IslamicIslamicArt & Art &

ArchitectureArchitecture

Muhammad

Islamic Expansion

• Muhammad (the Prophet) founder of religion – born c. 570 in Mecca. Died in 632.• At age 40, receives calling as a prophet of a new religion. • In 622, Muhammad and his followers, escaping persecution, emigrated from Mecca to a city eventually called Medina (“City of the Prophet”). This emigration is known as the Hejira (emigration). The Hejira marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.• In 630, Muhammad returned to Mecca with 10,000 soldiers. He took control of the city, converted the population to Islam, and destroyed all the idols.• Muhammad recognized Christians, Jews, and Arabs as descendants of Abraham and recognized Jesus, but not as divine.• Only Muhammad’s teachings preserve Allah’s true message• Muhammad was not divine himself – seen as the Final Prophet in the line including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.

Spread of Islam

Islamic Expansion

• Islam spread rapidly. • By the 8th Century, conquered North Africa and Spain (785 CE)• Constantinople fell in 1453 CE• Islam (through the work of the caliphs) established new social order in regions and took complete charge of temporal as well as spiritual affairs• Islam sponsored advanced scholarship and the translation of Greco-Roman texts from all areas of learning.• The Koran, the Islamic holy book (The Word of God),is a collection of moral laws as revealed to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel and written down after Mohammad’s death by the caliph Uthman (644-656)• The Koran is supplemented by the Sunna (moral sayings of Muhammad and anecdotes of his exemplary deeds). • Caliphs (Muslim leaders) are seen as descendants of families of the Prophet.

Islamic Beliefs and Ritual

Praying at the Taj Mahal,Uttar Pradesh, India

• Islamic rituals centered around daily prayer and pilgrimage, without other rituals or a hierarchical spiritually privileged priesthood.• Mohammad did not set up any priesthood or church, but the Koran’s “Five Pillars” became a guide for the duties for all life’s endeavors. • The Five Pillars of Islam are: 1. Reciting the creed: “There is no god but the One God (Allah), Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” 2. Daily prayer (3-5 times) facing Mecca and Fridays in a Mosque. 3. Abstinence of food, drink, and sexual activity during the daylight hours of Ramadan. 4. The duty of almsgiving 5. Pilgrimage to Mecca at least once before death.• The reward for observing the above is Paradise.

Islamic Mosques• Mosques are places of daily prayer. • The faithful would be called to prayer from a crier called a muezzin in the mosque’s minaret (tower), enter an enclosed courtyard, engage in ritual washing, enter mosque and begin individual prayer on their knees, facing Mecca.• The direction of Mecca was marked by a sacred niche, or mihrab, in the qibla wall (opposite to the entrance). In front of the mihrab was an elaborately decorated dome marking the exclusive enclosure for the caliph, called a maqsura.• No images of anything living were allowed in Islamic mosques – only elaborate interweaving designs called arabesques, and calligraphic passages of text. Surfaces were covered with rich, flat, linear patterns of geometric and organic designs.• The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines.

arabesque

mihrab

minaret

Dome of the Rock

Dome of the RockJerusalem, 692 CE

• The first great Islamic building was the Dome of the Rock. • Built in Jerusalem to commemorate the winning of Jerusalem from the Byzantine Christians in 638.• The structure rises from a a huge platform known as the Noble Enclosure, where in ancient times the Hebrews built the Temple of Solomon that the Roman emperor Titus destroyed in 70 CE. • The site is also possibly the burial site of Adam, the place where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac, and the place where Muhammad began his miraculous journey to Heaven, and then, in the same night, returned to his home in Mecca. • Central plan, octagonal base with a double-shelled, highly raised dome.• Exterior decorated in tile (which was mostly redone in the 16th century); interior mosaics depict ornate patterns depicting crowns, jewels, and other royal motifs (a reference to the triumph of Islam over the Byzantine and Persian empires). Depictions of humans or animals was forbidden.

The Great Mosque in Damascus

The Great Mosque of DamascusDamascus, Syria, c. 700

• The governors of Syria moved their capital from Mecca to Damascus in 661. There, the caliph purchased and demolished a church that was dedicated to John the Baptist (which itself had previously been a temple of Jupiter) and built an imposing new mosque on the site. • The builders incorporated stone blocks, columns, and capitals salvaged from the earlier structures. • The grand prayer hall, taller than the rest of the complex, is on the south side, facing Mecca. • The halls façade, with its pediment and arches, recalls Roman and Byzantine models and faces into the courtyard, like a temple in a Roman forum.• The Damascus mosque synthesizes elements received from other cultures into a novel architectural unity.• Glass mosaics once covered the walls. In the sample shown to the left, a shell-shaped niche “supports” an arcaded pavilion with a flowering rooftop. The scene is an image of Paradise.

Mosque at Córdova

Great Mosque at CórdovaCordova, Spain, c. 800-1000

• The Arabs had overthrown the Visigoths in Spain in 711, and converted to Islam in 750 under the leadership of Abd al-Rahman I.• The Mezquita (Great Mosque) was begun in 784 by Abd al-Rahman I (patron), and due to a number of expansions, was not totally completed until the 10th Century.• Instead of an outdoor courtyard, it contains a huge hypostyle prayer hall.• The hypostyle hall includes 514 columns topped with double-tiered arches that carried a wooden roof (later replaced by vaults). The lower arches are horseshoe-shaped, a design that became closely associated with Muslim architecture.

• In 961, the new caliph al-Hakam II expanded the prayer hall, added a series of domes, and constructed monumental gates on the complexes eastern and western facades. They also experimented with a multi-lobed arch.• The dome, built in the 10th century, was located in the area in front of the mihrab. It rests on an octagonal base of arcuated squinches.• Crisscrossing ribs form an intricate pattern centered on two squares set at 45 degree angles to one another.

Mosque at Córdova

Great Mosque at

CórdovaCordova, Spain, c.

800-1000

Mosque of Selim II

Mosque of Selim IIArchitect: Sinan

Edirne, Turkey, c. 1575

• The Ottoman Empire was founded in approximately 1300 by Osman I. • The Ottonians developed a new style of mosque that consisted of a dome-covered square prayer hall.• Designed by the most famous Ottonian architect, Sinan “the Great”• Born a Christian around 1491, he converted to Islam, and trained in engineering while in the Ottonian army.• He became the chief court architect for the sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, and worked on many buildings.• Sinan’s greatest building was the Mosque of Selim II, built for Suleyman’s son.• The aim was to surpass the size (width and height) of the dome on the Hagia Sophia, which he did accomplish.• The mihrab is recessed into an apse-like alcove deep enough to permit window illumination from 3 sides.• The dome rests on an octagon, which rests on a square.• Sinan used the simple but effective ratio of 1:2. For example, the forecourt of the building covers an area eual to that of the mosque proper.

Maqarnas

Entrance portal of the Imam Mosque,

Isfahan, Iran, c. 1630

• An architectural ornamentation reminiscent of stalactites, muqarnas developed around the middle of the 10th century in northeastern Iran. • They take the form of small pointed niches, stacked in tiers which project beyond lower tiers, commonly constructed of brick, stone, stucco, or wood, clad with painted tiles, wood, or plaster, and are typically applied to domes, pendentives, cornices, squinches and the undersides of arches and vaults