Introduction to Islam

by Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay

Origins and the life of Muhammad the Prophet

Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are three of the world’s great monotheistic faiths. They share many of the same holy sites, such as Jerusalem, and prophets, such as Abraham. Collectively, scholars refer to these three religions as the Abrahamic faiths, since Abraham and his family played vital roles in the formation of these religions.

The Kaaba, granite masonry, covered with silk curtain and calligraphy in gold and silver-wrapped thread, pre-Islamic monument, rededicated by Muhammad in 631–32 C.E., multiple renovations, Mecca, Saudi Arabia (photo: marviikad, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Islam was founded by Muhammad (c. 570–632 C.E.), a merchant from the city of Mecca, now in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Mecca was a well-established trading city. The Kaaba (in Mecca) is the focus of pilgrimage for Muslims.

Muhammad was born in 570 C.E. in Mecca, and his early life was unremarkable. He married a wealthy widow named Khadija. Around 610 C.E., Muhammad had his first religious experience, where he was instructed to recite by the Angel Gabriel. After a period of introspection and self-doubt, Muhammad accepted his role as God’s prophet and began to preach word of the one God, or Allah in Arabic. His first convert was his wife.

Muhammad’s divine recitations form the Qur’an. During one of his many visions, in 621 C.E., Muhammad was taken on the famous Night Journey by the Angel Gabriel, travelling from Mecca to the farthest mosque in Jerusalem, from where he ascended into heaven. The site of his ascension is believed to be the stone around which the Dome of the Rock was built. Eventually in 622, Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca for the city of Yathrib, which is known as Medina today, where his community was welcomed. This event is known as the hijra, or emigration. 622, the year of the hijra (A.H.), marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar, which is still in use today.

Between 625–630 C.E., there were a series of battles fought between the Meccans and Muhammad and the new Muslim community. Eventually, Muhammad was victorious and reentered Mecca in 630. In 632, Muhammad died in Medina. Muslims believe that he was the final in a line of prophets, which included Moses, Abraham, and Jesus.

After Muhammad’s death

The century following Muhammad’s death was dominated by military conquest and expansion. Muhammad was succeeded by the four “rightly-guided” Caliphs. The final caliph, Ali, was married to Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter and was murdered in 661. The death of Ali is a very important event; his followers, who believed that he should have succeeded Muhammad directly, became known as the Shi’a, meaning the followers of Ali. Today, the Shi’ite community is composed of several different branches, and there are large Shi’a populations in Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain. The Sunnis, who do not hold that Ali should have directly succeeded Muhammad, compose the largest branch of Islam; their adherents can be found across North Africa, the Middle East, as well as in Asia and Europe.

Islamic Art: An Introduction

Today Islamic art describes all of the arts that were produced in the lands where Islam was the dominant religion or the religion of those who ruled. Unlike the terms Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist art, which refer only to religious art of these faiths, Islamic art is not used merely to describe religious art or architecture, but applies to all art forms produced in the Islamic World.

Thus, Islamic art refers not only to works created by Muslim artists, artisans, and architects or for Muslim patrons. It encompasses the works created by Muslim artists for a patron of any faith, including Christians, Jews, or Hindus, and the works created by Jews, Christians, and others, living in Islamic lands, for patrons, Muslim and otherwise.

Islamic art is not a monolithic style or movement; it spans 1,300 years of history and has incredible geographic diversity—Islamic empires and dynasties controlled territory from Spain to western China at various points in history. However, few if any of these various countries or Muslim empires would have referred to their art as Islamic. An artisan in Damascus thought of his work as Syrian or Damascene—not as Islamic.

As a result of thinking about the problems of calling such art Islamic, certain scholars and major museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have decided to omit the term Islamic when they renamed their new galleries of Islamic art. Instead, they are called “Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia,” thereby stressing the regional styles and individual cultures. Thus, when using the phrase, Islamic art, one should know that it is a useful, but artificial, concept.

Themes

Similarly, there are themes and types of objects that link the arts of the Islamic World together. Calligraphy is a very important art form in the Islamic world. The Qur’an, written in elegant scripts, represents Allah’s (or God’s) divine word, which Muhammad received directly from Allah during his visions. Quranic verses, executed in calligraphy, are found on many different forms of art and architecture. Likewise, poetry can be found on everything from ceramic bowls to the walls of houses. Calligraphy’s omnipresence underscores the value that is placed on language, specifically Arabic.

Geometric and vegetative motifs are very popular throughout the lands where Islam was once or still is a major religion and cultural force, appearing in the private palaces of buildings such as the Alhambra (in Spain) as well as in the detailed metal work of Safavid Iran. Likewise, certain building types appear throughout the Muslim world: mosques with their minarets, mausolea, gardens, and madrasas (religious schools) are all common. However, their forms vary greatly.

Bathing scene on west wall of west aisle of audience hall, Qasr ‘Amra, c. 730, Jordan (photo: Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar)

One of the most common misconceptions about the art of the Islamic world is that it is aniconic; that is, the art does not contain representations of humans or animals. Religious art and architecture, almost from the earliest examples, such as the Dome of the Rock, the Aqsa Mosque (both in Jerusalem), and the Great Mosque of Damascus, built under the Umayyad rulers, did not include human figures and animals. However, the private residences of sovereigns, such as Qasr ‘Amra or Khirbat Mafjar, were filled with vast figurative paintings, mosaics, and sculpture.

Introduction to mosque architecture

Mimar Sinan, courtyard of the Süleymaniye Mosque, İstanbul, 1558 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

From Indonesia to the United Kingdom, the mosque in its many forms is the quintessential Islamic building. The mosque, masjid in Arabic, is the Muslim gathering place for prayer. Masjid simply means “place of prostration.” Though most of the five daily prayers prescribed in Islam can take place anywhere, all men are required to gather together at the mosque for the Friday noon prayer.

Diagram reconstruction of the Prophet’s House, Medina, Saudi Arabia

Mosques are also used throughout the week for prayer, study, or simply as a place for rest and reflection. The main mosque of a city, used for the Friday communal prayer, is called a jami masjid, literally meaning “Friday mosque,” but it is also sometimes called a congregational mosque in English. The style, layout, and decoration of a mosque can tell us a lot about Islam in general, but also about the period and region in which the mosque was constructed.

The home of the Prophet Muhammad is considered the first mosque. His house, in Medina in modern-day Saudi Arabia, was a typical 7th-century Arabian style house, with a large courtyard surrounded by long rooms supported by columns. This style of mosque came to be known as a hypostyle mosque, meaning “many columns.” Most mosques built in Arab lands utilized this style for centuries.

Common features

The architecture of a mosque is shaped most strongly by the regional traditions of the time and place where it was built. As a result, style, layout, and decoration can vary greatly. Nevertheless, because of the common function of the mosque as a place of congregational prayer, certain architectural features appear in mosques all over the world.

Sahn (courtyard) and sabil (fountain), Mosque-madrasa of Sultan Hassan, 1356–63, Cairo, Egypt (photo: orientalizing, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Sahn (courtyard)

The most fundamental necessity of congregational mosque architecture is that it be able to hold the entire male population of a city or town (women are welcome to attend Friday prayers, but not required to do so). To that end congregational mosques must have a large prayer hall. In many mosques this is adjoined to an open courtyard, called a sahn. Within the courtyard one often finds a fountain, its waters both a welcome respite in hot lands, and important for the ablutions (ritual cleansing) done before prayer.

Left: Mimar Sinan, Mihrab and minbar, Rüstem Paşa Mosque, 1561–63, Istanbul (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0); right: Mihrab, Great Mosque of Córdoba, c. 786, Córdoba, Spain (photo: Brent Miller, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Mihrab (niche)

Another essential element of a mosque’s architecture is a mihrab—a niche in the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca, towards which all Muslims pray. Mecca is the city in which the Prophet Muhammad was born, and the home of the most important Islamic site, the Kaaba. The direction of Mecca is called the qibla, and so the wall in which the mihrab is set is called the qibla wall. No matter where a mosque is, its mihrab indicates the direction of Mecca (or as near that direction as science and geography were able to place it). Therefore, a mihrab in India will be to the west, while a one in Egypt will be to the east. A mihrab is usually a relatively shallow niche, as in the example from Istanbul, above left. In the example from Spain, shown above right, the mihrab’s niche takes the form of a small room, this is more rare.

Minaret (tower)

Mimar Sinan, Minaret, Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, 1558 (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Malwiyah Mosque, Minaret, Malwiyah Mosque, Samerra, Iraq, 1558 (photo: Safa Daneshvar, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

One of the most visible aspects of mosque architecture is the minaret, a tower adjacent or attached to a mosque, from which the call to prayer is announced.

Minarets take many different forms—from the famous spiral minaret of Samarra, to the tall, pencil minarets of Ottoman Turkey. Not solely functional in nature, the minaret serves as a powerful visual reminder of the presence of Islam.

Qubba (dome)

Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa, Dome, Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque), completed 1617, Istanbul (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Most mosques also feature one or more domes, called qubba in Arabic. While not a ritual requirement like the mihrab, a dome does possess significance within the mosque—as a symbolic representation of the vault of heaven. Some mosque types incorporate multiple domes into their architecture (as in the Ottoman Süleymaniye Mosque pictured at the top of the page), while others only feature one. In mosques with only a single dome, it is invariably found surmounting the qibla wall, the holiest section of the mosque. The Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia has three domes: one atop the minaret, one above the entrance to the prayer hall, and one above the qibla wall.

Great Mosque of Kairouan (also spelled Qayrawan), Tunisia, c. 836–75 (photo: nivea-cream, CC BY 2.0)

Because it is the directional focus of prayer, the qibla wall, with its mihrab and minbar, is often the most ornately decorated area of a mosque. The rich decoration of the qibla wall is apparent in this image of the mihrab and minbar of the Mosque of Sultan Hasan in Cairo, Egypt.

Qibla wall in an iwan, madrasa and Friday Mosque of Sultan Hasan, 1356–1363/758–764 AH, Cairo, Egypt (photo: Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0)

Common types of mosque architecture

Since the 7th century, mosques have been built around the globe. While there are many different types of mosque architecture, three basic forms can be defined.

Sahn and minaret, Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, c. 836–75 (photo: Andrew Watson, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Diagram reconstruction of the Prophet’s House, Medina, Saudi Arabia

I. The hypostyle mosque

It makes sense that the first place of worship for Muslims, the house of the Prophet Muhammad, inspired the earliest type of mosque—the hypostyle mosque. This type spread widely throughout Islamic lands.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, is an archetypal example of the hypostyle mosque. The mosque was built in the 9th century by Ziyadat Allah, the third ruler of the Aghlabid dynasty, an offshoot of the Abbasid Empire. It is a large, rectangular stone mosque with a hypostyle (supported by columns) hall and a large inner sahn (courtyard). The three-tiered minaret is in style known as the Syrian bell-tower, and may have originally been based on the form of ancient Roman lighthouses. The interior of the mosque features the forest of columns that has come to define the hypostyle type.

Ancient capitals (spolia), Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia (photo: ovancantfort, CC BY-SA 2.0)

The mosque was built on a former Byzantine site, and the architects repurposed older materials, such as the columns—a decision that was both practical and a powerful assertion of the Islamic conquest of Byzantine lands. Many early mosques like this one made use of older architectural materials (called spolia) in a similarly symbolic way.

Maqsura, Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia (photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

On right hand side of the mosque’s mihrab is the maqsura, a special area reserved for the ruler found in some, but not all, mosques. This mosque’s maqsura is the earliest extant example, and its minbar (pulpit) is the earliest dated minbar known to scholars. Both are carved from teak wood that was imported from Southeast Asia. This prized wood was shipped from Thailand to Baghdad, where it was carved, then carried on camel back from Iraq to Tunisia in a remarkable display of medieval global commerce.

Interior of the Great Mosque of Córdoba, Spain, 8th–10th centuries (photo: Timor Espallargas, CC BY-SA 2.5)

The hypostyle plan was used widely in Islamic lands prior to the introduction of the four-iwan plan in the 12th century (see next section). The hypostyle plan’s characteristic forest of columns was used in different mosques to great effect. One of the most famous examples is the Great Mosque of Córdoba, which uses bi-color, two-tier arches that emphasize the almost dizzying optical effect of the hypostyle hall.

Iwan, Ctesiphon, Iraq, c. 560 (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive)

II. The four-iwan mosque

Just as the hypostyle hall defined much of mosque architecture of the early Islamic period, the 11th century shows the emergence of new form: the four-iwan mosque. An iwan is a vaulted space that opens on one side to a courtyard. The iwan developed in pre-Islamic Iran, where it was used in monumental and imperial architecture. Strongly associated with Persian architecture, the iwan continued to be used in monumental architecture in the Islamic era.

View of three (of four) Iwans, Great Mosque of Isfahan, Iran, 11th–17th centuries, looking toward the south (qibla) iwan (photo: reibai, CC BY 2.0)

Plan of the mosque, drawn by Eric Schroeder, Architectural Survey, American Institute for Persian Art & Archaeology, 1931

In 11th century Iran, hypostyle mosques started to be converted into four-iwan mosques, which, as the name indicates, incorporate four iwans in their architectural plan.

The Great Mosque of Isfahan reflects this broader development. The mosque began its life as a hypostyle mosque, but was modified by the Seljuqs of Iran after their conquest of the city of Isfahan in the 11th century.

Like a hypostyle mosque, the layout is arranged around a large open courtyard. However, in the four-iwan mosque, each wall of the courtyard is punctuated with a monumental vaulted hall, the iwan. This mosque type, which became widespread in the 12th century, has maintained its popularity to the present.

Iwan, Great Mosque of Isfahan, Iran (photo: reibai, CC BY 2.0)

In this type of mosque, the qibla iwan, which faces Mecca, is often the largest and most ornately decorated, as at Isfahan’s Great Mosque. Here, the mosque’s two minarets also flank the lavish qibla iwan. The Safavid rulers refurbished these walls with new tiles in the 16th century.

Though it originated in Iran, the four-iwan plan would become the new plan for mosques all over the Islamic word, used widely from India to Cairo and replacing the hypostyle mosque in many places.

III. The centrally-planned mosque

While the four-iwan plan was used for mosques across the Islamic world, the Ottoman Empire was one of the few places in the central Islamic lands where the four-iwan mosque plan did not dominate. The Ottoman Empire was founded in 1299. However, it did not become a major force until the 15th century, when Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the capital of the late Roman (Byzantine) Empire since the 4th century. Renamed Istanbul, the city straddles the European and Asian continents, and, having been a Christian capital for over a thousand years, had a wholly different cultural and architectural heritage than Iran. The Ottoman architects were strongly influenced by Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the greatest of all Byzantine churches and one that features a monumental central dome high over its large nave.

Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, Hagia Sophia, 532–37, Istanbul (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Many Ottoman mosques in the late 15th and early 16th centuries referenced Hagia Sophia’s dome; however, it was not until the masterful work of Mimar Sinan, the greatest Ottoman, if not Islamic, architect, that the domes of Ottoman mosques competed with and arguably surpassed that of Hagia Sophia. Sinan experimented with the central plan in a series of mosques in Istanbul, achieving what he considered his masterpiece in the Mosque of Selim II, in Edirne, Turkey. Built for Selim II, son of Süleyman, during the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, it is considered the greatest masterpiece of Ottoman architecture. It represents a culmination of years of experimentation with the centrally-planned Ottoman mosque.

Dome interior, Mimar Sinan, Selimiye II Mosque in Edirne, Turkey, 1568–74 (photo: CharlesFred/Charles Roffey, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Sinan himself boasted that his dome was higher and wider than that of the Hagia Sophia, highlighting the sense of competition with the earlier Byzantine building. In the Selim Mosque, Sinan distilled previous ideas about the central plan into a simple and perfect design. The interior octagonal space was made more spacious by 8 massive piers that pushed back into the walls, and a rhythmic harmony was created through apertures of small and large arches framed by joggled voussoirs, filling the large space with light and color.

Djingarey Berre Mosque, Timbuktu, Mali, 1327 (photo: MINUSMA/Marco Dormino, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Great Mosque of Córdoba

Great Mosque of Córdoba from the air, Córdoba, Spain, begun 786 and enlarged during the 9th and 10th centuries, (photo: Toni Castillo Quero, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Known locally as Mezquita-Catedral, the Great Mosque of Córdoba is one of the oldest structures still standing from the time Muslims ruled Al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia including most of Spain, Portugal, and a small section of Southern France) in the late 8th century. Córdoba is a two hour train ride south of Madrid, and draws visitors from all over the world.

Temple/church/mosque/church

The buildings on this site are as complex as the extraordinarily rich history they illustrate. Historians believe that there had first been a temple to the Roman god, Janus, on this site. The temple was converted into a church by invading Visigoths who seized Córdoba in 572. Next, the church was converted into a mosque and then completely rebuilt by the descendants of the exiled Umayyads—the first Islamic dynasty who had originally ruled from their capital Damascus (in present-day Syria) from 661 until 750.

A new capital

Following the overthrow of his family (the Umayyads) in Damascus by the incoming Abbasids, Prince Abd al-Rahman I escaped to southern Spain. Once there, he established control over almost all of the Iberian Peninsula and attempted to recreate the grandeur of Damascus in his new capital, Córdoba. He sponsored elaborate building programs, promoted agriculture, and even imported fruit trees and other plants from his former home. Orange trees still stand in the courtyard of the Mosque of Córdoba, a beautiful, if bittersweet reminder of the Umayyad exile.

Hypostyle hall, Great Mosque at Córdoba, Spain, begun 786 and enlarged during the 9th and 10th centuries (photo: wsifrancis, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The hypostyle hall

The building itself was expanded over two hundred years. It is comprised of a large hypostyle prayer hall (hypostyle means, filled with columns), a courtyard with a fountain in the middle, an orange grove, a covered walkway circling the courtyard, and a minaret (a tower used to call the faithful to prayer) that is now encased in a squared, tapered bell tower. The expansive prayer hall seems magnified by its repeated geometry. It is built with recycled ancient Roman columns from which sprout a striking combination of two-tiered, symmetrical arches, formed of stone and red brick.

Mihrab, Great Mosque at Córdoba, Spain (photo: wsifrancis, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The mihrab

The focal point in the prayer hall is the famous horseshoe arched mihrab or prayer niche. A mihrab is used in a mosque to identify the wall that faces Mecca—the birth place of Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. This is practical as Muslims face toward Mecca during their daily prayers. The mihrab in the Great Mosque of Córdoba is framed by an exquisitely decorated arch behind which is an unusually large space, the size of a small room. Gold tesserae (small pieces of glass with gold and color backing) create a dazzling combination of dark blues, reddish browns, yellows and golds that form intricate calligraphic bands and vegetal motifs that adorn the arch.

The horseshoe arch

The horseshoe-style arch was common in the architecture of the Visigoths, the people that ruled this area after the Roman empire collapsed and before the Umayyads arrived. The horseshoe arch eventually spread across North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and is an easily identified characteristic of Western Islamic architecture (though there are some early examples in the East as well).

Mihrab dome, Great Mosque at Córdoba, Spain (photo: José Luiz, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The dome

Above the mihrab, is an equally dazzling dome. It is built of crisscrossing ribs that create pointed arches all lavishly covered with gold mosaic in a radial pattern. This astonishing building technique anticipates later Gothic rib vaulting, though on a more modest scale.

The Great Mosque of Córdoba is a prime example of the Muslim world’s ability to brilliantly develop architectural styles based on pre-existing regional traditions. Here is an extraordinary combination of the familiar and the innovative, a formal stylistic vocabulary that can be recognized as “Islamic” even today

The Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (photo: King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Shah Jahan was the fifth ruler of the Mughal dynasty. During his third regnal year, his favorite wife, known as Mumtaz Mahal, died due to complications arising from the birth of their fourteenth child. Deeply saddened, the emperor started planning the construction of a suitable, permanent resting place for his beloved wife almost immediately. The result of his efforts and resources was the creation of what was called the Luminous Tomb in contemporary Mughal texts and is what the world knows today as the Taj Mahal.

In general terms, Sunni Muslims favor a simple burial, under an open sky. But notable domed mausolea for Mughals (as well as for other Central Asian rulers) were built prior to Shah Jahan’s rule, so in this regard, the Taj is not unique. The Taj is, however, exceptional for its monumental scale, stunning gardens, lavish ornamentation, and its overt use of white marble.

Taj Mahal, Agra, India (photo: David Castor)

Entrance, Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (photo: David Castor)

Paradise on Earth

Entry to the Taj Mahal complex via the forecourt, which in the sixteenth century housed shops, and through a monumental gate of inlaid and highly decorated red sandstone made for a first impression of grand splendor and symmetry: aligned along a long water channel through this gate is the Taj—set majestically on a raised platform on the north end. The rectangular complex runs roughly 1860 feet on the north-south axis, and 1000 feet on the east-west axis.

Aerial view of the Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (underlying map © Google)

The white-marble mausoleum is flanked on either side by identical buildings in red sandstone. One of these serves as a mosque, and the other, whose exact function is unknown, provides architectural balance.

The marble structure is topped by a bulbous dome and surrounded by four minarets of equal height. While minarets in Islamic architecture are usually associated with mosques—for use by the muezzin who leads the call to prayer—here, they are not functional, but ornamental, once again underscoring the Mughal focus on structural balance and harmony.

The interior floor plan of the Taj exhibits the hasht bishisht (eight levels) principle, alluding to the eight levels of paradise. Consisting of eight halls and side rooms connected to the main space in a cross-axial plan—the favored design for Islamic architecture from the mid-fifteenth century—the center of the main chamber holds Mumtaz Mahal’s intricately decorated marble cenotaph on a raised platform. The emperor’s cenotaph was laid down beside hers after he died three decades later—both are encased in an octagon of exquisitely carved white-marble screens. The coffins bearing their remains lie in the spaces directly beneath the cenotaphs.

Cenotaphs, Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (photo: Derek A Young, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Carving and inlaid stone, Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (photo: Martin Lambie, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Qur’anic verses inscribed into the walls of the building and designs inlaid with semi-precious stones—coral, onyx, carnelian, amethyst, and lapis lazuli—add to the splendor of the Taj’s white exterior. The dominant theme of the carved imagery is floral, showing some recognizable, and other fanciful species of flowers—another link to the theme of paradise.

The gardens

Stretching in front of the Taj Mahal is a monumental char bagh garden. The garden incorporated waterways and fountains. This was a new type of gardening that was introduced to India by Babur, Shah Jahan’s great great grandfather in the sixteenth century. Given the passage of time and the intervention of many individuals in the garden since its construction, it is hard to determine the original planting and layout scheme of the garden beds at the Taj.

View from the Mahtab Bagh, Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (photo: Steve Evans, CC BY-NC 2.0)

From the outset, the Taj was conceived of as a building that would be remembered for its magnificence for ages to come, and to that end, the best material and skills were employed. The finest marble came from quarries 250 miles away in Makrarna, Rajasthan. Mir Abd Al-Karim was designated as the lead architect.

Taj Mahal, Agra, India, 1632–53 (photo: LASZLO ILYES, CC BY 2.0)

What the Taj Mahal represents

When Mumtaz Mahal died at age 38 in 1631, the emperor is reported to have refused to engage in court festivities, postponed two of his sons’ weddings, and allegedly made frequent visits to his wife’s temporary resting place (in Burhanpur) during the time it took for the building of the Taj to be completed. Stories like these have led to the Taj Mahal being referred to as an architectural “symbol of love” in popular literature. But there are other theories: one suggests that the Taj is not a funeral monument, and that Shah Jahan might have built a similar structure even if his wife had not died. Based on the metaphoric specificity of Qur’anic and other inscriptions and the emperor’s love of thrones, another theory maintains that the Taj Mahal is a symbolic representation of a Divine Throne—the seat of God—on the Day of Judgment. A third view holds that the monument was built to represent a replica of a house of paradise. In the “paradisiacal mansion” theory, the Taj was something of a vanity project, built to glorify Mughal rule and the emperor himself.

If his accession to the throne was smooth, Shah Jahan’s departure from it was not. The emperor died not as a ruler, but as a prisoner. Relegated to Agra Fort under house arrest for eight years prior to his death in 1666, Shah Jahan could enjoy only a distant view of the Taj Mahal. But the resplendent marble mausoleum he built “with posterity in mind” endures, more than 350 years after it was constructed, and is believed to be the most recognizable sight in the world today. Laid to rest beside his beloved wife in the Taj Mahal, the man once called Padshah—King of the World—enjoys enduring fame, too, for having commissioned the world’s most extravagant and memorable mausoleum.

The Ardabil Carpet

Medallion Carpet, The Ardabil Carpet, Unknown artist (Maqsud Kashani is named on the carpet’s inscription), Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. inch), 1539–40 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (Victoria and Albert Museum) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

About carpets

Carpets are among the most fundamental of Islamic arts. Portable, typically made of silk and wools, carpets were traded and sold across the Islamic lands and beyond its boundaries to Europe and China. Those from Iran were highly prized. Carpets decorated the floors of mosques, shrines and homes, but they could also be hung on walls of houses to preserve warmth in the winter.

Medallion Carpet, The Ardabil Carpet, Unknown artist (Maqsud Kashani is named on the carpet’s inscription), Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. inch), 1539–40 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Ardabil and a 14th century saint

The Ardabil Carpet is exceptional; it is one of the world’s oldest Islamic carpets, as well as one of the largest, most beautiful and historically important. It is not only stunning in its own right, but it is bound up with the history of one of the great political dynasties of Iran. The carpet takes its name from the town of Ardabil in north-west Iran. Ardabil was the home to the shrine of the Sufi saint, Safi al-Din Ardabili, who died in 1334 (Sufism is Islamic mysticism). He was a Sufi leader who trained his followers in Islamic mystic practices. After his death, his following grew and his descendants became increasingly powerful. In 1501 one of his descendants, Shah Isma’il, seized power, united Iran, and established Shi’a Islam as the official religion. The dynasty he founded is known as the Safavids. Their rule, which lasted until 1722, was one of the most important periods for Islamic art, especially for textiles and for manuscripts.

Plan of the shrine at Ardabil, showing where the carpets were situated (permission, Victoria and Albert Museum)

Made for a shrine

This carpet was one of a matching pair that was made for the shrine of Safi al-Din Ardabili when it was enlarged in the late 1530s. Today the Ardabil Carpet dominates the main Islamic Art Gallery in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, while its twin is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The carpets were located side by side in the shrine.

The pile of the carpet is made from wool, rather than silk because it holds dye better. The knot-count of a carpet still directly impacts the value of carpets today; the more knots per square centimeter, the more detailed and elaborate the patterns can be. The dyes used to color the carpet are natural and include pomegranate rind and indigo. Up to ten weavers could have worked on the carpet at any given time. The Ardabil Carpet has 340 knots per square inch (5300 knots per ten centimeters square). Today, a commercial rug averages 80–160 knots per square inch, meaning that the Ardabil Carpet was highly detailed.

Design and pattern

The rich geometric patterns, vegetative scrolls, floral flourishes, so typical of Islamic art, reach a fever pitch in this remarkable carpet, encouraging the viewer to walk around and around, trying to absorb every detail of design.

Medallion Carpet, The Ardabil Carpet (detail of center), Unknown artist (Maqsud Kashani is named on the carpet’s inscription), Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. inch), 1539-40 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (Victoria and Albert Museum) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

That the design of the carpet was not arbitrary or piecemeal, but was well-organized and thoughtful can be seen throughout. Considering the immense size of the carpet—10.51m x 5.34 m (34′ 6″ x 17′ 6″)—this is impressive. A central golden medallion dominates the carpet; it is surrounded by a ring of multi-colored, detailed ovals. Lamps appear to hang at either end.

The carpet’s border is made up of a frame with a series of cartouches (rectangular-shaped spaces for calligraphy), filled with decoration. The central medallion design is also echoed by the four corner-pieces.

The Ardabil Carpet (details of lamps), Unknown artist (Maqsud Kashani is named on the carpet’s inscription), Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. inch), 1539–40 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (Victoria and Albert Museum) (photos: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Art historians have debated the meaning of the two lamps that appear to hang from the medallion. They are of different sizes and some scholars have proposed that this was done to create a perspective effect, meaning that both lamps appear to be the same size when one sat next to the smaller lamp. Yet, there is no evidence for the use of this type of perspective in Iran in the 1530s, nor does this explain why the lamps were included. Perhaps they were included to mimic lamps found in mosques and shrines, helping the viewer to look deeply into the carpet below them and then above them, to the ceiling where similar lamps would have hung, creating visual unity within the shrine.

An inscription

The Ardabil Carpet includes a four-line inscription placed at one end. This short poem is vital for understanding who commissioned the carpet and the date of the carpet.

Medallion Carpet, The Ardabil Carpet (detail of inscription). (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The first three lines of poetry reads:

Except for thy threshold, there is no refuge for me in all the world.
Except for this door there is no resting-place for my head.
The work of the slave of the portal, Maqsud Kashani.

Maqsud was probably the court official charged with producing the carpets. By referring to himself as a slave, he may be presenting himself as a humble servant. The Persian word for a door can be used to denote a shrine or royal court, so this inscription may imply that the royal court patronized the shrine. The carpets would have probably taken four years to make.

The fourth line of the inscription is also important. It provides the date of the carpet, AH 946. The Muslim calendar begins in the year 620 CE when Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina; this year is known as the year of the Hijra or flight (in Latin anno hegirae). AH 946 is equivalent to 1539/40 CE (the lunar Muslim calendar does not exactly match the Gregorian Calendar, used in the west).

The design of the Ardabil Carpet and its skillful execution is a testament to the great skill of the artisans at work in north-west Iran in the 1530s.

Medallion Carpet, The Ardabil Carpet (detail with edge), Unknown artist (Maqsud Kashani is named on the carpet’s inscription), Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. inch), 1539–40 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (Victoria and Albert Museum) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Book Arts

Adorning the Qur’an

The Qur’an is the holy book of the religion of Islam, containing the words of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad starting in the year 610. Following the Prophet’s death in 632, these revelations, which had initially been memorized by the early Muslim converts, were fully written out for the first time. At this time they were organized into 114 chapters (called suras in Arabic) that were themselves divided into verses (ayas), and placed in order of decreasing length rather than the order in which they were revealed (except for the first very short opening chapter). Following this codification of the text, Qur’ans have been copied in beautifully produced and lavish manuscripts that reflect the fact that they contain the words of God. The text is written in specially devised scripts, and gold and colored inks are used to enhance the appearance of the pages.

When you encounter pages from a Qur’an, you find much more than just the Arabic text. There are different traditions about where certain verses end, how certain words are pronounced, the intonation to use when reading them aloud, and other such details. As a result, many of the visual features in the text that are classified as decoration were actually introduced into the manuscripts to preserve these specific readings. This essay will help you understand the many marks that appear in historic manuscripts, and how they facilitate the ways the Qur’an is studied, recited, and prayed with.

Frontispieces

Moving from the front to the back of a manuscript, for instance, you might first encounter a frontispiece. This is either a single page, or two-facing pages, with painted ornament which serves as a decorative entry into the contents.

Frontispiece to volume two of a 30-volume Qur’an, late 9th–early 10th century (Syria or Iraq), ink, opaque watercolor and gold on parchment, 17.1 cm (each page) (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Many early Qur’ans have frontispieces with geometric or floral illumination, such as this example from the 9th or 10th century which has interlacing gold borders enclosing a geometric, stippled design. Extending into the margins on either side are floral roundels, also in gold.

Other frontispieces might also include information about the text itself. The Qur’an copied by Ibn al-Bawwab in Baghdad in 1000–1001 is an important manuscript that serves as an example of what this information might be. It includes three double-page frontispieces, two of which have calligraphy along with the gold, blue, black, and brown decorative motifs.

Left: first frontispiece with script in oblong bands; right: second frontispiece with script in interlacing octagons, Qur’an of Ibn al-Bawwab with chapter, verse, word, letter, vocalization, and diacritic counts, 1000–1001 (Iraq, Baghdad), ink and gold pigment on paper, 18.3 x 14.5 cm (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Is 1431, folios 6 verso and 7 verso)

In the first frontispiece, the script is arranged in oblong bands while in the second it is set within interlacing octagons. The calligraphy specifies the number of chapters, verses, words, letters, and diacritical marks in this volume of the Qur’an. This accords to an accounting approved by ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (an early convert and a son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad). Ibn al-Bawwab would have included this information to certify that he had copied exactly a particular reading of the Qur’an, in its entirety, and without error. This last part was important because it’s always possible, when copying a text by hand, for words or phrases to be accidentally skipped or repeated.

Chapter headings

The text following the frontispiece is organized by chapter, with the chapter names written in a different script from the main text. On this page, the title of chapter 54, sura al-qamar (“the moon”), appears on the fifth line from the top, in a gold ink also different from that used for the Qur’anic text.

Folio from the Qur’an of Ibn al-Bawwab with Sura 53 (al-Najm, “The Star”), verse 53 and Sura 54 (al-Qamar, “The Moon”), verses 1–11, 1000–1001 (Iraq, Baghdad), ink and gold pigment on paper, 18.3 x 14.5 cm
(Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Is 1431, folio 243 verso)

Since the chapters names were applied later to each revelation (usually taking a word that features prominently within it), the change in script makes it clear that the titles are not part of God’s words. This heading also includes the number of verses in the sura (in this case, 55), and the place where it was revealed to Muhammad—either Mecca or Medina (this verse was revealed in Mecca, as indicated by the word “Meccan” in the margin).

Image of a Doctor making medicine.

"Preparing Medicine from Honey", from a Dispersed Manuscript of an Arabic Translation of De Materia Medica of Dioscorides. 'Abdullah ibn al-Fadl. 1224 CE. nk, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. Public DOmain.

One of the most influential medical treatises handed down to Muslims was De Materia Medica, by a first-century B.C. Greek physician in Cilicia (southern Anatolia). The left page concerns making medicine from honey and water, prescribed to cure weakness and loss of appetite. A doctor holds a gold cup while stirring the boiling honey and water in a cauldron as he prepares to scoop it up for the seated patient. The architectural setting suggests that the drugs are being produced in a pharmacy like those attached to hospitals in the Seljuq lands. In the illustration on the right, a doctor and his assistant or patient stand on either side of a sieve through which grapes are pressed and then combined with brine and an onion-like herb to produce a medicine to cure digestive disorders.

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