proposent des versions numériques de grands classiques de la littérature ainsi que des livres rares, dans les domaines suivants : • Fiction : roman, poésie, théâtre, jeunesse, policier, libertin. • Non fiction : histoire, essais, biographies, pratiques.

Extrait :'Bien que le Prophète ait absolument interdit l'usage des ornements d'ornements d'or, et bien que la masse des musulmans dévots ait observé cette prescription, il est impossible qu'il n'y en eût pas qui l'aient enfreinte, et dont les goûts fastueux n'aient étouffé les scrupules de conscience. D'ailleurs n'y avait-il pas les femmes, et peuvent-elles, quelles qu'elles soient, résister au goût des bijoux?...'À PROPOS DES ÉDITIONS LIGARAN : Les éditions LIGARAN proposent des versions numériques de grands classiques de la littérature ainsi que des livres rares, dans les domaines suivants : • Fiction : roman, poésie, théâtre, jeunesse, policier, libertin. • Non fiction : histoire, essais, biographies, pratiques.

Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Honor of Renata Holod is a collection of studies on the portable arts, arts of the book, painting, photography, and architecture spanning the medieval and modern periods and across the historical Islamic lands. The essays reflect the wide-ranging interests and diverse methodologies of Renata Holod and attend to the physical, material, and aesthetic properties of their objects, offer nuanced explanations of complex relations between objects and historical contexts, and remain critically aware of the shape of the field of Islamic art and architecture, its canonical objects, approaches, and historiographies. Essential reading for scholars working on Islam and the Islamic world in the disciplines of history of art and architecture, history, literature, and anthropology. With contributions by María Judith Feliciano, Christiane Gruber, Leslee Katrina Michelsen, Nancy Micklewright, Stephennie Mulder, Johanna Olafsdotter, Yael Rice, Cynthia Robinson, David J. Roxburgh, D. Fairchild Ruggles, Alison Mackenzie Shah, and Pushkar Sohoni.

This volulme features eight original papers dedicated to the theme “Persian Architecture and Mathematics,” guest edited by Reza Sarhangi. All papers were approved through a rigorous process of blind peer review and edited by an interdisciplinary scientific editorial committee. Topics range from symmetry in ancient Persian architecture to the elaborate geometric patterns and complex three-dimensional structures of standing monuments of historical periods, from the expression of mathematical ideas to architectonic structures, and from decorative ornament to the representation of modern group theory and quasi-crystalline patterns. The articles discuss unique monuments Persia, including domed structures and two-dimensional patterns, which have received significant scholarly attention in recent years. This book is a unique contribution to studies of Persian architecture in relation to mathematics.

Readers are presented with a vivid portrait of the classical Islamic world through its greatest architectural sites and art treasures. Drawn from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Asia, as well as from various time periods and empires, the artifacts highlighted in this book show the beauty and rich diversity of Islamic culture. Photographs feature stunning examples of Islamic architecture, carpets and textiles, paintings, illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy, and other arts. The narrative provides fascinating background on the evolution of their forms and styles. Readers will gain an appreciation of the uniqueness of Islamic art, as well as its connections to a wider global heritage.

This major reference work covers all aspects of architectural inscriptions in the Muslim world: the artists and their patrons, what inscriptions add to architectural design, what materials were used, what their purpose was and how they infuse buildings with meaning.

إن التكايا والزوايا تمثل إحدى الركائز الهامة لتربية النشء المسلم دينيا واجتماعيا. كان لأهل التكايا على طول التاريخ الإسلامى أسس وقواعد، وكان لها دورها فى الحفاظ على فريضة الجهاد، وقد استشهد الكثير من مشايخ الصوفية وذلك أثناء مقاومتهم للغزو المغولى، وكان للصوفية تشكيلاتهم ودورهم داخل الجيش العثمانى نفسه، فكانوا يسكنون تكاياهم وزواياهم حيثما يحل الجيش. وللتكايا الدور الفعال فى نشر الإسلام فى وسط آسيا وأفريقيا.ولقد خاب أمل المؤسسات التعليمية فى بلاد الغرب فى إعداد نشأ صالح أدبيا ودينيا وفكريا واجتماعيا، بينما قامت التكايا والزوايا لمعالجة تلك الجوانب، وكان لها الأثر فى المجتمعات الإسلامية وخاصة المجتمع التركى. ولما رأت الحركة الكمالية فصل الشعب التركى عن تراثه الإٍسلامى وكيانه الفكرى قامت التكايا باتخاذ قرارات، وعمل فعلى ضد الحركة الكمالية الهدامة، وتعرض أصحاب التكايا إلى الحبس ووصل الأمر إلى الإعدام أحيانا؛ من أجل الحفاظ على هوية الدين والدولة.

Hassan Fathy, the Egyptian architect known for his recognition of the potential of vernacular forms as a vital force in contemporary architectural design, sought to integrate the traditions of Islamic art with his modern visions for living. Guided by Fathy's principles, Ahmad Hamid, an architect who collaborated with Hassan Fathy in the Institute for Appropriate Technology, identifies questions about the nature of Islamic art and its building culture, as well as the origins of modern architecture. This richly illustrated book provides new insights into Hassan Fathy's profuse, pathbreaking design documents and built projects, while exploring the socioeconomic, environmental, psychological, and esthetic components of Fathy's work in the light of a quest for a new universal modernity for the twenty-first century.

يتحدث هذا الكتاب علي احتفال الحضارة الإسلامية بإبداعات كثيرة في شتى المجالات الحياتية؛ في الطب، والهندسة، والعلوم، والفلك، وعلم الاجتماع، والعمارة والعمران، وحتى في السياسة وإدارة شؤون البلاد. وبوصف العمارة القالب الذي تدور فيه كل الأنشطة الحياتية، بجانب أنها تتمثل في آثار باقية وملموسة، فقد كان للإبداع فيها شأن آخر. وداخل هذا النطاق تنوع الإبداع وتعددت أوجهه وأهدافه، ما بين الإبداع في طرق وأساليب البناء، وما بين إبداع في الفكر التصميمي للمباني، وفي العناصر المعمارية والإنشائية، وحتى في العناصر الزخرفية والتشكيل والتكوينات المعمارية. وقد تناولت كتب ودراسات عديدة العمارة الإسلامية، غلب على معظمها التناول التاريخي وانتهجت المنهج الوصفي في وصف الأعمال بشكل تاريخي يبين تاريخ العمل المعماري والزيادات التي تمت عليه بجانب وصف لعناصره ومكوناته، وإن كان هناك ما انتهج من بعضها المنهج التحليلي في محاولات كانت جادة لربط الفكر المعماري للعمارة الإسلامية بالمؤثرات التي تأثرت بها سواء من الخارج وهي العمارات والفنون السابقة، أم من الداخل مثل الإرث المعماري العربي أو تعاليم الدين الإسلامي. هذا من جانب، ومن جانب آخر، فإن القارئ للغالبية العظمى من الكتب والمراجع الأجنبية التي تناولت الفنون والعمارات عبر التاريخ، يجد هضماً واضحاً وظلماً بيناً لجهد فني معماري كبير بذل من جانب فنانين ومعماريين وحرفيين مسلمين كانوا لا يبتغون إلا وجه الله في تعالى أعمالهم، لذا فلم يكتبوا عن أعمالهم التي قاموا بها ولم يذكر التاريخ أسمائهم، إلا ما ندر، بقدر ما تذكر الأعمال. فلا نجد في الكتب الغربية القدر الكافي من تقدير العمارة الإسلامية وفنونها المختلفة، وإن وجدنا في بعضها، ومع الأسف، هجوماً صريحاً عليها من حيث إنها عمارة زخرفية، وعمارة مخفية لا تهتم بالكتل والشكل والتشكيل الخارجي، أو أن المسلمين لم يقدموا ابتكارات في الفن المعماري بقدر ما اقتبسوا وأخذوا من فنون العمارات في البلاد التي فتحوها، وما إلى غير ذلك، وهذا بلا شك كلام مردود عليه بسهولة، من خلال مطالعة الإرث المعماري الباقي من آثار العمارة الإسلامية في مختلف البلاد والذي يوضح أن العمارة الإسلامية كانت متكاملة داخلياً وخارجياً، بل تميزت بميزة لم توجد في عمارات سبقتها أو حتى جاءت بعدها، ألا وهي ميزة مخاطبة العواطف والعقل في آن واحد بمنتج واحد.

Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World is sponsored by the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The articles in Muqarnas 27 address topics such as spolia in medieval Islamic architecture, Islamic coinage in the seventh century, the architecture of the Alhambra from an environmental perspective, and Ottoman–Mamluk gift exchange in the fifteenth century. The volume also features a new section, entitled “Notes and Sources”, with pieces highlighting primary sources such as Akbar's Kathāsaritsāgara. Contributors include Ebba Koch, Elizabeth Lambourn, Elias Muhanna, Rina Avner, Kathryn Moore, Alicia Walker, Todd Willmert, Julia Gonnella, Zeynep Ertuğ, Jere Bacharach, Persis Berlekamp, Heike Franke, Vincenza Garofalo, and Fabrizio Agnello.

Muqarnas is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Muqarnas 26 contains articles on a variety of topics that span and transcend the geographic and temporal boundaries that have traditionally defined the history of Islamic art and architecture. Contributors include Robert McChesney, Mattia Guidetti, Marcus Schadl, Christian Gruber, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Doris Abouseif, Olga Bush, Emine Fetvaci, Moya Carey, Bernard O'Kane, Hadi Maktabi, Nadia Erzini and Stephen Vernoit.

Inhaltsübersicht 1. Einführung in die Thematik 2. Einige islamische Grundbegriffe 2.1. Der Islam 2.2. Allah 2.3. Din 2.4. Der Koran 3. Die fünf Säulen des Islam 3.1. Das Glaubensbekenntnis (Schahada) 3.2. Das Gebet (Salah) 3.3. Die Almosensteuer (Zakah) 3.4. Das Fasten (Saum) 3.5. Die Pilgerfahrt (Hajj) 4. Die Moschee 4.1. Der Mihrab 4.2. Der Minbar 4.3. Funktion einer Moschee 5. Die drei panislamischen Heiligtümer 5.1. Mekka 5.2. Medina 5.3. Jerusalem 6. Das islamische Menschenbild 7. Das Leben des Propheten Mohammad (s.a.w.) 8. Die Paradiesvorstellung im Islam bzw. im Koran 9. Die Bedeutung des Wassers in der islamischen Architektur 10. Allgemeines zur Bauart und Haustypen im arabisch-islamischen Raum 10.1. Soziale und religiöse Sinnbezüge von Baugestalt und Lebensordnung/Tradition und geistige Überlieferung als tieferer Gehalt von Bauwerken 10.2. Metaphern und Analogien zum Thema Haus und Familie im Sprachgebrauch 10.3. Bauen als gesellschaftlicher Akt 10.4. Räumlicher Aufbau und Funktion eines typischen Hofhauses 11. Konzept der Familie 12. Drinnen und Draußen 13. Geschlechtliche Trennung zwischen Mann und Frau 14. Möblierung 15. Die Geschichte von Wilhelmsburg 15.1. Die politische Zugehörigkeit von Wilhelmsburg 15.2. Wilhelmsburg vor der Industrialisierung bis zur Sturmflut 19621 15.3 Das heutige Wilhelmsburg 15.4. Die Verkehrserschließung in Wilhelmsburg 16. Der soziokulturelle Wandel von Wilhelmsburg 16.1. Anwerbung von Arbeitskräften 16.2. Gastarbeiter 17 Städtisches Leben mit fremden Kulturen 17.1. Wohnverhältnisse der türkischen Migranten in Wilhelmsburg 17.2. Wohnungsbestand in Wilhelmsburg 18. Schlussfolgerungen Anhang Literaturverzeichnis

Islamic art is not the art of a nation or of a people, but that of a religion: Islam. Spreading from the Arabian Peninsula, the proselyte believers conquered, in a few centuries, a territory spreading from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Multicultural and multi-ethnical, this polymorphic and highly spiritual art, in which all representation of Man and God were prohibited, developed canons and various motives of great decorative value. Thorough and inventive, these artists expressed their beliefs by creating monumental masterpieces such as the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Alhambra in Granada, architectural works in which one recognises the stylisation of motives of the Muslim ceramics. Lively and coloured, Islamic art mirrors the richness of these people whose common denominator was the belief in one singular truth: the absolute necessity of creating works whose beauty equaled their respect for God.

The Islamic world drew upon a myriad of pre-existing styles of fortification, taking Romano-Byzantine, Indian and Chinese ideas to create a highly effective and sophisticated hybrid fortification that was both new and distinctive. This book examines early Saracen fortifications, covering their historical background, socio-political circumstances, and their role in protecting industry, trade and the frontiers of the Islamic world. From the mayyad'castles in the desert'of Jordan and Syria to the'Round City of Baghdad'and the great gates of Cairo, this book provides an insight into the majesty of the Saracen forts, illustrated with specially commissioned artwork and cutaways, together with photographs of period engravings and images of the sites today.

Muqarnas is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.In Muqarnas articles are being published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.

This book explores the iconography of Islamic art, presenting a diverse range of approaches to the subject.

'Beauty and Islam'explores aspects of aesthetics in classical Islamic thought in the light of contemporary theories, offering new perspectives on Islamic art and architecture with examples ranging from the Qur'an and the Alhambra to the works of present day artists and philosophers. Tracing the roots of Islamic aesthetics back to the works of the great philosophers of the Middle Ages such as Avicenna and Averroes, Valerie Gonzalez finds that aesthetic theory in Islam must be seen within the much wider context of parallel thinking on theology, ethics, physics and metaphysics.

A comprehensive and authoritative survey of Islamic Architecture from the world's leading expert.