Islamic art history Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Aesthetics, Architecture, Middle East Studies, Middle East History

Mystical Literature is strong link between Iranian culture and art and has led to consolidation of various arts such as architecture. To understand the identity of Iranian and Islamic architecture should recognize the value of its effective and investigated.Sufism and mysticism during the Ilkhanid and Timurid was Spread and one feature Islamic society, especially in Iran in this period. This leads to the expansion of mystical literature. . The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between mystical literature as a factor for influence of Sufism and the Islamic architecture. The research has an sociological of art and based on reflect theory. Research explored historical documents and resources to investigate the features of mystical literature and sociological context of its development during this period. Then the impact of the mystical literature in architectural education, messaging of architecture, and architectural features expressed in mystical poems was analyzed. This study showed that mystical literature influence on architecture by Futuwwat-nāme brotherhoods (craftsmen chivalry letters), inscriptions themed of buildings and architecture as a metaphor for God's Mention.
ادبیات عرفانی حلقه پیوند محکمی است که فرهنگ و هنر ایران را به یکدیگر متصل کرده و موجب انسجام هنرهای مختلف همچون معماری گشته است. برای درک هویت ایرانی و اسلامی معماری ایران می بایست ارزش های تاثیرگذار بر آن را شناسایی نمود و نوع این تاثیرگذاری را بررسی کرد. با توجه به این که معماری، هنری بازتاب دهنده ارزش ها و اعتقادادت جامعه است و عرفان را می توان ارزشی موثر در جامعه دوره ایلخانی و تیموری دانست، هدف از این تحقیق بررسی ارتباط ادبیات عرفانی به عنوان عامل نفوذ ارزش های عرفانی، با معماری است. محقق با روش کیفی و از طریق بررسی منابع تاریخی، ابتدا ویژگی های ادبیات عرفانی و علت رواج آن در دوره مغول را بیان کرده و سپس ارتباط ادبیات عرفانی با معماری این دوره را در تاثیر بر نحوه آموزش، نقش کتیبه بر معماری و رواج مفاهیم بنیادین در معماری می داند.

- by Manouchehr Foroutan
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- Aesthetics, Architecture, Iranian Studies, Islamic Art

This study proposes a re-examination of twenty Ilkhanid (1256-1335) monuments with stucco repertoires. They retain signatures of stucco craftsmen and are mainly in Arabic and, at times, Persian. These monuments are located in Iran and neighbouring territories. The research comprises artistic and historical examination of these signatures. Its aim is to provide new information about identity, profession and mobility of craftsmen, as well as stucco workshop composition. The analysis attempts to surpass traditional examinations of craftsmen signatures, which were mainly concerned with their semantic meaning, the location on the stucco revetments, and, in particular, the identification of craftsmen and their mobility based on the nisbas in their signatures. To this aim, the study suggests that both the signature and its support, which is the stucco revetment, need to be considered as one: the trace and signature of the craftsmen. These findings are valuable for a better understanding of stucco production, the society of artists and patrons commissioning the Ilkhanid monuments and their decorative repertoires. The consideration of stucco artistic techniques, the detailed examination of repertoires and their respective signatures, therefore present valuable sources to the identity, mobility and task division of the stucco craftsmen. The relationship between signatures of craftsmen and patrons are also considered: they provide information on the links between patrons and the material culture they sponsored. The paper begins by examining a larger corpus of Ilkhanid craftsmen signatures (comprising names, surnames and verbs denoting their type of activity) in wood, lustre tiles, stone and stucco medium. Double signatures, such as those of heads of workshop and calligraphers, or architects and builders, prove especially informative on the use of different verbs to denote different artistic or architectural activities. This examination provides an insight into the differences between signatures in different media, which reflect the artistic techniques and role of calligraphers in inscription design, which is important for wall paintings, lustre tiles and wooden inscriptions. Stucco craftsmen signatures, due to the different design process and production methods, generally reflect the signatures of the heads of workshops-master craftsmen. The research combines the examination of signatures by investigating the different artistic techniques employed by the craftsmen. It tries to discern a link between signatures of workshops and artistic technique knowledge: a skill repository that migrated with them. The findings propose that stucco masters signed their works and their repeating signatures (cases of Bistam, Natanz, Turbat-i Jam, Ushturjan) reflected the use of the same artistic techniques and designs for stucco revetments. Differently from wall paintings, wooden and ceramic media, stuccos do not seem to have been signed by calligraphy experts, who helped design inscriptions. This is most likely because stucco craftsmen possessed this knowledge or because calligraphers only designed small sketches for stuccos. Stucco craftsmen mobility can thus be understood as long-distance (Turbat-i Jam-Natanz-Ushturjan; Sultaniyya-Ushturjan-Linjan-Na'in-Yazd-Abarquh; Iran-Azerbaijan-Pirsaat river) and short-distance (Bistam-Damghan; Haftshuya-Garladan-Linjan; Qurva-Sultaniyya). Furthermore, in some cases there appears to be links between patrons and craftsmen who were engaged on commissions (Na'in): they were sometimes from the same areas or settlements.

هنر پیکره تراشی و خاصه پیکره‌های انسانی که در دوران پس از اسلام مورد احتیاط قرار گرفته بود-اگر نگوییم دچار حرمان شده بود- در دوران سلجوقیان مورد توجه واقع شده و پیکره‌های انسانی با موضوعات مختلف ساخته شدند.
از جمله این پیکره‌ها که احتمالاً ساخته‌ی کاشان است، پیکره مردی‌ست که به حالت دوزانو روی زمین نشسته و کلاهی بر سر دارد که نام سلطان طغرل و تاریخ 538 هـ. ق. بر روی آن مرقوم شده است. در صورتی که در سال مذکور هیچکدام از سه سلطان طغرل سلجوقی حکومت نمی‌کردند. از طرفی پیکره مورد بحث از سوی برخی کارشناسان به عنوان مهره شطرنج به مخاطبان معرفی شده است.
هدف این مقاله تبیین کارکرد و دلیل شکل گیری پیکره مذکور و در پی آن اشتباه زدایی از اثری ایرانی است که دگرگونه به جهانیان معرفی شده است. سؤال اصلی مقاله چیستی مفهوم پیکره بوده و سعی بر آن است تا با استفاده از روش آیکونوگرافی و توجه به متون مکتوب و یافتن معنای ثانویه تصاویر، به سؤال مقاله پاسخ داده شود.
نتیجه مقاله نشان می‌دهد که نشانگان موجود در پیکره هیچ‌گونه ارتباطی با شطرنج نداشته و به احتمال قریب به یقین یادمان مظالم‌نشینی و یا حضور سلطان در مراسم سماع است.

A recent exchange of criticisms over a display of Islamic art illustrates the division of Islamic art history into two main schools. The disagreement was occasioned by the 2006 exhibition entitled Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen. The pleasure it gives, and the objects were arranged according to a traditional division of Islamic ornament into four themes. This occasioned a reaction from a prominent representative of the dominant trend in the academic study of Islamic art, who took the organizers of Cosmophilia to task for promoting a view that strips the artworks of their meaning. In this essay, I consider each of these viewpoints critically, point out a premise they share, and propose a fresh perspective under which to study works of Islamic art, one that takes into account the meaning of pleasure as a natural phenomenon.

- by Barry Wood
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- Aesthetics, Philosophy of Art, Islamic Art, Naturalism

The Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century marked a new phase in the development of Islamic art. Trans-Eurasian exchanges of goods, people and ideas were encouraged on a large scale under the auspices of the Pax Mongolica. With the fascination of portable objects brought from China and Central Asia, a distinctive, hitherto unknown style - Islamic chinoiserie - was born in the art of Iran. Highly illustrated, Islamic Chinoiserie offers a fascinating glimpse into the artistic interaction between Iran and China under the Mongols. By using rich visual materials from various media of decorative and pictorial arts - textiles, ceramics, metalwork and manuscript painting - the book illustrates the process of adoption and adaptation of Chinese themes in the art of Mongol-ruled Iran in a visually compelling way. The observation of this unique artistic phenomenon serves to promote the understanding of the artistic diversity of Islamic art in the Middle Ages.
Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, Honorable Mention, 2010, Association for Iranian Studies (formerly, International Society for Iranian Studies).

- by Yuka Kadoi
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- History of the Mongol Empire, Islamic art history

This article aims at examining one of the most splendid anthologies produced for the Timurid ruler, Iskandar b. Umar Shaykh. The three separated parts of this anthology are kept in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the Istanbul University Library, and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London. It contains prose and poetry texts collected, and even sometimes authored, by the scholars and learned men at Iskandar’s court.
Based on the size, page layout, contents and calligraphic styles of the book, this article provides evidence indicating that the afore-mentioned manuscripts originally belonged to a two-volume anthology. The portions in the Istanbul University and the Wellcome Institute help us gain a better understanding of the styles and functions of illuminations and paintings in the water damaged and repaired Lisbon Anthology.
In preparing this anthology, which is of particular importance among the Timurid manuscripts, there participated artisans who had earlier worked for Sultan Ahmad Jalayer in Baghdad and Tabrizi and later had remarkable impact on the art of book production in Herat.

- by Joachim Gierlichs
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- Museum Studies, Islamic Art, History of Collections, Collecting and Collections

The commemorative edition of Titus Burckhardt's Art of Islam, Language and Meaning published by World Wisdom is to be commended. Two close friends and fellow scholars of the perennialist philosopher contributed to the volume: Seyyed Hossein Nasr wrote the foreword, and Jean-Louis Michon the introduction. In the latter, Michon recounts his surprise at a journalist recently asking him whether Burckhardt's work had 'withstood the test of time', using the anecdote to underline the centrality of the notion of timelessness running throughout the late author's oeuvre. Art of Islam indeed argues that Islamic art is a timeless art because it is sacred art. The republication of the book, however, can only be described as timely because academic discourses and texts on Islamic art have, in the past decade, slowly begun to show more receptiveness to interpretative readings of Islamic art. Art of Islam, commissioned by the World of Islam Festival, first appeared in 1976. It drew upon and further consolidated Burckhardt's earlier writings on Islamic art, and sacred art more generally. The international character of the World of Islam Festival meant that Burckhardt's spiritual and unitive approach to Islamic art garnered much visibility and legitimacy. Burckhardt's approach also provoked critique, in particular by the late Oleg Grabar, undoubtedly the best known Islamic art historian of the twentieth century, not to mention Grabar's students. An unfortunate cleavage in scholarship on Islamic art developed with regards to the question of meaning. For Burckhardt and those sharing his outlook, Islamic art constitutes a visual embodiment of the Islamic worldview structuring Islamic culture(s), a perspective criticized as being unscientific, dogmatic, as well as founded on a sweeping but ill-defined 'Islam'. The divide can be understood, in large part, as a case of mistranslation: the function, aim, and language of works like Art of Islam, usually penned by scholars of Islam rather than Islamic art historians proper, are inherently different from those of mainstream art historical scholarship. However, the inability to consider the possibility of a spiritual dimension to Islamic art and the dismissal of the idea as essentialist and/or orientalist also betray the problems encountered when the historical concepts and systems of classification of Western art are applied to non-Western artistic traditions. If it is impossible here to detail the former's culturally circumscribed or non-transcultural nature, suffice it to say that the crux of the problem resides in the fact that Islamic art depends in essence on abstract and non-narrative forms to confer and convey meaning. The methods of art history remain unequipped to study an artistic tradition premised not on a system of allegorical signs and recognizable figures, but on pure visuality which, moreover, because of its nature, bypasses the very need for a textual tradition of art history. In recent years, however, prominent Islamic art historians have again begun to acknowledge the intrinsic relationship between artefacts and monuments, and the 'master narratives' of the culture that produced them. Even more noteworthy is the fact that philosophers dealing with aesthetics, most notably Valerie Gonzalez, are reading Islamic art in a manner that intersects in many ways with the perennialist school. These studies are, however, framed in a language and method-in this case, aesthetic phenomenology-with which Islamic art historians are more accustomed. The point is to concurrently contextualize and highlight the importance of the republication of Art of Islam, as well as to evince that its reception in academic circles confirms the continued relationship between power, knowledge, and Eurocentrism, and must therefore be analysed from a perspective informed by postcolonial, cultural, and World Art studies. Art of Islam is structured both thematically and chronologically, and although its intention is to establish the spiritual unity underlying the historical and geographical variations of Islamic art, it nonetheless provides the reader with a succinct historical overview from the Dome of the Rock to the

- by Valerie Behiery
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- Islamic Art, Islamic art history, Art and Spirituality

Catalog of the 2011 exhibition of works by renowned Tunisian artists Nja Mahdaoui and Khaled ben Slimane at the New Sahara Gallery, Northridge, CA. Co-organized with Galerie el Marsa (Tunisia). Contact me about obtaining a hard copy of... more

- by Owen Doonan
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- Contemporary Art, Islamic Art, World Art, World Art History

ورودی بقعۀ شیخ‌ عبدالصمد، در ضلع جنوبی و مجاور با دیوارۀ منارۀ رفیع سی و هفت متری آن واقع شده است. از این مدخل ابتدا به یک هشتی و از آنجا با عبور از شبستان کوچکی به مزار شیخ دسترسی می‌یابیم. این مقبره به‌وسیلۀ دالانی به یک دهلیز در مسجد مجاور متصل می‌شود. این سردر رفیع، مملو از کاشی‌های فیروزه و آبی لاجورد است که در ترکیب با خشت‌های پختۀ منقوش بدون لعاب معرق‌کاری شده‌اند؛ و فضایی مُلوّن و مَملو از آرامش و زیبایی را شکل داده‌اند. مقرنس‌کاری‌های زیر طاق ورودی که از کاشی‌های چند سانتی‌متری ریزنقشی با درایت و دقت عمل پُر شده‌اند در هارمونی کامل با کاشی‌کاری‌های نُغول‌ها (فرورفتگی‌های طاقچه‌مانند) و همنشینی با تراش‌های هندسی دقیق گره‌های موجود در این بخش قرار گرفته‌اند. کتیبه‌های معرق کاشی کوفی بنایی و ثلث بدون لعاب در زمینه‌ای از بافت کاشیکاری، ریتمی بصری را از پایین تا بالا در چرخشی اعجاب‌آور ایجاد کرده‌اند که بیننده با خیره‌شدن به آن یارای ورود به داخل بنا را نمی‌یابد. به نظر می‌رسد طراحان و استادکاران به سفارش بانیان بنا، به تناسب هرجا توانسته‌اند با قرار دادن نقش‌ونگاری نمادین، ارجاعاتی به مفاهیم اسلامی و گرایشات مذهبی یا المان‌های صوفیانۀ فرقۀ خود و شیخ نطنزی پرداخته‌اند.
تمرکز این بنا بر نقوش هندسی، توجه انسان را از جهان مادی به جهان صور محض معطوف می‌کند. یکی از نقوش پرتکرار هندسی به‌کار رفته در بنا «شمسه» است. شمسه در هنر اسلامی، مجموعه‌ای از اشکال هندسی است که از مرکز یک دایره شروع شده و همانند شعاع‌های خورشید به اطراف گسترده می‌شود؛ علاوه بر آن دایره، هم دربردارنده و هم زیرساخت چندضلعی‌های متنوع نیز به‌شمار می‌رود. نقش شمسه، نزد اهل تصوف و عرفان، نماد انوار حاصل از تجلیات قدسی و حقیقت نور خدا و احادیث است و از آنجا که نور نزد صوفیان به اعتبار حضور حق و فی‌النفسه وجود حق است، نقوش شمسه و ستاره می‌تواند استعاره‌ای از نور الهی باشد که بنیاد عرفان و حکمت شرق محسوب می‌شود

- by Amir Rajaei Baghsorkhi
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- Iranian Archaeology, Iranian Studies, History of Iran, Islamic Art

Introduction The name of the Alhambra comes from the Arabic locution al-Qasr al-Hamraʿ, meaning " Red Castle. " The fortified palatine compound was built on top of the elevated Sabika Hill in Granada, al-Andalus (Islamic lands in present-day Spain), at the bottom of the Sierra Nevada. The Islamic constructions span from the 11th to the 15th centuries. It is objectively a unique monument for two main reasons. First, it is the best-preserved example of princely domestic architecture in the entire Islamicate world in the Middle Ages. Despite areas in ruins, the graft of Charles V's unfinished Renaissance palace in its bosom, and the successive post-1492 interventions on the premises' layout and design, a significant part of the original complex is still standing. Substantial wall and ceiling decorations from the Nasrid era (1232–1492) have also survived. Second, the Alhambra distinguishes itself for materializing in art its Muslim royal patrons' conscious acts of transculturalism between Mediterranean Islam and Western Christianity. The Alhambra's Nasrid interior design incorporates many elements drawing from the art of the neighboring Christian polities, such as figurative paintings and heraldic patterns. But what is understood as the history of the Alhambra is by no means limited to the Islamic period that saw its creation. It does include the refurbishments and uses in Christian context throughout three centuries, as well as the period of oblivion and neglect followed by the monument's rediscovery and reinvention in the 19th century under the impulse of the cultural-artistic movements known as Romanticism and Orientalism. In this post-Islamic history, the Orientalist-Romantic reimagining of the monument has been a major step on the path toward the rational realization of its historical and aesthetic importance, beginning with a direct and meticulous documentation of the premises by the 19th-century architects and designers Owen Jones and Jules Goury and the photographer Charles Clifford. The Alhambra became known to the extent of constituting for some a reference cliché of Islamic architecture. Yet, from the scholarly viewpoint, it remains mysterious. Hypothetically answered, many questions about the use and function of its halls, pavilions, and gardens, as well as the workings and meanings of its complex designs, still welcome fresh interpretations. Finally, it ought to be noted that the aesthetic impact of the Alhambra did not fade away with the advent of the Modernist era. In the 20th-century, the Alhambra constituted an inspirational source for the Arab imaginary and artistic creation on the increasingly transnational art scene. However, the present bibliography does not cover this aspect of the Alhambra's legacy related to the interconnected cultural-historical phenomena of the decolonization, the rise of pan-Arabism and the shifting evolution of art production on the global arena. This is a complex subject of research still in progress to be approached in a separate inquiry. General Overviews The Alhambra offers great material to delve in on a multifold front of research, including archaeology and history, the aesthetic-critical inquiry, and cultural and literary studies. On one hand, historians and archaeologists endeavor to decipher the multilayered period structures. On the other hand, the rich interior design combining geometric and floral decoration with calligraphy—and in some units, figurative representations—necessitates aesthetic and cultural studies relying on a plurality of views and methodological approaches that the present bibliography aims to reflect fairly. Upon these premises, the historiography on the Alhambra has followed a particular developmental curve. The key episode of the 19th-century rediscovery prepared the early-20th-century body of knowledge to which the scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s is indebted. This early era is marked by the pioneering works of the architect in charge of the Alhambra's conservation, Leopoldo Torres Bálbas, who introduced the practice of scientific archaeology aiming to unearth the monument's original Islamic layouts. Grabar's landmark 1978 monograph (Grabar 1992, cited under Monographs), though criticized for its lack of historical ground, brought about a breakthrough by proposing a hermeneutics of

- by Valerie Gonzalez
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- Bibliography, Islamic art history, Islamic art and architecture

As the book based on this PhD thesis is now out of print, this may still be of some use.

This thesis surveys origins of the Seljuk double-headed eagle, a cosmological symbol spread in art and architecture of medieval Anatolia after the arrival of the Seljuk Turks. It concentrates on Ancient Mesopotamia and Persia with... more

Berlekamp, Persis. “Painting as Persuasion: A Visual Defense of Alchemy in an Islamic Manuscript of the Mongol Period” Muqarnas 20 (2003): 35-59.

Islamische Keramik hat ihren festen Platz in allen Museen mit Sammlungen Islamischer Kunst. Sie übt, nicht zuletzt seit den Museumsgründungen in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, große Faszination auf Sammler und Museumskuratoren gleichermaßen aus. Doch wie gelangte sie in die Museen und nach welchen Kriterien wurde sie gesammelt? Deniz Erduman-Çalış untersucht fünf Museen in Deutschland in Hinblick auf Sammlung, Erforschung und Präsentation Islamischer Keramik. Dabei gelingt es der Autorin, spannende Einzelaspekte Islamischer Keramik und deren Forschungsgeschichte zu beleuchten. Im Zentrum der Untersuchung steht die Frage, ob die in den Museumssammlungen als "Islamische Keramik" zusammengetragenen Objekte tatsächlich einen Korpus der ab dem 7. Jahrhundert in der islamisch geprägten Welt produzierten Keramiken widerspiegeln. Oder ob es - bestimmten Moden, Interessen oder Ideologien folgend - eher einer subjektiven Auswahl zu verdanken ist, wie sich die Sammlungen heute zusammenstellen. Die Untersuchung zeigt auf interessante Weise die prägende Rolle der Kunsthändler für die Erwerbung von Islamischer Keramik in deutschen Museen.

- by Markus Ritter
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- Art History, Islamic Archaeology, Islamic Art, Syro-Palestinian archaeology

The Lake Urmia region in northwest Iran is one often overlooked not
only in terms of Syriac studies, but also when it comes to Eastern Christianity
and especially art and architecture – not the least because many western
scholars have found the area to be inaccessible. Prior to the First World War
this region was an Assyrian Christian cultural centre and, especially from the
1830s onwards, it witnessed an unprecedented renaissance in terms of original
cultural and literary output. Indeed, the Urmia region stands out as one
where the Assyrians were sufficiently numerous and well off enough to develop
excellent skills as stonecutters, copyists, and builders – especially from the sixteenth century onwards.

- by Nicholas Al-Jeloo
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- Aesthetics, Architecture, Iranian Studies, Islamic Art

The story of Ismail’s Sacrifice by the Prophet Abraham, taken from the Quran and biblical verses, has been interpreted in many ways by narrators, performers, Christian and Muslim storytellers, and has also been represented by the visual artists in countless images. ‘Qisas al Anbiya’ was one of the books that illustrated this story during the Safavian period. The main purpose of this article is to examine the interpretations, images and implications specific to Islamic and Christian
artists, in relation to their different attitudes, education and historical roots, and finally to determine the relevant visual representations and conduct a comparative study of them.

- by samad parvin
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- Islamic Art, Islamic art history

Analyzing the modernist art movement that arose in Cairo and Alexandria from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s, Alex Dika Seggerman reveals how the visual arts were part of a multifaceted transnational modernism. While the work of diverse, major Egyptian artists during this era may have appeared to be secular, she argues, it reflected the subtle but essential inflection of Islam, as a faith, history, and lived experience, in the overarching development of Middle Eastern modernity.
Challenging typical views of modernism in art history as solely Euro-American, and expanding the conventional periodization of Islamic art history, Seggerman theorizes a “constellational modernism” for the emerging field of global modernism. Rather than seeing modernism in a generalized, hyperconnected network, she finds that art and artists circulated in distinct constellations that encompassed finite local and transnational relations. Such constellations, which could engage visual systems both along and beyond the Nile, from Los Angeles to Delhi, were materialized in visual culture that ranged from oil paintings and sculpture to photography and prints. Based on extensive research in Egypt, Europe, and the United States, this richly illustrated book poses a compelling argument for the importance of Muslim networks to global modernism.

- by Alex Dika Seggerman
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- Art History, Middle East Studies, Global Modernism, Islamic art history

Booklet of Tradition of Hilyah in Islam one day international symposium

- by Hilal Kazan and +4
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- Islamic Art, Hadith Studies, History of Islamic Civilization, Islamic art history

The snake is considered an important symbol of creation
and good in Ancient Egyptian civilization; however, it
sometimes even symbolized evil. Furthermore, this symbol
was used by Coptic artists in many paintings, sculptures, and
applied arts. The snake appeared in many pictorial
presentations derived from religious stories. This pattern
was still in use during the Islamic era. The snake appeared in
many miniatures that tell Adam and Eve's story, the Devil
temptation, and their expulsion from heaven along with the
snake, the peacock, and the Devil. Despite that symbolism
of evil and temptation to disobedience, the snake's
representation played another role when it appeared in the
Islamic hospitals as a symbol of healing, and on other
occasions, as a symbol of protection stinging away evils and
pests. The research aims to study snake symbolism in
Coptic, Byzantine, and Islamic periods contemporary to the
Renaissance in Europe and Shed light on snake symbolism
in various forms of art, such as painting, miniatures,
sculpture, and applied arts.

The Prophet of Christian belief, Jesus’s mother; The Virgin Mary has a substantial place in the culture and beliefs of Islam. In the Islamic sources, especially the Qur’an, in hadiths and Qisas al-Enbiyas frequently aforesaid the name of Mary, in Islamic societies remains the place in this day and age as a ‘Model Women’. In Islamic culture, by virtue of purity, cleanliness and the fatherless birth of Jesus Christ; everything that could afford to be seen as a concrete expression of God’s, the Virgin Mary should be moved to this grade in the Islamic societies. The illustrated manuscripts of the most common types of Islamic painting, for instance; Mary is seen portrayed in significant patterns, Jami’ al-Tawarikh and Al-Asar al-Baqiyah illustrated histories as in retaliation of Qisas al-Enbiya prophet history. Mary’s endemic pattern in Islamic painting is annunciation. This scene in which Gabriel turns up just before Mary, going with the water jug to fill water in, and professes her “you will have a baby” undoubtedly takes its iconography out of Al-i İmran and Maryam verses in the Quran. We encounter in other illustrated species too, but including different iconographies Mary’s portraying, must be made for Christian Patrons in Islamic countries.

This research symposium brings together international curators, scholars and museum professionals to discuss the challenges and future direction of contemporary curatorial practice in relation to the field of Persian arts and crafts. Coinciding with Iranzamin-the first survey exhibition to showcase Persian arts and crafts from the Powerhouse Museum-the symposium will explore this field of research in Australia and beyond by leading experts and includes a curator-led tour of the exhibition.

- by Pedram Khosronejad and +1
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- Middle East Studies, Iranian Archaeology, Iranian Studies, History of Iran
- by Ashkan Garshasbi
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- Islamic Archaeology, Islamic Art, Islamic' Architecture, Islamic History

Professor Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell (1879–1974), better known as K.A.C. Creswell or simply Creswell, was definitely one of the most prominent and prolific scholars in the field of Islamic art and architecture. His gigantic two-volume Early Muslim Architecture, of which Volume I was first published in Oxford in 1932, remains widely acknowledged as the most important reference for early Islamic architecture so far. Nevertheless, Creswell’s hypothesis on the genesis of the mosque type and his perception of the first mosque in Islam betray a considerable amount of dubiety and suffer a myriad of critical deficiencies. As he maintains, the first true congregational mosque in Islamic history is due not to the Prophet, as commonly known, but to Ziyād b. Abīh when he reconstructed the mosque of Baṣra in 44/665. Astonishingly, these views of Creswell were adopted and further enhanced by quite a number of notable specialists over eighty-five years. In this article, we will subject such views to scrutiny with the aim of identifying the first mosque in Islam and the religious as well as historical contexts in which it emerged. This discussion becomes more persistent, however, given the dominant misconceptions about the topic in Western as well as Muslim scholarships.

- by Essam Ayyad
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- Islamic Art, Islamic Studies, Islamic' Architecture, Islamic art history

THE QURAN, THE ART OF HAJJ AND ISLAMIC ART AUCTION 2022
May 24th 22, 12:00:00 CEST

This article offers the first analysis of the Rolin Madonna (ca. 1435) in relation to Jan van Eyck’s trip to Castile and Granada (1429). The space and the architectural typology in the painting reveal Hispanic influences which are only explicable through first-hand experience by the artist. These elements were not fully understood by his Flemish peers, who adapted them to local use. This study allows us to re-position Van Eyck and Chancellor Rolin’s interests in line with the plurality of artistic models and the tensions between the existing hegemonies and the multiculturalism of the major global powers during the Early Modern period. //
Este artículo analiza por primera vez la Madonna Rolin (ca. 1435) en relación con el viaje de Jan van Eyck a Castilla y Granada (1429). El espacio y la tipología arquitectónica del cuadro denotan influencias hispanas explicables únicamente a través de la experiencia in situ del artista, elementos que sus colegas flamencos no comprendieron y readaptaron a sus usos locales. Como consecuencia, esta investigación permite resituar los intereses de Van Eyck y del canciller Rolin en línea con la pluralidad de modelos y con las tensiones entre hegemonías y multiculturalidad de las grandes potencias europeas en la temprana Edad Moderna.

- by Manuel Parada López de Corselas
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- History, Visual Sociology, Archaeology, International Relations
- by Yuka Kadoi
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- Historiography (in Art History), Islamic art history, Persian Art

This article portrays the initial century of Westernization in Ottoman culture by studying the architectural developments of the eighteenth century.

Geometric patterns in two and three dimensions comprise one of the key characteristics of arts and architecture of the Islamic world in many cultural traditions from the central Islamic lands of the Middle East to Spain, India, Indonesia, and sub-Saharan Africa (Bloom & Blair, 2009; Broug, 2013; Ettinghausen, Grabar, & Jenkins-Madina, 2001; Gerdes, 1999; Hillenbrand, 1994, 2009). Although geometry is present, either by conscious human choice in design or as an inherent feature of architectural production in all cultures, it seems to have assumed a much higher significance in Islamic centers of civilization (Grabar, 1992). Often attributed to a proscription against figural images, this interpretation is not borne out historically with reference to palace wall painting, ceramics, ivory, woodwork, and book illustration rich with pictorial narrative. There are, indeed, other more rational explanations for the emphasis on geometric figures (Allen, 1988; Freedberg, 1989; Belting, 2011) as well as many unanswered questions (Grabar, 1992). From the eleventh century throughout the central Islamic lands, the clustered and segmented vaults of muqarnas were used to effect spatial transitions for domes, vaults, and arches, or as a corbel to support balconies and cornices (Bloom, 1988; Tabbaa, 1985), exhibiting elaborations in succeeding centuries (Al-Assad, 1995; Golombek & Wilber, 1988). Simultaneously, one may trace the development of patterns in the plane from the empirical juxtaposition of geometric shapes to more complex arrangements with networks of intersecting polygons, which suggest direct relationships to academic studies of geometry in the Euclidean tradition (cf. Allen, 2004, who argues against such an interpretation). Yet precise intersections between the histories of architecture and mathematics have not been fully elucidated (Berggren, 2008; Bier, 2012; see also, Necipoğlu, 2015).

- by Sandra Aube Lorain
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- Iranian Studies, Islamic Art, Tabriz, Islamic art history