What is identity? 

Firstly, identity is a dynamic process, not a static object. It represents the cultural trail left behind by civilizations as they progress through history. This cultural identity evolves over time and reflects the essence of a civilization.

Secondly, identity isn't something that can be manufactured. It emerges as societies confront their real challenges. For example, during the industrial revolution, Europeans focused on solving practical problems rather than obsessing over their national identities. As a result, they advanced technologically while maintaining their distinct cultural identities.

Thirdly, identity isn't something consciously pursued. People don't strive to be "French-logical" or "American-logical"; they simply act according to their understanding of logic. Identity is shaped by understanding oneself and the surrounding environment. Attempting to artificially construct an identity can be dangerous and manipulative.

Architecture provides a tangible example of how identity is expressed. Rather than imitating foreign styles, architects should adapt design principles to suit local materials, customs, and traditions. By doing so, they create buildings that resonate with the local culture and contribute to a sense of identity.

Climate plays a crucial role in shaping architectural forms. For instance, in hot and humid regions like India and Indonesia, buildings often feature courtyards and open spaces to facilitate airflow. Understanding the relationship between climate, culture, and architecture allows for the creation of structures that are both functional and culturally relevant.

By focusing on real challenges and embracing cultural diversity, societies can develop a deeper sense of identity. This process fosters a greater understanding of oneself, the environment, and the broader society. Instead of fixating on identity as an abstract concept, it emerges naturally from addressing genuine concerns and engaging with the world.

Here, are four of them: 

Living Patterns 

In warm climates, people interact with built forms in a distinctly different manner. The need for shelter is minimal during the day, often satisfied by simple overhead canopies like Chatri. The preferred spots for gatherings are outdoors, beneath the expansive sky, particularly during the serene moments of early mornings and evenings.

In Asian cultures, enlightenment is symbolized not by imposing school buildings but by the image of a guru imparting wisdom beneath the shade of a banyan tree. Similarly, monumental temples in South India are not merely static structures but pathways through vast open-to-sky spaces. This seamless movement between architectural elements, a feature absent in colder climates, profoundly shapes the spatial and functional layout of Indian architecture, spanning from historic sites like Fatehpur-Sikri to sacred locales like Shrirangam.

Energy-Passive Buildings 

Urbanisation 

The Nature of Change 

 

Probabl y I ran; seventeenth centur y Gl azed fri tware wi th bl ue undergl aze pai nti ng agai nst whi te Di ameter: 42 cm AKM 589 Publ : Makari ou 2007, pp. 52–53 (no. 15); AKTC 2008a, pp. 152–153 (no. 55); Farhad 2009, pp. 146–147 (no. 35)

Farhad has suggested that the highly unusual imagery in the central area of this blue-and-white dish should be understood as a schematic representation of a shrine complex, and, by extension, that the piece was created to commemorate an act of pilgrimage.

 The central space has been divided with thick blue doublelines into a series of different architectural elements and areas, with structures stacked up disconcertingly in the awkward round space of the dish, conveying a sense of progression through space. 

 

There are several indicators that this is sacred space, both in generic architectural signs – bulbous domes, hanging lamps and a tall thin structure that could represent a minaret – and more particular religious symbols.

The sandals (Na'layn sharif) of the Prophet, or more properly their image (mithal), here enshrined in niches underneath the bulbous dome at centre foreground, represent one focus of veneration .

To the right of the sandals is the image of the legendary double-pronged sword of Ali, the Dhul-fiqar, a particularly potent symbol for Shi'i Muslims as it is inseparably linked with the deeds of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet and the first Shi'i imam.

In addition to these there is an image of a minbar (the stepped structure used to address the crowds in a mosque) immediately above the sword of Ali, complete with a domed cupola on top like those seen on many extant large wooden minbars.

A second minbar, along with domes, banners, hanging lamps and what may be a candle in a candlestick, occupies the top central panel of the outer ornament, providing the only architectural decoration on the rim. What may be a third minbar is depicted on the right-hand side of the central field.  

Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli

https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts

 

Fol i o 245r from an i l l ustrated manuscri pt of the Ni gāri stān of A$mad i bn Mu$ammad Ghaffārī Shi raz, I ran; dated 980 H/1573 CE Opaque watercol our, i nk and gol d on paper Manuscri pt: 38. 7 x 24. 9 x 6.4 cm AKM 272 Publ : A. Wel ch 1978b, p. 79 (not i l l .); AKTC 2010b, p. 303 (bi ndi ng onl y; no. 131)

The present volume of the Nigaristan – a collection of stories about figures from the early history of Islam – is remarkable for both the quantity and the quality of its fortyfour miniatures and fine illuminations.

Other Safavid illustrated versions of the text are known but the present text, with its beautiful original lacquer binding with leather dou- blures, stands as an exemplar of luxury illustrated manu- script production in Shiraz.

This tradition of book-making reached something of a peak in the 1580s: a large body of top-level work was produced in imitation of courtly models, much of which found its way into royal circles, and this book represents an art in the ascendant. 

 

The relatively unusual setting of a mosque interior is depicted here largely without specific architectural signifiers, with the obvious exception of the minbar, on which the holy man sits to deliver his message to the crowd.

The young prince seated at centre stage on his prayer rug, and the assembled courtiers in rich robes  some of them wearing the red qizilbash in their turbans as proclamations of their Safavid Shi'i identity cover their mouths with their sleeves out of respect, to avoid polluting the sacred space with their breath.

The minbar, seat of spiritual authority and community leadership from the early Islamic period onwards following a precedent set by the Prophet Muhammad, is normally positioned against the qibla wall to the right of the mihrab.

 If one were to follow the logic of the image’s spatial arrangement, this would suggest the mihrab to be located directly in front of the prince, hidden from our view by the minbar.  

Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli

https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts

 

 

Mihrab from a religious school dated a.h. 755 / a.d. 1354–55 Iran, Isfahan Mosaic of polychrome-glazed cut tiles on stonepaste body, set into mortar; 1351⁄16 x 11311⁄16 in. (343.1 x 288.7 cm), Wt. 4,500 lbs. (2041.2 kg) Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1939 (39.20)

 

Function

A mihrab is a niche in the wall of a mosque or religious school (madrasa) that indicates the direction of Mecca (qibla), which Muslims face when praying. It is the architectural and symbolic focal point of religious buildings.

 

Mosques were not the only religious buildings that had prayer niches—this one comes from a fourteenth-century religious school (Madrasa Imami) in Isfahan, in presentday Iran.

Students would have performed their daily prayers here, but would also have gone to the communal mosque on Fridays. This mihrab shows that lavish ornamentation was encouraged rather than shunned, even in religious settings.

 

Fol i o from a di spersed manuscri pt of the Fāl nāma (‘ Book of Di vi nati ons’ ) Qazwi n, I ran; mi d 1550s – earl y 1560s Opaque watercol our, i nk and gol d on paper Page: 59. 5 x 45 cm AKM 96

This monumental image comes from a dispersed outsize manuscript of the Falnama that is thought to have been commissioned by Shah Tahmasp in the early 1550s, during a period when the Safavid ruler was becoming increasingly conservative in his religious outlook and being visited in dreams by holy figures.

The Falnama, or ‘Book of Divinations’, was a popular text in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Iran and Turkey and was used to predict the future, or to enable the seeker to decide how to proceed on a difficult decision.

To use the text, the seeker would perform ritual ablutions and prayer before opening the manuscript to a random page, where the resultant verses would provide an omen that had to be interpreted with the help of the accompanying image.

While such practices may seem at first glance hard to square with religious conviction, the Falnama in fact contains important lessons in religion and morality, with a focus on the deeds of prophets and holy men.

The accompanying text for this image, found on the back of the following folio explains the iconography of this painting of a dark-skinned man trying to leave a majestic mausoleum, as a hand emerges from the grilled cenotaph and shoots flames towards him, to the horror of the other visitors to the tomb:

 

 

‘O augury user, know that in your augury has appeared the sign of the miracle-manifesting,
Khaybar-conquering two fingers of His Majesty the Lion of God,
the Conqueror >Ali ibn Abu Talib – upon him be mercy and peace –
which appeared from the blessed grave of His Majesty and struck in two
the accursed Murra ibn Qays’ 

 

The identity of the wicked Murra ibn Qays remains unclear, although it has been suggested that he defiled of the tomb of Ali, the first Shi'i imam, and was cleaved in half by the two fingers of Ali: the hand of the imam thus parallels his famous twin-pronged sword, the Dhu l-fiqar .

A separate copy of the Falnama confirms the tomb of Ali in Najaf as the location of the narrative.

Although heavily schematised, the tiled dome and two slender minarets with balconies seen in this painting are quite closely matched in photos of the tomb at Najaf taken in the 1930s, prior to its more recent renovations.

 However, the architectural similarities between this image and a Falnama painting in the David Collection, showing the tomb of Imam Husayn, suggest that this architectural arrangement was a standard model for representations of Shi'i shrine structures.

As such, the artist may not have been concerned with topographical reality and instead was working to a standardised type.

In addition to the external signs of sacred architecture – the dome and the minarets – the interior of the tomb in this painting is also hung with elaborate vase-shaped lamps decorated with tassels.




The mystic smoke that fills the tomb appears to be emanating from the flames of  Ali’s hand and the central hanging lamp simultaneously.

Hanging lamps are prominent in other images of sacred tombs, both in the Falnama manuscripts and elsewhere, and countless images from pilgrimage manuals. As such, the lamp must be understood as an important indicator of sacred space in funerary architecture and its representations.

Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli

https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts

 

Khurasan (northeastern I ran/Afghani stan), possi bl y Herat; l ate twel fth or thi rteenth centur y Chased and beaten brass Hei ght: 35 cm; di ameter: 46. 5 cm AKM 884 Unpubl i shed

This piece is one of a small group of repoussé candlesticks thought to come from late twelfth- or thirteenth-century Khurasan (an area roughly comprising northeastern Iran and Afghanistan), and quite possibly linked to production at Herat.

The repoussé technique involves beating shapes into sheet metal from the reverse side, and is normally practiced in conjunction with chasing, by which the design is refined on the front side with further beating and engraving, using punches and sharp tools.

Through such means the artist has here exploited the plasticity of brass, creating a complex design of lions in high relief at top and bottom, with a central frieze of plain hexagonal bosses belted in by two thin bands of scrolling vegetal arabesque panels and round studded knobs.

The lions’ heads project boldly from the candlestick, while their bodies are in much lower relief, sitting up in tight formation around the object. The refinement of the repoussé technique was one of the singular artistic achievements of the period, and in the right hands it could elevate brass to the status of a luxury medium.

A repoussé and inlay ewer in the Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi – one of a group of fine vessels of this type – bears an inscription that names Herat as the site of its production, and it is possible that the present candlestick may also be of Herat manufacture. 

 

 

 

 

A further example in the David Collection, without inlay, may be more closely compared with this piece, although like the inlaid examples it also has chased decoration on each of the hexagonal bosses, distinguishing it from the present example.

Another related example, without any repoussé animals, was photographed in the Pars Museum, Shiraz. The Aga Khan Museum’s can- dlestick has a slightly more flared outline than the other known examples of this form. The enormous religious significance of light meant that commissioning light fittings, including candlesticks, for mosques, tombs and shrines was a sacred act in the medieval period and indeed later .

The mystical dimensions of the candle as a pious object are exemplified in a poem in the twelfth-century Diwan of Khaqani, composed on the occasion of a princess’ return from pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina: ‘Your eye like a candle shed the tears of necessity/ And from so much light in it/ the Prophet’s mausoleum turned into a candlestick’ .

It is also possible that the presence of lions – an ancient symbol of the sun – on these repoussé candlesticks is intended to add a further layer of light symbolism to the light fitting.

Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli

https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts

 

The Round City of Baghdad, 762–766. Source: Samarra Archaeological Survey.

 

Once in power, after 750, the Abbasids built a series of new capitals – two called al‐Hashimiyya (after their dynastic ancestor), whose sites remain unknown – before Abu Jaʿfar al‐Mansur founded Baghdad in 762–766. Baghdad, formally Madinat al‐Salam (City of Peace), was laid out in a way that developed from the amsar. At the center, on the west bank of the Tigris, was the caliph’s circular city, called Madinat Abi Jaʿfar (known to us as the Round City).

To the south of it lay the market area of al‐Karkh. According to the sources, this only became the market area after the merchants were expelled from the Round City .

 However, as is evident from the name, al‐Karkh, a Syriac word meaning “fortified city” (Karkhe), al‐Karkh must have been a small pre‐Islamic town, outside which the Round City was built. From the four gates of the Round City, the four Grand Avenues extended into the suburbs (rabad, pl. arbad).

The suburbs were divided into four quarters (arba ʿ), and each was governed by an associate of al‐Mansur. There was a further Grand Avenue (shari ʿ aʿzam) on the Tigris. From 769 onwards, the heir of al‐Mansur, al‐Mahdi, came back from Rayy in Iran, and settled on the east bank of the Tigris in al‐Rusafa, in a typical arrangement where the eldest son had his own establishment.

The new element in the plan, apart from the fact that the quarters were no longer divided by tribe, was the Round City, famous for being circular, with the mosque and the caliph’s palace placed in the center.

 No archaeological trace of it has been discovered, but the textual descriptions are quite detailed, in the Kitab al‐Buldan of al‐Yaʿqubi, and the topographical introduction of the Ta ʾrikh Baghdad of al‐Khatib al‐Baghdadi.

The unconfirmed plan was first reconstructed by Herzfeld, and then corrected by Lassner, from the textual sources without much reference to archaeological evidence. Two imitations of the Round City exist: al‐Rafiqa, the Abbasid city at Raqqa in Syria (772), and Qadisiyya (before 796), called al‐Mubarak, near Samarra, north of Baghdad, on both of which see below.

Al‐Rafiqa is not circular but was described as imitating Baghdad. Qadisiyya is an octagon, geometrically related to a circle. A third example, in this case a palace with a circular enclosure wall, exists at Hiraqla, outside Raqqa in Syria (Toueir 1982).

These copies are useful for confirming the details of Baghdad that has now disappeared – the type of mud‐brick walls, the size of the bricks, most importantly the dimensions. Present thinking of researchers is that the Round City was about 2500–2638 m in diameter, according to the conclusions of Creswell.

The most detailed single description is that of al‐Yaʿqubi from the late ninth century, who states that the Round City was 5000 cubits from one gate to the other, outside the moat. This figure has been presumed by Creswell to be one quarter of the circumference, but the text could also mean half the circumference.

In this latter case, the Round City would have been of similar dimensions to its imitations, for its overall diameter would have been 1655 m, and the largest overall dimension of the Octagon of Qadisiyya, between the corner towers, is 1659 m.

 

 

The concept of the Round City, if new, was based on existing ideas, including partly on the plans of the amsar. Al‐Yaʿqubi tells us that the circular plan had never been seen before (al‐Yaʿqubi 1892: 9).

However, in reality, circular plans are quite frequent in Mesopotamian architecture, and concentric roughly circular city plans are already known from the Bronze Age at Mari and Tell Chuera in Syria.

The closest extant example is that of the early Sasanian circular city of Ardashir‐Khurreh (Firuzabad), southeast of Shiraz in Iran (third century ce), and 1950 m in diameter, with double walls and a radial plan (Huff 1969).

In the Round City of Baghdad, according to al‐Yaʿqubi in the center of the rahba (courtyard) lay the palace of al‐Mansur, whose gate was called Bab al‐Dhahab (Golden Gate), 400 cubits each side, and the mosque, 200 cubits square. In a circle around the rahba were the following buildings:

 The residences of the younger children of al‐Mansur, and his vassals (mawali) who are close to him in his service, the bayt al‐mal (the treasury), the arsenal, the diwan al‐rasa’il (bureau of correspondence), the diwan al‐kharaj (the land tax), the diwan al‐khatam (the seal), the diwan al‐jund (the army), the diwan al‐hawa ʾij (requirements), the diwan of the entourages (ahsham), the public kitchen, and the diwan al‐nafaqat (expenditures).

Then there were four vaulted streets (taqat), which led to the gates of Kufa, Basra, Khurasan, and al‐Sham (Damascus). These were initially occupied by merchants, providing local markets of the type provided in the cantonments at Samarra. There were also 45 radial streets (sikka), which were “known by [the names of] his quwwad and his mawali.” The great prison, al‐Matbaq, was also located in the streets.


The expression mawali normally refers to personal vassals but may here refer to the servants of the palace, probably also including other officials. It is certain that the quwwad were the commanders of the army.

In Samarra, these commanders were quartered with their soldiers, with one exception. The Round City must have been an important military settlement in the time of al‐Mansur. Al‐Harbiyya, the northwestern suburb outside the Round City, was also an important settlement of the army: according to al‐Yaʿqubi (1892: 248) it was settled by Central Asians – “the people of Balkh, Merv, al‐Khuttal, Bukhara, Isbishab, Ishtakhanj, the people of the Kabulshah, the people of Khwarazm.”


It is not certain whether al‐Yaʿqubi is speaking here of his own lifetime in the ninth century. The names appear to speak of later recruitment than the time of al‐ Mansur, such as al‐ʿAbbasiyya of Harun al‐Rashid, or the Iranian and Central Asian forces recruited by al‐Maʾmun. In the case of the quwwad of the Round City, it is clear that he is speaking of the time of al‐Mansur, for he says in two cases that he has forgotten the original name of the street.

One may conclude that the Round City was intended by al‐Mansur to accommodate the palace, the mosque, the administration, the servants of the palace, and an important part of the army. Other units of the army were later settled outside the walls. Al‐Mansur settled in the Round City all the elements of the state which were important to him, if we compare these details with the surviving state budget of the caliph al‐Muʿtadid at the end of the ninth century.

This was the new concept in Baghdad: a royal city in which the majority of the functions of the state were assembled under the eye of the caliph, and separated from the public areas of the city by a fortification.

The public only entered for prayers in the congregational mosque, which according to the earlier tradition, was placed next to the palace. The problem of the security of the caliph is much mentioned in the historical sources – that of letting the general public in for prayers in the mosque – and in the end, it was al‐Mansur who left the Round City and settled in a new palace, al‐Khuld (Eternity), on the banks of the Tigris, in 774.

 

 

Image Reference:
https://historyofyesterday.com/ancient-baghdad-the-round-city-6dd64ced2ac7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_city_of_Baghdad#/media/File:Baghdad_150_to_300_AH.png

 Book Reference:

A companion to Islamic art and architecture by Flood, Finbarr Barry Necipoğlu, Gülru.

Get the Book on Amazon: 

 

Iznik, Turkey; seventeenth century Glazed fritware with polychrome underglaze painting against white 52 x 32 cm Inscription: Sura 3 (Āl >Imrān), verses 96–97 AKM 587

The Ottoman interest in topographical depictions of sacred sites was not restricted to representations on paper. Tiles such as this one are commonly referred to as ‘qibla tiles’ because they are sometimes found in or around the mihrab (an arcuated niche giving the direction of prayer) on the orientational qibla wall of religious buildings: the image of the sacred precinct at Mecca thus acts as a direct symbol of the orientation of all Muslim prayer towards the Ka'ba.

Single tiles and tile panels of this type were produced in significant numbers at the Iznik potteries in Ottoman Turkey until the mid-seventeenth century, and probably later at Kutahya.

It has been suggested that such pieces may have been produced as luxurious Hajj commemorations for rich individuals in Ottoman Turkey, or for donation to religious establishments.

The instantly recognisable image of the Masjid al-Haram, when used in the context of the mihrab to give orientation towards Mecca, allows even those who have not performed the Hajj to align their prayers towards an imagined Masjid alHaram that has been visualised from related images.

 

 In spite of the typically bright Iznik colours of this tile, a close relationship to the imagery of pilgrimage scrolls is obvious: the keyhole shape of the mataf is emphasised, and the various objects of significance within the sacred precinct are shown in elevation and oriented towards the Ka'ba.

The Ka'ba itself is presented, as in most other images, in its northeastern elevation (the side that contains the door), as it would appear to one who approaches through the Banu Shayba or Bab al-salam, the arched gateway (in blue on this tile) marking the traditional entrance to the mataf.

The Qur’anic inscription at the top of the tile refers, appropriately enough, to Mecca and the importance of pilgrimage: ‘The first temple ever built for mankind was that at Bakka [Mecca], a blessed site, a beacon for the nations. In it there are veritable signs and the spot where Abraham stood. Whoever enters it is safe. Pilgrimage to the House is a duty to God for all who can make the journey’.

 

Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli

https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts

 

Stucco mihrab in the Congregational Mosque at Isfahan, 1310

 

 

In the fall of 1253 the Great Khan Mongke, grandson of Chingiz Khan and supreme ruler of the Mongols in China, dispatched his brother Hulagu at the head of an army against the Isma'ilis in northern Iran and the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad.

Hulagu moved speedily across Iran, conquering and devastating whatever areas did not capitulate, and took Baghdad in 1258.

This date marks the official establishment of the Mongol rulers in Persia known as Il-khdns or subordinates to the great khan in China. Hulagu and his immediate successors continued the nomadic practices of the steppe, wintering in the warmer lands of Mesopotamia and summering on the grassy plains of north-western Iran.

 They preferred living in tents, and only a few monuments of secular architecture remain from the second half of the thirteenth century. The Ilkhanids controlled the lands from the Oxus almost to the Mediterranean and from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean, territory that is now western Afghanistan, Iran, southern Russia, eastern Turkey, and Iraq. 

Earthquakes, invasions, and subsequent occupations have destroyed all but the odd building from their capitals at Maragha, Tabriz, Baghdad, and Sultaniyya; and their urban infrastructure can hardly be gleaned from textual descriptions.

Instead, it is provincial buildings in central and western Iran that have survived to provide an idea of the magnificence of architectural patronage under the Ilkhanids.' The Ilkhanids inherited a repertory of building types, forms, materials, and techniques of construction which had been developed in Iran in the previous period.

The congregational mosque had evolved its classical form of a court with iwans on the four sides and a domed chamber on the qibla, and this plan was standard for other types of religious buildings such as madrasas and khanaqahs and for secular ones such as caravanserais.
Graves were marked by tomb towers or by square or polygonal canopy-like mausoleums. The standard vocabulary of forms included iwans, domes, squinches, and minarets, and these were usually combined in predictable ways.

The standard elevation in a dome chamber, for example, was tripartite; a zone of transition with squinches bridged the gap from a square or polygonal room to the circular base of a dome. The main faqade was usually marked by a pishtdq, the high and formal gateway composed of an arch set within a rectangular frame and functioning like a shallow iwan.

Minarets were often used as framing devices, either at the ends of the faqade or at the sides of an iwan. High-quality baked brick was the preeminent medium of construction, and bricks were often laid in decorative patterns, although stucco revetment was also popular and inserts of terracotta and glazed tiles were used to enliven surfaces.

 In this period the traditional vocabulary would be modified in several ways. Individual buildings were grouped in monumental complexes, often centered around the grave of the patron or a revered figure. The earliest complexes were haphazardly arranged, although a pishtdq and elaborate decoration were used to draw attention to the main fagade.

Proportions were altered as rooms became taller, arches more pointed, and minarets more attenuated. The new taste for verticality is combined with a refined sense of form, seen in monumental portals with soaring double minarets. Baked brick remained the major medium of construction, but new methods were developed for enlivening surfaces.
Color became increasingly important; glazed bricks were added to exteriors, and interiors were decorated with tile revetments and carved and painted plaster. Muqarnas units were no longer structural elements constructed of brick, but decorative ones made of plaster and suspended from vaults or walls. 

 

 

 

ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE ILKHANIDS 

 

 

One of the first actions by the Ilkhanid rulers after conquering Baghdad was to construct an observatory in their summer capital at Maragha in north-western Iran.
Located on a hill five hundred meters north of the town, the building was begun in 1259. Excavations have uncovered sixteen units, including a central tower containing a quadrant (forty- five meters in diameter), a foundry for the manufacture of astronomical instruments, five round towers, and several large buildings.

 The large site and the quality of the materials, which included stone, baked brick, and glazed and luster tiles, show how important astronomy and astrology were to the shamanist Mongols.
Many structures from the early Ilkhanid period were built of degradable materials, for contemporary accounts state that the Ilkhanids used tents of horsehair and felt.

The sole surviving example of Ilkhanid palatial architecture is the summer palace begun by Abaqa ca. 1275 and continued by his son Arghun a decade later . The site, now known as Takht-i Sulayman, stands south-east of Lake Urmiya in Azerbayjan on the foundations of the Sasanian sanctuary of Shiz.

 A huge courtyard (125 by 150 meters), oriented north-south, encompassed an artificial lake and was surrounded by porticoes with four iwans. Behind the north iwan was a domed room, which occupied the site of the Sasanian fire temple and probably served as Abaqa’s audience hall.
Behind the west iwan was a transverse hall flanked by two octagonal kiosks; it had served as the throne-room of Khusraw and became the living quarters of the Ilkhanid sovereign.
Plaster fragments on the ground indicate that the southern octagonal kiosk was covered with a muqarnas vault, composed of many individual plaster units.

 The excavations also uncovered a stucco plaque fifty centimeters on a side; the incised drawing on it represents one-quarter of the dome and was evidendy used to guide the workmen in assembling the pre-cast units.

This unique document is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for the use of architectural plans in the Islamic world and confirms the historical sources, which state that plans were sent from the capital to the provinces.

" The walls of the northern octagonal kiosk were revetted with a superb dado. The lower two meters were covered with star- and cross-shaped tiles overglazed in a technique known as Idjvardma, from the Persian word for lapis lazuli.
This dado was surmounted by a frieze of square tiles, thirty-five centimeters on a side, depicting simurghs and dragons among other heroic subjects. The wall was crowned with a wide band of painted plaster. The quality and abundance of the architectural decoration, particularly the marble capitals, the luster and Idjvardma tiles, and the muqarnas dome, show that the Mongol sultans lavishly decorated their own homes.

Both the placement, considered by the Ilkhanids to be the site where the Sasanian emperors had been crowned, and the decoration, luster tiles with verses and scenes illustrating the themes of the Shdhndma, the Persian national epic composed by the poet Firdawsi ca. 1010 at the court of Mahmud of Ghazna, were deliberately chosen to affirm Mongol connections to pre-Islamic Iranian kingship.

Ghazan Khan’s accession in 1295 marked a change in both Ilkhanid society and architectural patronage. He severed links with the Great Khan in China, thereby accelerating acceptance of the culture of the sedentary Persians over that of the nomadic Mongols. He converted to Islam, taking the Muslim name of Mahmud.

He and his prime minister Rashid al-Din (d. 1318) also inaugurated a vast program of reforms which revitalized the economy and provided an economic basis for significant amounts of new construction, particularly religious buildings.
He ordered caravanserais built along the major trade routes and bath houses in every city; the revenues from these buildings could support the mosques he also ordered.
The effects of Ghazan’s reforms continued through the reigns of his two successors, his brother Uljaytu (r. 1304-16) and his nephew Abu Sa'id (r. 1317-35), and the major works of Ilkhanid religious architecture thus date from the period 1295-1335.

 Ghazan’s single greatest project was his tomb complex in a western suburb of Tabriz. Earlier Ilkhanid rulers had followed Mongol burial practice and concealed gravesites, but Ghazan adopted the traditions of Islamic Iran and ordered a charitable foundation to surround his “lofty” tomb.

The complex included a hospice, hospital, library, obser¬ vatory, academy of philosophy, fountain, pavilion, and two madrasas for students of Hanafi and Shafi'i law. Only fragments of brick and tile remain, but texts describe the mausoleum as a twelve-sided structure containing a semi subterranean crypt, a chamber for the cenotaph, and a crowning dome. 

 

 

 

Rashid al-Din followed royal precedent and ordered his own funerary complex in an eastern suburb of Tabriz. It too has disappeared, but the surviving endowment deed allows a reconstruction of the buildings and enumeration of the personnel and services provided.

Four structures were enclosed within a sturdy wall behind a monumental portal: a hospice, khanaqah, hospital, and tomb with winter and summer mosques. The deed also specified that copies of the Koran, collections of prophetic traditions, and Arabic and Persian copies of Rashid al-Din’s own works were to be commissioned annually by the supervisor of the endowment and distributed throughout the realm. The fragments glazed in light and dark blue and similar to those found at Ghazan’s tomb complex litter the site. 

 

The imperial scale of Ilkhanid architecture can best be seen in the magnificent tomb of Uljaytu at Sultaniyya. Arghun had chosen the site, some one hundred and twenty kilometers north-west of Qazvin on the road to Tabriz, as his summer residence, and Uljaytu transformed it into the capital of the empire, hence its name “Imperial.”

Like most Iranian cities, it had an outer wall and an inner citadel. The outer ramparts measured thirty thousand paces around; the inner citadel was protected by a moat, sixteen round towers, and a single gate in a machicolated wall broad enough for four horsemen to ride abreast.

These features are visible in the earliest representation of the site, contained in Matrakci Nasuh’s account, made in i537~8, of the Ottoman sultan Suleyman’s campaigns in Iraq and Iran.

The largest monument within the citadel was the sultan’s tomb complex, which included a mosque, madrasa, hospice, hospital, guesthouse, and other buildings.

’ Uljaytu’s tomb is the only part of the complex at Sultaniyya to survive. It is an enormous octagon, some thirty- eight meters in diameter, which is oriented almost cardinally. The north wall projects to meet the lateral walls, thereby creating triangular compartments which house stairs to the upper stories. To the south, a rectangular hall measuring fifteen by twenty meters is attached to the central conversion to Shi ism and to a spurious tale of his desire to transfer the bodies of 'Ali and Husayn, the two most revered Shi'ite martyrs, from Iraq.

Inscriptions provide three fixed poles for the history of the building. The exterior decoration was complete in 1310; the interior decoration in brick and tile was finished in 1313, when the building was dedicated with much celebration, including the issuing of commemorative copper coins.

The redecoration in painted plaster was ordered within the next three years, before the sultan’s death in December 1316. These dates cannot be correlated with any shift in piety or taste, and the redecoration was probably ordered to commemorate the brief period when Ulja|tu was recognized as protector of the Holy Cities of Arabia.

 Not only did Ilkhanid sultans and viziers erect charitable foundations around their own tombs, but the same patrons also commemorated the graves of Sufi shaykhs with monumental tomb complexes. Some were built around the graves of renowned historical figures. In northern Iran, the grave of Bayazid Bastami (d. 874 or 877), one of the most celebrated mystics in Islam, was a focus for much Ilkhanid work, including superb decoration in cut and painted plaster and a large, flanged tomb tower dedicated to Uljaytu’s infant octagonal space, which measures twenty-five meters in diameter and is surmounted by a fifty-meter high dome ringed by eight minarets.

The interior of the octagonal hall has eight arched openings with balconies. Above them, on the exterior, a ring of galleries overlooks the surrounding plain and provides a visual transition from the flat walls (which probably abutted subsidiary structures on several sides) to the ethereal blue-glazed dome.

The subtle design of interpenetrating volumes is complemented by the sophisticated gallery vaults . The two dozen vaults display a wide variety of carved and plaster motifs, painted in red, yellow, green, and white. Many of the strapwork panels closely resemble contemporary manuscript illumination, suggesting that Ilkhanid designers provided patterns used on different scales in architecture and manuscripts.

The lofty interior, one of the largest uninterrupted spaces of medieval times, comes as an awesome surprise after the stately ex terior. The spatial elegance and grandeur attest to the abilities of the designer(s), who were able to realize the sultan’s desire for monumentality with sophistication and grace.

 

 Other shrines honored contemporary mystics. At Natanz in central Iran, the grave of 'Abd al-Samad (d. 1299), the leading Suhrawardi shaykh of the day, developed into a major shrine complex in the decade following his death.

The vizier Zayn al-Din Mastari (put to death in 1312 with his associate Karim al-Din Shugani) refurbished the town’s congregational mosque and built a tomb, minaret, and hospice adjacent to it. The builders attempted to unify these disparate structures behind a single slightly curved fagade.

Decorated in glazed tile, stucco, and terracotta and flickering in the shadow of an immense plane tree, it has often been compared to an illustration from a contemporary Persian manuscript.

The irregular depth of the iwans in the mosque, the uneven floor levels, and the haphazard organization of the interior show that the builders were constrained both by the topography of the site and by the structures already built on it.
The tomb is a chamber approximately six meters square erected on the site of 'Abd al-Samad’s residence across a lane from the mosque. As at Bastam, the shape is traditional, but the interior is decorated with the finest fittings Zayn al-Din could procure.

The walls were once revetted with a 1.3 5-meter dado of luster tiles, now dispersed in museums throughout the world, and often recognizable by a frieze of paired birds whose heads were later defaced by some zealous iconoclast.
 Large, specially ordered luster tiles also decorated the mihrab and the cenotaph, but the glory of the room is still a spectacular twelve-tier muqarnas vault.
Eight screened windows admit a subdued light which plays across the faceted surfaces to reveal the sculptural richness of the vault and illuminates the superbly designed and carved stucco inscription band that encircles the base of the dome.

 Traces of an equally fine inscription band in the north iwan of the mosque are signed by Haydar, the master carver who executed the finest sculptural achievement of the age, the mihrab added to Isfahan’s congregational mosque in 1310.

 

Natanz, Shrine of'Abd al-Samad, 1299-1312

 

Natanz, Shrine of'Abd al-Samad, plan

Over six meters high and three broad, the Isfahan mihrab exhibits the typical arrangement of concentric niches within rectangular frames. It is distinguished from other examples, such as that at the small shrine known as Pir-i Bakran at Linjan outside Isfahan, by the crispness of its carving.

Each area of the composition is worked in a distinct pattern; each pattern is worked simultaneously on several levels. The outer rectangular frame, for example, has a ground of double arabesque scrolls sprouting carved and stippled palmettes which supports an elegant inscription in Thuluth script.

The inscriptions include praise on the twelve imams revered by the Shi'ites and traditions of 'Ali, the Prophet’s successor,’ and the choice of texts suggests that the mihrab was commissioned to commemorate Uljaytu’s conversion to Shi'ism at the end of 1309.

Haydar, who signed the work beside the foundation inscription in the tympanum, was one of the most famous calligraphers of the day. He was one of the six pupils of Yaqut al-Musta'simi, the “cynosure of calligraphers”, and was himself the teacher of such calligraphers as 'Abdallah Sayrafi and such viziers as Taj al-Din 'Alishah and Rashid al- Din’s son, Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad.

Taj al-Din was a wily nouveau-riche cloth merchant who rose meteorically to the head of the vizierate, arranging Rashid al-Din’s downfall in the process. He curried favor by presenting the sultan with such gifts as an elaborate jeweled barge to float along the Tigris and underwriting such projects as a cloth bazaar for Sultaniyya. The vizier’s ambition is evident in the new congregational mosque he ordered in Tabriz ca. 1315. A large forecourt with a central pool one hundred and fifty cubits square preceded an elephantine brick iwan .

The vault, which subsequently collapsed, originally spanned thirty meters and sprang from walls ten meters thick and twenty-five meters high. I

n its own day it was lauded as larger than the iwan at Ctesiphon, the Sasanian palace outside of Baghdad considered to be one of the wonders of the world, and visitors marveled at its rich revetment in marble and tile, although only the baked brick walls remain.

 

 

Luster-painted frieze tile with paired birds from the Shrine of'Abd al-Samad at Natanz, 1308. H 36 cm. London, Victoria and Albert Museum

 

 Other Ilkhanid mosques had two iwans. That at Ashtarjan, thirty-three kilometers south-west of Isfahan, was ordered in 1315 by an accountant in the Ilkhanid administration for his home town. The indifferent construction is covered with showy stucco and tile revetments.

The most common mosque plan, however, continued to have four iwans and a dome as developed in Iran several centuries earlier. It can best be seen in the now restored congregational mosque at Varamin, forty-two kilometers south of Tehran.

The mosque, ordered in 1322 during the reign of Uljaytu’s son and successor Abu Sa'id, is a freestanding rectangle sixty-six by forty-three meters. Lateral entrances lead to iwans on the court, but the major entrance is from the north .

Its elaborate portal, probably once flanked by minarets, pre¬ figures the faqade of the sanctuary iwan which leads from the court to the dome chamber. The dome chamber, just over ten meters in diameter, also presents the classic elevation developed in the Saljuq period. A square chamber supports an octagonal zone of four squinches alternating with four blind arches.

This in turn supports a sixteen-sided zone on which rests the dome. The building is disinguished from its Saljuq prototypes by its attenuated proportions, its small court, and its extensive but routine use of tile mosaic.

 

Book Reference:
The art and architecture of Islam 1250-1800 by Blair, Sheila

Find the book on Amazon :

 

Folio 31r from an illustrated manuscript of the Nigāristān of A$mad ibn Mu$ammad Ghaffārī Shiraz, Iran; dated 980 H/1573 CE Opaque watercolour, ink and gold on paper Manuscript: 38.7 x 24.9 x 6.4 cm AKM 272 Publ: A. Welch 1978b, p. 78 (not ill.); AKTC 2010b, p. 303 (no. 131; binding only)

The Nigaristan, a collection of anecdotes concerning key figures from the early history of Islam, was completed by the sometime Qadi (judge) of Qazwin, Ghaffari, in 959 H/1552 CE – only some twenty years before this copy was made.


In the tradition of Islamic kingship that connects political legitimacy with Messianic claims this was an important line of descent for the ruling power. The same lineage also appears in other Safavid histories, including Ghaffari’s own Nusakh-i jahan-ara, and enabled the Safavid rulers to claim legitimacy as sayyids, or descendents of the Prophet.

As an important dynastic text for the Safavid rulers, there are a number of other Safavid manuscripts of the Nigaristan in existence; however, illustrated versions are less common and the forty-four high-quality miniatures in this example make it a very important copy of this manuscript.

 

The present image of a man beating on the door of the Ka'ba is indebted to a pre-existing iconography of Ka'ba scenes in miniature paintings found in earlier texts, including well-known and often-repeated narrative images from the Khamsa of Nizami and the Shahnama of Firdawsi, and certain depictions of the ascension (mi'raj) of the Prophet.

 Although this painting is distinct from many of those earlier prototypes in its close focus on the Ka'ba and lack of surrounding topography, there is an attention to detail that grounds it in reality.

The grey stone from which the Ka'ba is built, the elevated position of the door (in current reality about two metres off the ground, and with two ring knockers rather than one), the presence of the black cloth covering of the Ka'ba (known as the kiswa), missing its inscription band but embroidered in gold and lifted to reveal the door, and the circular pavement around the Ka'ba, known as the mataf, all bespeak close familiarity with visual and textual sources, or perhaps even an artist who had performed the Hajj himself.

By this period, the topography of the Ka'ba was extremely well known, and had circulated widely in different formats. A depiction fairly similar to this one can be seen in a mi'raj image from a Shiraz manuscript produced c. 1585–90 .

If the image was intended to represent the Hajj, one would also have expected to see shaved heads and the white ritual garment of the pilgrim, indicating the sacred state of Ihram, and it can be assumed that this is not what was intended. However, various aspects of the practice of ritual prayer have been considered: several pilgrims have bare feet, indicating their ritual purity, while some pray on prayer rugs and veiled women look on from a separate area.

 

Book Reference :
Architecture in Islamic Arts Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum by Margaret S. Graves, Benoît Junod, Gérard Friedli

https://www.academia.edu/7471091/Treasures_of_the_Aga_Khan_Museum_Architecture_in_Islamic_arts

 

 

 

The city of Venice, in northeastern Italy, was founded in the seventh century.

The city is comprised of 117 small islands situated in a lagoon with easy access to both the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas.The Venetians took full advantage of their city’s strategic location to conduct both local and long distance trade, and eventually became one of the world’s most powerful maritime empires.

Venice’s economy focused on trade and merchants held important positions of power in Venetian culture. Venice began trading with the Islamic world as early as the eighth century.

For centuries, Venice was the link between Europe and the Muslim powers in North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean; most luxury goods making their way over sea routes from Islamic lands to Europe passed through Venetian ports.

 Because of the importance of trade with Arab lands and Ottoman Turkey, many Venetians learned Arabic and spent considerable time in these regions, buying goods such as spices and raw silk that could be sold for a profit upon their return.
This trade had an enormous economic as well as cultural advantage for both parties. Artistic techniques, ideas, and motifs flowed from East to West, and vice versa, through the movement of both merchants and goods.
Venice’s main trading partners were the Mamluks, whose capital was in Egypt, and the Ottomans, whose capital was in Turkey. Despite the mutual benefit of trade, Venice’s relationship with both of these empires was complex, encompassing intermittent periods of peace interrupted by trade embargos and territorial wars. 

 

Venice and the Mamluks

Note similarities in the style of the arcades and crenellations to those in the Doge’s Palace above.

Venice as rendered by Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis in the early 16th century. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz

Reception of the Venetian Ambassadors in Damascus, 1511; Venice; oil on canvas, 46½ x 80 in. (118 x 203 cm); Musée du Louvre, Paris