Islamic architecture

Islamic architecture is the set of architectural styles used for buildings linked to Islamic civilization. It includes both secular (non-religious) and religious styles, from the early history of Islam up to the present day. The Islamic world has covered a huge area, stretching from Western Africa and Europe to Eastern Asia. Islamic architectural styles share some common features across all these regions. Over time, though, each region developed its own style, shaped by local materials and techniques, local rulers and patrons, regional centers of art, and sometimes different religious affiliations.

Early Islamic architecture was influenced by Roman, Byzantine, Iranian, and Mesopotamian architecture, as well as by all the other lands that the early Muslim conquests reached in the seventh and eighth centuries. Later, it developed its own special features, both in the shape of buildings and in the decoration of surfaces with Islamic calligraphy, arabesques, and geometric motifs. New architectural elements were also invented, such as minarets, muqarnas, and multifoil arches.

Common and important types of Islamic buildings include mosques, madrasas, tombs, palaces, hammams (public baths), and Sufi hospices, such as khanqahs or zawiyas. Other examples are fountains and sabils, commercial buildings like caravanserais and bazaars, and military fortifications.

Early history (up to 10th century)

The Islamic era began when Muhammad led the formation of Islam in early 7th-century Arabia. In 622, Muhammad built the first mosque in Medina, after his Hijrah (migration) from Mecca. It was a simple courtyard building made of unbaked brick. Over the next centuries it grew into a large hypostyle hall with columns. Its prayer direction, the qibla, first faced Jerusalem and was changed to face Mecca in 624. As the Arab-Muslim conquests spread, new cities such as Fustat and Kufa were founded, and their central congregational mosques were built in the same column style. Early mosques had no minaret.

Umayyad era

Main article: Umayyad architecture

The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) combined elements of Byzantine architecture and Sasanian architecture and became known for rich decoration, including mosaics. The Umayyads were the first to add the mihrab, a niche in the qibla wall, to mosque design. Two major Umayyad buildings were the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus.

Abbasid era

Main article: Abbasid architecture

The Abbasid Caliphate (750–1513) was strongly influenced by Sasanian architecture. Its political center moved east to Baghdad, and the Abbasids also built the city of Samarra in the 9th century. The Great Mosque of Samarra was one of their famous mosques, and the first true minarets are believed to have appeared in this period.

Early regional styles

Further information: Aghlabid architecture and Fatimid architecture

In al-Andalus, the Great Mosque of Córdoba, built in 785–786, marks the earliest major monument of Moorish architecture in the Iberian Peninsula. In Egypt, the Ibn Tulun Mosque was completed in 879 and remains one of the best-preserved examples of 9th-century architecture from the Abbasid Caliphate. In 970, the Fatimid Caliphate founded Cairo, where the al-Azhar Mosque was built at the same time as the city.

Characteristics

Main articles: Islamic garden, Islamic ornament, Muqarnas, Qibla, Mihrab, minaret

See also: Qubba, Early medieval domes, High medieval domes, and Late medieval domes

See also: Persian domes

See also: South Asian domes

Islamic buildings often have courtyards, both in homes and in mosques. A home usually has a central private courtyard or walled garden. A mosque courtyard, called a ṣaḥn, is open to the sky and surrounded by halls and rooms. It is used for washing before prayer and for resting or gathering. Mosques also use hypostyle halls, which are open halls supported by columns. Builders developed different ways to cover spaces with vaulting, and domes became a major feature. Large domes appear in famous buildings such as the Taj Mahal and the Hagia Sophia, which was later used by the Ottoman architecture builders. The Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan designed some of the most important domed mosques.

Gardens and water have long been important in Islamic culture, and they are often compared to the garden of Paradise. Buildings are decorated with geometric patterns, floral designs like the arabesque, and calligraphic writing. Because of a religious rule against showing living figures in religious buildings, decoration there is mostly non-figural. Decorations called muqarnas look like small, layered niches. Balconies and lattice screens, such as the mashrabiya and the jali, let people see outside while staying private and help keep buildings cool. The mihrab is a niche that shows the direction of prayer, and the minaret is a tower from which the call to prayer, the adhān, is made. Mosques are built so that one side faces toward Mecca, the qibla.

Towns and cities

Early Muslim rulers founded military settlements in newly conquered lands, called a misr (plural amṣār). At first these were simple collections of tents, perhaps a little like Roman legionary camps, and they were often built outside existing cities without walls. Many grew into busy government and trade centers, such as Kufa, Basra, Fustat, and Kairouan. More often, though, the new rulers took over existing towns and changed them to suit Islamic society, adding mosques and other Islamic buildings. In Damascus and Aleppo, for example, the cities were mostly of Roman-Byzantine heritage and changed slowly. Jerash shows how the Umayyads changed a city's layout.

Some early cities were planned using older ideas. Two main roads, the cardo and decumanus, crossed at the center, and a few cities built during the Umayyad Caliphate followed the ideal city idea of ancient Rome. One such city was excavated at Anjar in Lebanon. The early Arab elite came from city life in places like Ta'if and Yemen. Islamic towns also differ from European towns, which grew out of struggles for town privileges during the Middle Ages. An Islamic town keeps secular and religious life united. Palaces, homes, madrasas, hospitals, and mosques sit side by side. Streets lead to cul-de-sac lanes and private areas, and houses often face an inner atrium behind plain walls, unlike the decorated façades of European buildings. This reflects the nomadic tradition of family groups held together by asabiyyah, or family loyalty. Access to different areas depends on how private they are, which is why this style is so different from the oriental town idea.

Influences

Early Islamic architecture was shaped by two ancient traditions. In the Greco-Roman tradition, the newly conquered Byzantine Empire regions of Southwestern Anatolia, Syria, Egypt and the Maghreb supplied architects, masons, mosaicists and other craftsmen to the new Islamic rulers. These artisans had been trained in Byzantine style, which had grown out of Hellenistic and ancient Roman architecture. In the Eastern tradition, Mesopotamia and Persia kept their own architectural traditions, which came from Sasanian architecture and earlier styles, even though they adopted some Hellenistic and Roman elements. The mix of these influences can be seen in the Bilad al-Sham (Levant region), where older Christian building traditions merged with the pre-Islamic heritage of the Arabian conquerors.

Pre-Islamic architecture in Arabia had only limited influence on early Islamic architecture, especially compared with the traditions of the conquered lands. An older idea that the Arabs were nomadic herders without strong building traditions has been revised and is now considered out of date, since scholars agree that a rich architectural tradition existed before Islam. The main architectural contribution made in Arabia during the early Islamic period was a distinctive Muslim mosque. The hypostyle mosque built by Muhammad in Medina became a model for mosque design across the Islamic world, and the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus reproduced this model on a grand scale. Some scholars also suggest that the Umayyads continued the older Arabian practice of building tall palaces to show the ruler's power.

Regional styles (after the 10th century)

Main article: Iranian architecture

See also: Architecture of Central Asia and Architecture of Azerbaijan

See also: Ayyubid dynasty § Architecture

Main article: Anatolian Seljuk architecture

Main article: Mamluk architecture

Main article: Ottoman architecture

Main article: Moorish architecture

Main article: Architecture of Yemen

Main articles: Indo-Islamic architecture and Mughal architecture

Main article: Mosque architecture in Indonesia

Main article: Chinese Islamic architecture

Main article: Tatar mosque

Main article: Sudano-Sahelian architecture

Further information: Swahili architecture and Somali architecture

From the 10th century on, the eastern Islamic world, including Iran and Central Asia, generally shared a common architectural style. It often used brick for building and decoration, along with arcades, coloured tiles on the outside of buildings, domes, and a decorative feature called muqarnas. Under the Seljuk Turks, the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan was expanded and changed. Later, the Timurids and the Safavid dynasty built grand domes, and in Isfahan the domes were covered in blue tiles. In Syria and Mesopotamia, rulers such as the Zengids and the Ayyubid dynasty built madrasas, hospitals, and castles. In Anatolia, the Seljuks often built with stone. The Mamluks ruled Egypt and built many monuments in Cairo. The Ottoman Empire mixed Turkish traditions with other influences, and Mimar Sinan designed famous mosques such as the Süleymaniye Mosque.

In the far west, the Moorish style developed in al-Andalus and North Africa, with horseshoe arches and courtyard gardens. Examples include the Alhambra in Granada. In Yemen, buildings combined older and Islamic features, and tower-houses were common. In India, the Mughal architecture style produced the Taj Mahal, completed in 1648. In the Malay and Indonesian regions, existing building forms were adapted for mosques, and in China, mosques blended local styles. The Volga Tatars built mosques with gabled roofs. In West Africa, mud and stone were the main materials, and in East Africa, mosques and palaces were built with materials such as coral stone.

In modern times

Islamic buildings have changed in modern times, including ones that are not religious. New designs often do not keep the same basic features seen in the past. Mosques still usually have a miḥrāb (مِـحْـرَاب), minarets, a four-iwan plan, and a pishtaq. One change is that some new mosques have no domes, even though most older mosques had them. These newer mosques often focus on function over form, and in most cases they are built by people who are not Muslim. Islam still shapes how these buildings are designed, and modern Islamic architects often include features from other cultures, such as European styles.

Architects have also begun mixing modern urban design with Islamic styles to create a new 'neo-Islamic' style. Examples include the Marrakesh Menara Airport, the Mazar-e-Quaid, and other buildings that show Islamic influence along with modern ideas such as minimalism. Some people debate whether Islamic architecture can truly be called a style, while others feel that the move away from older traditions is causing it to lose its identity. Some scholars say that a building is recognized as a mosque mainly by what happens there, not by how it looks. Modern Muslim architects include Fazlur Khan, Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil, Vedat Dalokay, Kamran Afshar Naderi, Abdulhusein M. Thariani, Muzharul Islam, Nabih Youssef, Bashirul Haq, Zaha Hadid, Nayyar Ali Dada, Habib Fida Ali, and Hassan Fathy.

Connections and deeper meanings

Islamic architecture is often overlooked in studies of world architecture. It is hard for historians to find symbolic meanings in mosques. Few old writings explain why architects built things a certain way, mosques vary widely across the many places where Islam is practiced, and depictions of people lack religious meaning. Some writers have suggested mystical or mathematical meanings, but these may only fit certain buildings.

Unlike Christianity, Islamic art usually does not show living beings, because this is seen as conflicting with the Qur'an. Instead, it uses complex geometric shapes and patterns. Calligraphy is a repeated feature in mosques and often shares verses from the Qur'an and teachings of Muhammad. Mosque layouts can also show status. The least important areas are near the entrance, and deeper areas are more significant. Special places for royalty might be placed where everyone can see them, at the center of the artwork, or with a maqsurah, even though all Muslims are equal in Islamic belief. The mihrab, a wall niche that shows the direction of prayer, guides worshippers toward the qibla.