is safeguarded by the identity of the basic existential experience, by the identity of the fundamental intellectual interests, by the authoritativeness of certain principles of form and presentation, not to mention the kindred political and social organization within which those peoples aspire to live.

Taking reason for his guide he judges men and things with a freedom which must have seemed scandalous to the rulers and privileged classes of the day. Among his meditations on the human tragedy a fierce hatred of injustice, hypocrisy, and superstition blazes out. Vice and folly are laid bare in order that virtue and wisdom may be sought . . .

There are no known references to the dance or theatre in pre-Islāmic Arabia, although nomad tribes were probably acquainted with the dance. The Islāmic peoples themselves seem to have developed this particular art form less than they did music or architecture; and, in addition to medieval Islām's cool attitude toward dance and theatre as art forms, it must be added that most women, leading a life of seclusion, could hardly be expected to play an active part in them. Nevertheless, there has been an active tradition of folk dance in most Islāmic countries, in addition to dancing as an entertainment spectacle and, particularly in Persia, as an art form. A ritual dance was instituted in the Ṣūfī mystical order of the Mawlawīyah (Mevleviyah) in Turkey. The dance, performed by dervishes (members of the mystical order), is considered to be a manifestation of mystical ecstasy rather than an entertainment or an expression of aesthetic urges.

The Turks (Turkey) considered dancing as a profession for the low-born; as a result, most dancers were members of minority groups: mostly Greeks, Jews, and Armenians. This judgment has usually applied to the status of professional dancers and indeed to most professional entertainers at most periods and in most societies until modern times. In 19th-century Egypt, both male and female dancers were regarded as public entertainers. Many of the women entertainers (ghawāzī) belonged to a single tribe and were usually considered little better than prostitutes. The erotic element in dancing has become focused in the belly dance, which has become the leading form of exhibition dance in modern Turkey and the Arab countries.

On the other hand, the shadow play had been widely popular for many centuries in Turkish- or Arabic-speaking countries. Its essence, like that of the mime shows, was entertainment without moral import; and few plays were recorded in writing beyond a sketch of the action. Most were comedies and farces that were performed for the enjoyment of an audience that was, for the most part, very poor and uneducated.

Of all the recognizable periods of Islāmic art, this is by far the most difficult one to explain properly, even though it is quite well documented. There are two reasons for this difficulty. On the one hand, it was a formative period, a time when new forms were created that identify the aesthetic and practical ideals of the new culture. Such periods are difficult to define when, as in the case of Islām, there was no artistic need inherent to the culture itself. The second complication derives from the fact that Muslim conquest hardly ever destroyed former civilizations with its own established creativity. Material culture, therefore, continued as before, and archaeologically it is almost impossible to distinguish between pre-Islāmic and early Islāmic artifacts. Paradoxical though it may sound, there is an early Islāmic Christian art of Syria and Egypt, and in many other regions the parallel existence of a Muslim and of a non-Muslim art continued for centuries. What did happen during early Islāmic times, however, was the establishment of a dominant new taste, and it is the nature and character of this taste that has to be explained. It occurred first in Syria and Iraq, the two areas with the largest influx of Muslims and with the two successive capitals of the empire, Damascus under the Umayyads and Baghdad under the early ʿAbbāsids. From Syria and Iraq this new taste spread in all directions and adapted itself to local conditions and local materials, thus creating considerable regional and chronological variations in early Islāmic art.

During the rule of the Umayyad prince al-Walīd I (Walīd, al-) (705–715), a number of complex developments within the Muslim community were crystallized in the construction of three major mosques, at Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The very choice of these three cities is indicative: the city in which the Muslim state was formed and in which the Prophet was buried; the city held in common holiness by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, to which was rapidly accruing the mystical hagiography surrounding the Prophet's ascension into heaven; and the ancient city that became the capital of the new Islāmic empire. A first and essential component of al-Walīd's mosques was, thus, their imperial character; they were to symbolize the permanent establishment of the new faith and of the state that derived from it. They were no longer purely practical shelters but willful monuments.

Either in its simplest form, as in Medina, or in its more formalized shape, as in Damascus, the hypostyle tradition dominated mosque architecture from 715 to the 10th century. As it occurs at Nīshāpūr (Neyshābūr) in northeastern Iran, Sīrāf in southern Iran, al-Qayrawān (Kairouan) (Kairouan) in Tunisia, and Córdoba in Spain, it can indeed be considered as the classic early Islāmic type. Its masterpieces occur in Iraq and in the West. The monumentalization of the early Iraqi hypostyle is illustrated by the two ruined structures in Sāmarrāʾ, with their enormous sizes (790 by 510 feet 【240 by 156 metres】 for one and 700 by 440 feet 【213 by 135 metres】 for the other), their multiple entrances, their complex piers, and, in one instance, a striking separation of the qiblah area from the rest of the building. The best preserved example of this type is the mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn at Cairo (876–879), where a semi-independent governor, Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn (Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, Mosque of), introduced Iraqi techniques and succeeded in creating a masterpiece of composition.

Two classic examples of early mosques in the western Islāmic world of interest are preserved in Tunisia and Spain. In al-Qayrawān the Great Mosque was built in stages between 836 and 866. Its most striking feature is the formal emphasis on the building's T-like axis punctuated by two domes, one of which hovers over the earliest preserved ensemble of miḥrāb, minbar, and maqṣūrah. At Córdoba (Córdoba, Mosque-Cathedral of) the earliest section of the Great Mosque was built in 785–786. It consisted simply of 11 naves with a wider central one and a court. It was enlarged twice in length, first between 833 and 855 and again from 961 to 965 (it was in the latter phase that the celebrated maqṣūrah and miḥrāb, comprising one of the great architectural ensembles of early Islāmic art, were constructed). Finally, in 987–988 an extension of the mosque was completed to the east that increased its size by almost one-third without destroying its stylistic unity. The constant increases in the size of this mosque are a further illustration of the flexibility of the hypostyle and its adaptability to any spatial requirement. The most memorable aspects of the Córdoba mosque, however, lie in its construction and decoration. The particularly extensive and heavily decorated miḥrāb area exemplifies a development that started with the Medina mosque and would continue: an emphasis on the qiblah wall.

The last type of religious building to develop before the end of the 10th century is the mausoleum. Originally Islām was strongly opposed to any formal commemoration of the dead. But three independent factors slowly modified an attitude that was eventually maintained only in the most strictly orthodox circles. One factor was the growth of the Shīʿite heterodoxy, which led to an actual cult of the descendants of the Prophet through his son-in-law ʿAlī. The second factor was that, as Islām strengthened its hold on conquered lands, a wide variety of local cultic practices and especially the worship of certain sacred places began to affect the Muslims, resulting in a whole movement of Islāmization of ancient holy places by associating them with deceased Muslim heroes and holy men or with prophets. The third factor is not, strictly speaking, religious, but it played a major part. As more or less independent local dynasties began to grow, they sought to commemorate themselves through mausoleums. Not many mausoleums have remained from these early centuries, but literary evidence is clear on the fact that the Shīʿite sanctuaries of Karbalāʾ and al-Najaf, both in Iraq, and Qom, Iran, already possessed monumental tombs. At Sāmarrāʾ an octagonal mausoleum had been built for three caliphs. The masterpieces of early funerary architecture occur in Central Asia, such as the royal mausoleum of the Sāmānids (Sāmānid Dynasty) (known incorrectly as the mausoleum of Esmāʿīl the Sāmānid) at Bukhara (before 942), which is a superb example of Islāmic brickwork. In some instances a quasi-religious character was attached to the mausoleums, such as the one at Tim (976), which already has the high facade typical of so many later monumental tombs. In all instances the Muslims took over or rediscovered the ancient tradition of the centrally planned building as the characteristic commemorative structure.

Early Islāmic architecture (ornament) is most original in its decoration. Mosaics (mosaic) and wall paintings (mural) followed the practices of antiquity and were primarily employed in Syria, Palestine, and Spain. Stone sculpture existed, but stucco (stuccowork) sculpture, first limited to Iran, spread rapidly throughout the early Islāmic world. Not only were stone or brick walls covered with large panels of stucco sculpture, but this technique was used for sculpture in the round in the Umayyad palaces of Qaṣr al-Ḥayr West and Khirbat al-Mafjar. The latter was a comparatively short-lived technique, although it produced some of the few instances of monumental sculpture anywhere in the early Middle Ages. A variety of techniques borrowed from the industrial arts were used for architectural ornamentation. The miḥrāb wall of al-Qayrawān (Kairouan)'s Great Mosque, for example, was covered with ceramics, while fragments of decorative woodwork have been preserved in Jerusalem and Egypt.

The third type of architectural decoration consists of large panels, most often in stucco, for which no meaning or interpretation is yet known. These panels might be called ornamental in the sense that their only apparent purpose was to beautify the buildings in which they were installed, and their relationship to the architecture is arbitrary. The Mshattā facade's decoration of a huge band of triangles is, for instance, quite independent of the building's architectural parts. Next to Mshattā, the most important series of examples of the third type of ornamentation come from Sāmarrāʾ, although striking examples are also to be found at Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qaṣr al-Ḥayr East and West, al-Fusṭāṭ, Sīrāf, and Nīshāpūr. Two decorative motifs were predominately used on these panels: a great variety of vegetal motifs and geometric forms. At Sāmarrāʾ these panels eventually became so abstract that individual parts could no longer be distinguished, and the decorative design had to be viewed in terms of the relationships between line and shape, light and shade, horizontal and vertical axes, and so forth. Copied consistently from Morocco to Central Asia, the aesthetic principles of this latter type of a complex overall design influenced the development of the principle of arabesque ornamentation.

For entirely different reasons it is impossible to present any significant generalities about the art of textiles (decorative art) in the early Islāmic period. Problems of authenticity are few. Dating from the 10th century are a large number of Būyid (Būyid Dynasty) silks, a group of funerary textiles with plant and animal motifs as well as poetic texts. Very little order has yet been made of an enormous mass of often well-dated textile fragments, and therefore, except for the Būyid silks, it is still impossible to identify any one of the textile types mentioned in early medieval literary sources. Furthermore, since it can be assumed that pre-Islāmic textile factories were taken over by the Muslims and since it is otherwise known that textiles were easily transported from one area of the Muslim world to the other or even beyond it, it is still very difficult to define Islāmic styles as opposed to Byzantine or to Coptic ones. The obvious exception lies in those fragments that are provided with inscriptions, and the main point to make is therefore that one of the characteristic features of early Islāmic textiles is their use of writing for identifying and decorative purposes. But, while true, this point in no way makes it possible to deny an Islāmic origin to fragments that are not provided with inscriptions, and thus one must await further investigations of detail before being able to define early Islāmic textiles.

While new ceramic techniques may have been sought to imitate other mediums (mostly metal) or other styles of pottery (mostly Chinese), the decorative devices rapidly became purely and unmistakably Islāmic in style. A wide variety of motifs were combined: vegetal arabesques or single flowers and trees; inscriptions, usually legible and consisting of proverbs or of good wishes; animals that were usually birds drawn from the vast folkloric past of the Near East; occasionally human figures drawn in a strikingly abstract fashion; geometric designs; all-over abstract patterns; single motifs on empty fields; and simple splashes of colour, with or without underglaze sgraffito designs (i.e., designs incised or sketched on the body or the slip of the object). All of these motifs were used on both the high-quality ceramics of Nīshāpūr and Samarkand as well as on Islāmic folk pottery.

Although ceramics has appeared to be the most characteristic medium of expression in the decorative arts during the early Islāmic period, it has only been because of the greater number of preserved objects. Glass was as important, but examples have been less well preserved. A tradition of ivory carving developed in Spain, and the objects dating from the last third of the 10th century onward attest to the high quality of this uniquely Iberian art. Many of these carved ivories certainly were made for princes; therefore it is not surprising that their decorative themes were drawn from the whole vocabulary of princely art known through Umayyad painting and sculpture of the early 8th century. These ivory carvings are also important in that they exemplify the fact that an art of sculpture in the round never totally disappeared in the Muslim world—at least in small objects.

The Fāṭimids were technically an Arab dynasty professing with missionary zeal the beliefs of the Ismāʿīlī sect of the Shīʿite branch of Islām. The dynasty was established in Tunisia and Sicily in 909. In 969 the Fāṭimids moved to Egypt and founded the city of Cairo. They soon controlled Syria and Palestine. In the latter part of the 11th century, however, the Fāṭimid empire began to disintegrate internally and externally; the final demise occurred in 1171. But it is not known which of the obvious components of the Fāṭimid world was more significant in influencing the development of the visual arts: its heterodoxy, its Egyptian location, its missionary relationship with almost all provinces of Islām, or the fact that during its heyday in the 11th century it was the only wealthy Islāmic centre and could thus easily gather artisans and art objects from all over the world.

Stone sculpture, stucco work (stuccowork), and carved wood were utilized for architectural decorations (ornament). The Fāṭimids also employed mosaicists (mosaic), who mostly worked in places like Jerusalem, where they imitated or repaired earlier mosaic murals (mural). Many fragments of Fāṭimid wall paintings have survived in Egypt. Most of them, however, are too small to allow for making any iconographic or stylistic conclusions, with the exception of the mid-12th-century ceiling of the Cappella Palatina at Palermo. Built by the Norman kings of Sicily, the palace chapel was almost certainly decorated by Fāṭimid artists, or at least the artists adhered to Fāṭimid models. The hundreds of facets in the muqarnas ceiling were painted, notably with many purely ornamental vegetal and zoomorphic designs but also with scenes of daily life and many subjects that have not yet been explained. Stylistically influenced by Iraqi ʿAbbāsid art, these paintings are innovative in their more spatially aware representation of personages and of animals. Very similar tendencies appear also in the stucco and wood sculptures of Fāṭimid decoration. The stunning abstraction of the architectural decoration at Sāmarrāʾ tends to give way to more naturalistically conceived vegetal and animal designs; occasionally whole narrative scenes appear carved on wood. Another decorative trend is especially used on 12th-century miḥrābs: explicitly complicated geometric patterns, usually based on stars, which in turn generate octagons, hexagons, triangles, and rectangles. Geometry becomes a sort of network in the midst of which small vegetal units continue to remain, often as inlaid pieces. Long inscriptions written in very elaborate calligraphies also became a typical form of architectural decoration on most of the major Fāṭimid buildings.

A clear separation must be made between the decorative arts sought by Fāṭimid princes and the arts produced within their empire. Little has been preserved of the former, notably a small number of superb ewers in rock crystal. A text has survived, however, that describes the imperial treasures looted in the middle of the 11th century by dissatisfied mercenary troops. It lists gold, silver, enamel, and porcelain objects that have all been lost, as well as textiles (perhaps the cape of the Norman king Roger II 【Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna】 is an example of the kind of textiles found in this treasure). The inventory also records that the Fāṭimids had in their possession many works of Byzantine, Chinese, and even Greco-Roman provenance. Altogether, then, it seems that the imperial art of the Fāṭimids was part of a sort of international royal taste that downplayed cultural or political differences.

Ceramics, on the other hand, were primarily produced by local urban schools and were not an imperial art. The most celebrated type of Fāṭimid wares were lustre-painted (lustreware) ceramics from Egypt itself. A large number of artisans' names have been preserved, thereby indicating the growing prestige of these craftsmen and the aesthetic importance of their pottery. Most of the surviving lustre ceramics are plates on which the decoration of the main surface has been emphasized. The decorative themes used were quite varied and included all the traditional Islāmic ones: e.g., calligraphy, vegetal and animal motifs, arabesques. The most distinguishing feature of these Fāṭimid ceramics, however, is the representation of the human figure. Some of these ceramics have been decorated with simplified copies of illustrations of the princely themes, but others have depictions of scenes of Egyptian daily life. The style in which these themes have been represented is simultaneously the hieratic, ornamental manner traditional to Islāmic painting combined with what can almost be called spatial illusionism. Wheel-cut rock crystal, glass, and bronze objects, especially animal-shaped aquamaniles (a type of water vessel) and ewers, are also attributed to the Fāṭimids.

Small or large, mausoleums increased in numbers and became at this time the ubiquitous monument they appear to be. Most of the mausoleums, such as the tomb tower of Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī (died 874) at Basṭām, were dedicated to holy men—both contemporary Muslim saints and all sorts of holy men dead for centuries (even pre-Islāmic holy men, especially biblical prophets, acquired a monument). The most impressive mausoleums, however, ones like the one of Sanjar at Merv, were built for royalty. Pilgrimages were organized and in many places hardly mentioned until then as holy places (e.g., Meshed, Basṭām, Mosul, Aleppo); a whole monastic establishment serving as a centre for the distribution of alms was erected with hostels and kitchens for the pilgrims.

Commercial architecture became very important. Individual princes and cities probably were trying to attract business by erecting elaborate caravansaries (caravansary) on the main trade routes such as Ribāṭ-i Malik built between Samarkand and Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The most spectacular caravansaries were built in the 13th century in Anatolia. Equally impressive, however, although less numerous, are the caravansaries erected in eastern Iran and northern Iraq. Bridges also were rebuilt and decorated like the one at Cizre in Turkey.

The two features of the Great Mosque at Eṣfahān that became characteristic of Seljuq mosques were the eyvān and the dome. The eyvān was an architectural element known already in Sāsānian (Sāsānian dynasty) architecture that had been used in residential buildings from Egypt to Central Asia before the 11th century. In fact, the use of the eyvān was not restricted to just mosques, but it also appears in palaces (Lashkarī Bāzār), caravansaries (Rebāṭ-e Sharaf), and in madrasahs. The eyvān was, in other words, a unit of architectural composition that had no specific use and, therefore, no meaning. In the mosques of the 12th century, four eyvāns were used, at least in the clearly definable architectural school of western Iran (e.g., Ardestān, Zavāreh). This kind of composition had two principal effects. One was that the eyvāns centralized the visual effect of the mosque by making the courtyard the centre of the building. The other effect of this composition was that it broke up into four areas what had for centuries been a characteristic of the mosque: its single, unified space. The reasons for these developments are still speculative.

Two characteristic Iranian architectural forms are not present in the Great Mosque of Eṣfahān but occur elsewhere in the city. One is the tower. Those narrow and tall (up to about 150 feet 【50 metres】) were minarets, of which several dozen have been preserved all over Iran and Central Asia (such as the one at Jām). Shorter and squatter towers were mausoleums. These were particularly typical of northern Iran. The other characteristic architectural type exists only in Eṣfahān in a much-damaged state. It is the pīshṭāq, or a formal gateway that served to emphasize a building's presence and importance.

Functionally the buildings in Anatolia do not differ from those in other parts of the Muslim world. All the structural forms found in Syria and Iran can be found in Anatolia as well, although they have often been adapted to local materials. Three uniquely Anatolian architectural features, however, can be distinguished. One was limited to Konya at this time but would have an important widespread development later on. As it appears in the Ince or Karatay medreses, it consists of the transformation of the central courtyard into a domed space while maintaining the eyvān. Thus the centralized aspect of the eyvān plan becomes architecturally explicit. The second feature is the creation of a facade that usually consisted of a high central portal—often framed by two minarets—with an elaborately sculpted decorative composition that extended to two corner towers. The third distinguishing feature of Anatolian Seljuq architecture is the complexity of the types of funerary monuments that were constructed.

Glass and textiles continued to be major mediums during the Seljuq period. Ceramics underwent many changes, especially in Iran, where lustre painting became widespread and where new techniques were developed for colouring pottery. Furthermore, the growth of tile decoration created a new dimension for the art of ceramics.

Manuscript illustration also became an important art. Scientific books, including the medical manuals of Dioscorides and of Galen, or literary texts such as the picaresque adventures of a verbal genius known as the Maqāmāt, were produced with narrative illustrations throughout the text.

The themes and motifs used were particularly numerous. In books they tend to be illustrations of the text, even if a manuscript such as the Schefer Maqāmāt (1237; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) sought to combine a strict narrative with a fairly naturalistic panorama of contemporary life. Narrative scenes taken from books or reflecting folk stories are also common on Persian ceramics. In all mediums, however, the predominant vocabulary of images is the one provided by the older art of princes; but its meaning is no longer that of illustrating the actual life of princes but rather that of symbolizing a good and happy life. The motifs, therefore, do not have to be taken literally. Next to princely and narrative themes, there are depictions of scenes of daily life, astronomical motifs, and a myriad of topics that can be described but not understood.

Two types of structures characterize the Almoravid (Almoravids) (1056–1147) and Almohad (Almohads) (1130–1269) periods in Morocco and Spain. One comprises the large, severely designed Moroccan mosques such as those of Tinmel, of Ḥasan in Rabat, or of the Kutubiyyah (Koutoubia) in Marrakech. They are all austere hypostyles with tall, massive, square minarets. The other distinctive type of architecture was that built for military purposes, including fortifications and, especially, massive city gates with low-slung horseshoe arches, such as the Oudaia Gate at Rabat (12th century) or the Rabat Gate at Marrakech (12th century). Palaces built in central Algeria by minor dynasties such as the Zīrids were more in the Fāṭimid tradition of Egypt than in the Almoravid and Almohad traditions of western Islām. Almost nothing is known or has been studied about North African arts other than architecture because the puritanical world of the Berber dynasties did not foster the arts of luxury.

In North Africa the artistic milieu did not change much in the 14th and 15th centuries. Hypostyle mosques such as the Great Mosque of Algiers continued to be built; madrasahs were constructed with more elaborate plans; the Bū ʿInānīyah madrasah at Fès is one of the few monumental buildings of the period. A few mausoleums were erected such as the so-called Marīnid tombs near Fès (second half of the 14th century) or the complex of Chella at Rabat (mostly 14th century). Architectural decoration in stucco or sculpted stone was usually limited to elaborate geometric patterns, epigraphic themes, and a few vegetal motifs.

A stunning exception to the austerity of North African architecture exists in Spain in the Alhambra palace complex at Granada. The hill site of the Alhambra had been occupied by a citadel and possibly by a palace since the 11th century, but little of these earlier constructions has remained. In the 14th century two successive princes, Yūsuf I and Muḥammad V, transformed the hill into their official residence. Outside of a number of gates built like triumphal arches and several ruined forecourts, only three parts of the palace remain intact. First there is the long Court of the Myrtles leading to the huge Hall of Ambassadors located in one of the exterior towers. This was the part of the Alhambra built by Yūsuf I. Then there is the Court of the Lions, with its celebrated lion fountain in the centre. Numerous rooms open off this court, including the elaborately decorated Hall of the Two Sisters and the Hall of the Abencerrajes. The third part, slightly earlier than the first two, is the Generalife; it is a summer residence built higher up the hill and surrounded by gardens with fountains, pavilions, and portico walks.

During the Mamlūk period Egypt and Syria were rich commercial emporiums. This wealth explains the quality and quantity of Mamlūk art. Most of the existing monuments in the old quarters of Cairo, Damascus, Tripoli, and Aleppo are Mamlūk; in Jerusalem almost everything visible on the Ḥaram al-Sharīf, outside the Dome of the Rock, is Mamlūk. Museum collections of Islāmic art generally abound with Mamlūk metalwork and glass. Someof the oldest remaining carpets are Mamlūk. This creativity required, of course, more than wealth; it also required a certain will to transform wealth into art. This will was in part the desire of parvenu rulers and their cohorts to be remembered. Furthermore, architectural patronage flourished because of the institutionalization of the waqf, an economic system in which investments made for holy purposes were inalienable. This law allowed the wealthy to avoid confiscation of their properties at the whim of the caliph by investing their funds in religious institutions. In the Mamlūk period, therefore, there was a multiplication of madrasahs, khānqāhs, ribāṭs, and masjids, often with tombs of founders attached to them. The Mamlūk establishment also repaired and kept up all the institutions, religious or secular, that had been inherited by them, as can be demonstrated by the well-documented repairs carried on in Jerusalem and Damascus.

The Mamlūks created a monumental setting for Syria and Egypt that lasted until the 20th century. It was at its most remarkable in architecture, and nearly 3,000 major monuments have been preserved or are known from texts in cities from the Euphrates to Cairo. No new architectural types came into being, although many more urban commercial buildings and private houses have been preserved than from previous centuries. The hypostyle form continued to be used for mosques and oratories, as in the Cairene mosques of Baybars I (1262–63), Nāṣir (1335), and Muʾayyad Shaykh (1415–20). Madrasahs used eyvāns, and the justly celebrated madrasah of Sultan Ḥasan in Cairo (1356–62) is one of the few perfect four-eyvān madrasahs in the Islāmic world. Mausoleums were squares or polygons covered with domes. In other words, there were only minor modifications in the typology of architecture, and even the 15th-century buildings with interiors totally covered with ornamentation have possible prototypes in the architecture of the Seljuqs. Yet there are formal and functional features that do distinguish Mamlūk buildings. One is the tendency to build structures of different functions in a complex or cluster. Thus the Qalāʾūn mosque (Qalāʾūn complex) (1284–85) in Cairo has a mausoleum, a madrasah, and a hospital erected as one architectural unit. Another characteristic is the tendency of Mamlūk patrons to build their major monuments near each other. As a result, certain streets of Cairo, such as Bayn al-Qaṣrayn, became galleries of architectural masterpieces. The plans of these buildings may have had to be adapted to the exigencies of the city, but their spectacular facades and minarets competed with each other for effect. From the second half of the 14th century onward, building space for mausoleums began to be limited in Cairo, and a vast complex of commemorative monuments was created in the city's western cemetery. In Aleppo and Damascus similar phenomena can be observed.

A second characteristically Mamlūk feature was technical virtuosity in stone construction. At times this led to a superb purity of form, as in the Gate of the Cotton Merchants in Jerusalem or the complex of the Barqūq mosque in Cairo. At other times, as in the Mamlūk architecture of Baybars and Qāʾit Bāy, there was an almost wild playfulness with forms. Another aspect of Mamlūk masonry was the alternation of stones of different colours to provide variations on the surfaces of buildings.

Like architecture, the other arts of the Mamlūk period achieved a high level of technical perfection but were often lacking in originality. The so-called “Baptistère de Saint Louis” (c. 1310, Louvre) is the most impressive example of inlaid metalwork preserved from this period. Several Mamlūk illustrated manuscripts, such as the Maqāmāt (1334) in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, display an amazing ornamental sense in the use of colour on gold backgrounds. Mamlūk mosque lamps provide some of the finest examples of medieval glass. The wooden objects made by Mamlūk craftsmen were widely celebrated for the quality of their painted, inlaid, or carved designs. And the bold inscriptions that decorate the hundreds of remaining bronzes testify to the Mamlūks' mastery of calligraphy. None of these examples, however, exhibits much inventiveness of design.

Existing under the Mongol rulers were a number of secondary dynasties that flourished in various provinces of Iran: the Jalāyirid dynasty, centred in Baghdad, controlled most of western Iran; the Moẓaffarid dynasty of southwestern Iran contained the cities of Eṣfahān, Yazd, and Shīrāz; and the Karts reigned in Khorāsān. Until the last decade of the 14th century, however, all the major cultural centres were in western Iran. Under Timur (1336–1405; the Timurid dynasty) and his successors, however, northeastern Iran, especially the cities of Samarkand and Herāt, became focal points of artistic and intellectual activity. But Timurid culture affected the whole of Iran either directly or through minor local dynasties. Many Timurid monuments, therefore, are found in western or southern Iran.

The architectural masterpiece of the Il-Khanid period is the mausoleum of Öljeitü at Solṭānīyeh. With its double system of galleries, eight minarets, large blue-tiled dome, and an interior measuring 80 feet (25 metres), it is clear that the building was intended to be imposing. Il-Khanid attention to impressiveness of scale also accounted for the ʿAlī Shāh mosque in Tabriz, whose eyvān measuring 150 by 80 by 100 feet (45 by 25 by 30 metres) was meant to be the largest ever built. The eyvān vault collapsed almost immediately after it had been constructed, but its walls, 35 feet (10 metres) thick, remain as a symbol of the grandiose taste of the Il-Khanids. In the regions of Eṣfahān and Yazd numerous smaller mosques (often with unusual plans) and less pretentious mausoleums, as well as palaces with elaborate gardens, were built in the 14th century. These buildings were constructed to provide a monumental setting for the Islāmic faith and for the authority of the state. The study of these buildings began only in the mid-20th century, and therefore no definitive conclusions have been reached as to whether regional or pan-Iranian stylistic and formal features predominated.

In the Timurid period the use of colour in architecture reached a high point. Every architectural unit was divided, on both the exterior and interior, into panels of brilliantly coloured tiles that sometimes were mixed with stucco or terra-cotta architectural decorations.

A new period of Persian painting began in the Mongol era, and, even though here and there one can recognize the impact of Seljuq painting, on the whole it is a limited one. Although the new style was primarily expressed in miniature painting, it is known from literary sources that mural painting flourished as well. Masterpieces of Persian literature were illustrated: first the Shāh-nāmeh (“Book of Kings”) by the 11th-century poet Ferdowsī and then, from the second half of the 14th century, lyrical and mystical works, primarily those by the 12th-century poet Neẓāmī. Historical texts or chronicles such as the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (“Universal History of Rashīd al-Dīn”) were also illustrated, especially in the early Mongol period.

Chinese influence can still be discovered in the masterpiece of 14th-century Persian painting, the so-called Demotte Shāh-nāmeh. Illustrated between 1320 and 1360, its 56 preserved miniatures have been dispersed all over the world. The compositional complexity of these paintings can be attributed to the fact that several painters probably were involved in the illustration of this manuscript and that these artists drew from a wide variety of different stylistic sources (e.g., Chinese, European, local Iranian traditions). Its main importance lies in the fact that it is the earliest known illustrative work that sought to depict in a strikingly dramatic fashion the meaning of the Iranian epic. Its battle scenes, its descriptions of fights with monsters, its enthronement scenes are all powerful representations of the colourful and often cruel legend of Iranian kingship. The artists also tried to express the powerlessness of man confronted by fate in a series of mourning and death scenes.

The Demotte Shāh-nāmeh is but the most remarkable of a whole series of 14th-century manuscripts, all of which suggest an art of painting in search of a coherent style. At the very end of the period a manuscript such as that of the poems of Sultan Aḥmad (Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) still exhibits an effective variety of established themes, while some of the miniatures in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, and in the Topkapı Saray, Istanbul, illustrate the astounding variety of styles studied or copied by Persian masters.

A more organized and stylistically coherent period in Persian painting began around 1396 with the Khwāju Kermānī manuscript (British Museum) and culminated between 1420 and 1440 in the paintings produced by the Herāt school, where the emperor Baysunqur created an academy in which classical Iranian literature was codified, copied, and illustrated. Although several Shāh-nāmehs are known from this time, the mood of these manuscripts is no longer epic but lyrical. Puppet-like figures almost unemotionally engage in a variety of activities always set in an idealized garden or palace depicted against a rich gold background. It is a world of sensuous pleasure that also embodies the themes of a mystically interpreted lyrical poetry, for what is represented is not the real world but a divine paradise in the guise of a royal palace or garden. These miniatures easily became clichés, for later artists endlessly repeated stereotyped formulas. But at its best, as in the Metropolitan Museum Neẓāmī, this style of Persian painting succeeds in defining something more than mere ornamental colourfulness. It expresses in its controlled lyricism a fascinating search for the divine, similar to the search of such epic characters as Neẓāmī, Rūmī, or Ḥāfeẓțat times earthly and vulgar, at other times quite ambiguous and hermetic, but often providing a language for the ways in which human beings can talk about God.

Another major change in Persian painting occurred during the second half of the 15th century at Herāt under Ḥusayn Bayqara. This change is associated with the first major painter of Islāmic art, Behzād. Many problems of attribution are still posed about Behzād's art, and, in the examples that follow, works by his school, as well as images by the master's own hand, are included. In the Garrett Ẓafar-nāmeh (c. 1490), the Egyptian Cairo National Library's Būstān (1488), or the British Museum's Neẓāmī (1493–94), the stereotyped formulas of the earlier lyric style were endowed with new vitality. Behzād's interest in observing his environment resulted in the introduction of more realistic poses and the introduction of numerous details of daily life or genre elements. His works also reflect a concern for a psychological interpretation of the scenes and events depicted. It is thus not by chance that portraits have been attributed to Behzād.

Persian art of the Mongol period differs in a very important way from any of the other traditions of the middle period of Islāmic art. Even though Iran, like all other areas at that time, was not ethnically homogeneous, its art tended to be uniquely “national.” In architecture nationalism was mostly a matter of function, for during this period the Shīʿites grew in importance, and new monumental settings were required for their holy places. Iranian individualism is especially apparent in painting, in which Chinese and other foreign styles were consistently adapted to express intensely Iranian subjects, thereby creating a uniquely Persian style.

The apogee of Ottoman architecture was achieved in the great series of külliyes and mosques that still dominate the Istanbul skyline: the Fatih külliye (1463–70), the Bayezid Mosque (after 1491), the Selim Mosque (1522), the Şehzade külliye (1548), and the Süleyman külliye (after 1550). The Şehzade and Süleyman külliyes were built by Sinan, the greatest Ottoman architect, whose masterpiece is the Selim Mosque (Selim, Mosque of) at Edirne, Tur. (1569–75). All of these buildings exhibit total clarity and logic in both plan and elevation; every part has been considered in relation to the whole, and each architectural element has acquired a hierarchic function in the total composition. Whatever is unnecessary has been eliminated. This simplicity of design in the late 15th and 16th centuries has often been attributed to the fact that Sinan and many Ottoman architects were first trained as military engineers. Everything in these buildings was subordinated to an imposing central dome. A sort of cascade of descending half domes, vaults, and ascending buttresses leads the eye up and down the building's exterior. Minarets, slender and numerous, frame the exterior composition, while the open space of the surrounding courts prevents the building from being swallowed by the surrounding city. These masterpieces of Ottoman architecture seem to be the final perfection of two great traditions: a stylistic and aesthetic tradition that had been indigenous to Istanbul since the construction of the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia in the 6th century and the other Islāmic tradition of domical construction dating to the 10th century.

The tragedy of Ottoman architecture is that it never managed to renew its 16th-century brilliance. Later buildings, such as the impressive Sultan Ahmed mosque in Istanbul, were mostly variations on Sinan's architecture, and sometimes there were revivals of older building types, especially in the provinces. Occasionally, as in the early 18th-century Nûruosman mosque in Istanbul, interesting new variants appear illustrating the little-known Turkish Baroque (Baroque period) style. The latter, however, is more visible in ornamental details or in smaller buildings, especially the numerous fountains built in Istanbul in the 18th century. The sources of the Turkish Baroque are probably to be sought in the Baroque architecture of Vienna and the bordering Austro-Hungarian states. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, a consistent Europeanization of a local tradition occurs in the Ottoman empire.

Architectural decoration was generally subordinated to the structural forms or architectonic features of the building. A wide variety of themes and techniques originating from many different sources were used. One decorative device, the Ottoman version of colour- tile decoration, deserves particular mention, for it succeeds in transforming smaller buildings such as the mosque of Rüstem Paşa in Istanbul into a visual spectacle of brilliant colours. The history and development of this type of ceramic decoration is intimately tied to the complex and much controverted problem of the growth of several distinctive Ottoman schools of pottery: İznik (İznik ware), Rhodian, and Damascus ware. Both in technique and in design, Ottoman ceramics are the only major examples of pottery produced in the late Islāmic period.

At the centre of Eṣfahān is the Meydān-e Shāh, a large open space, about 1,670 by 520 feet (510 by 158 metres), originally surrounded by trees. Used for polo games and parades, it could be illuminated with 50,000 lamps. Each side of the meydān was provided with the monumental facade of a building. On one of the smaller sides was the entrance to a large mosque, the celebrated Masjed-e Shāh. On the other side was the entrance into the bazaar or marketplace. On the longer sides were the small funerary mosque of Sheykh Loṭfollāh and, facing it, the ʿAlī Qāpū, the “high gate,” the first unit of a succession of palaces and gardens that extended beyond the meydān, most of which have now disappeared except for the Chehel Sotūn, the palace of the “Forty Columns.” The ʿAlī Qāpū was, in its lower floors, a semipublic place to which petitions could be brought, while its upper floors are a world of pure fantasy—a succession of rooms, halls, and balconies overlooking the city, which were purely for the prince's pleasure.

The miniatures of the second tradition (Eṣfahān school) of Ṣafavid painting seem at first to be like a detail out of the work of the previously discussed school. The same purity of colour, elegance of poses, interest in details, and assertion of the individual figure is found. Āqā Reẓā (Rezā) and Reẓā ʿAbbāsī (both active around 1600) excelled in these extraordinary portrayals of poets, musicians, courtiers, and aristocratic life in general.

James Kritzeck (comp.), Modern Islamic Literature: From 1800 to the Present (1970), is a useful anthology of poetry and prose from different parts of the Muslim world. (Arabic literature): Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 2nd ed. (1943–49, and suppl., 1937–42), is the standard reference work containing information about almost every Arabic writer from pre-Islāmic to modern times. This work has been enlarged by Fuat Sezgīn, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (1967– ) , who has included many hitherto unknown books and manuscripts. R.A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, 2nd ed. (1930, reprinted 1969), emphasizes poetry in the classical age; his Studies in Islamic Poetry (1921, reprinted 1963) contains the best analysis of al-Maʿarri's poetry. H.A.R. Gibb, Arabic Literature, 2nd rev. ed. (1963), is concise and informative; the German translation, Arabische Literaturgeschichte (1968), of Gibb's book has been enlarged by a section on modern Arabic literature by Jacob M. Landau and has an extensive bibliography on works of Islāmic literature translated into western European languages. Gotthold Weil, Grundriss und System der altarabischen Metren (1958), is an introduction to Arabic prosody. Johann Füeck, Arabiya: Untersuchungen zur arabischen Sprach- und Stilgeschichte (1950), is an indispensable study of the development of a High Arabic style. Gustave E. Von Grunebaum, Kritik und Dichtkunst: Studien zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte (1955), contains essays on Arabic literature especially of the ʿAbbāsid period. Von Grunebaum's “Spirit of Islam as Shown in Its Literature,” in his Islam: Essays on the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition, 2nd ed. (1961, reprinted 1981), is an important essay mainly concerned with Ḥarīrī's Maqāmāt, and his “Acculturation as a Theme in Contemporary Arab Literature,” in Diogenes, 39: 84–118 (1962), is a study on the problem of westernization in modern Arabic literature. ʿAbdalqāhir al-Jurjānī, Die Geheimnisse der Wortkunst (Asrār al-balāġa) . . . (1959), is a German translation by Hellmut Ritter of this classic on Arabic rhetoric. It is available also in the English translation, The Mysteries of Eloquence, ed. by Hellmut Ritter (1954). Adolf F. von Schack, Poesie und Kunst der Araber in Spanien und Sicilien, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1877), though often superseded by modern research, remains a charming introduction to the culture and art of Moorish Spain. U.M. Daudpota, The Influence of Arabic Poetry on the Development of Persian Poetry (1934), attempts to show the formal influences of Arabic on early Persian poetry. Roger Allen, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction (1982), covers 1938–80. Wolfhart Heinrichs, Arabische Dichtung und griechische Poetik (1969), is an important introduction to the literary criticism of classical Arabic literature.(Persian literature): Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature (1968; originally published in Czech, 1956), the standard work on Persian literature from its origins to the 20th century, includes folk literature and Tajik and Indo-Persian literature. See also Charles A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, 2 vol. in 4 (1970–72). Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 4 vol. (1902–24, reprinted 1969–78), is an informative classic. A.J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (1958, reprinted 1967), is a classic work by one of the most prolific translators of Arabic and Persian poetry into English. Antonino Pagliaro and Alessandro Bausani, Storia della letteratura Persiana (1960), contains many interesting and unusual viewpoints. Hermann Ethé, “Neupersische Literatur,” and Theodor Nöldeke, “Das iranische Nationalepos,” in Wilhelm Geiger and Ernst Kuhn (eds.), Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vol. 2 (1896–1904, reprinted 1974), provides a masterly survey of classical Persian literature, including Indo-Persian. Fritz M. Meier (ed. and trans.), Die schöne Mahsatī, vol. 1 (1963), an immensely learned work centring around the poet Mahsatī, deals with the development of the rubāʾī and other forms of Persian poetry. Hellmut Ritter, Über die Bildersprache Nizāmīs (1927), is the classic work on the imagery in Neẓāmī's poetry. Annemarie Schimmel, Stern und Blume (1984), deals with imagery in Persian poetry. Charles-H. de Fouchécour, La Description de la nature dans la poésie lyrique persane du XI^e siècle (1969), is a study of nature imagery in particular in early Persian poetry. Friedrich Ruckert, Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser, ed. by Wilhelm Pertsch (1874, reprinted 1966), a translation and commentary of a late Indo-Persian manual of rhetoric, is noted for its acute observations and amusing details. Finn Thiesen, A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody (1982), is an introduction to problems of Persian, as well as Turkish and Urdu, prosody.(Turkish literature): E.J.W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, 6 vol. (1900–09, reprinted 1958–67), the classical study of the historical developments of Turkish literature from its beginnings to 1900, includes many translations of poems. Otto Spies, Die Türkische Prosa-literatur der Gegenwart (1943), deals with Turkish prose after the revolution.

“Bibliography of Asiatic Musics,” in the Music Library Association, Notes, 2nd series, vol. 5–6 (1947–49), an extensive bibliography compiled by five scholars, includes an important section on Islāmic music, with 592 references divided into categories dealing with music among Muslims in general, Arabic-speaking peoples, Turkic peoples, and Iranians and others. Henry George Farmer, A History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century (1929, reprinted 1967), is still regarded as a key historical study. His “Music of Islam,” in The New Oxford History of Music, vol. 1, pp. 421–77 (1957, reprinted 1966), is a good concise survey, as is Peter Crossley-Holland, “The Arabic World,” in the Pelican History of Music, vol. 1, pp. 118–36 (1960, reprinted 1978). Rodolphe von Erlanger (ed. and trans.), La Musique Arabe, 6 vol. (1930–59), includes French translations of the Arabic treatises by al-Fārābī, Avicenna, Ṣafī od-Dīn, and others (vol. 1–4) and devotes the last two volumes to an analytical study of contemporary Arabian music. Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, East and West (1943), has a large section on Arabic music in the context of an intercultural study. Mehdi Barkechli (ed.), La Musique traditionnelle de l'Iran (1963), gives a comprehensive musical transcription of the Radīf (modal systems of the Iranian traditional music). Adnan Saygun, “La Musique Turque,” in the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, vol. 9, pp. 573–617 (1960); and Alexis Chottin, Tableau de la musique marocaine (1939), discuss regional and local particularities and have useful bibliographies. Amnon Shiloah, Caractéristiques de l'art vocal arabe au moyen-âge (1963), is an important essay on medieval Islāmic vocal music, and his Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (c. 900–1900) (1979), is an extensive analytical catalog of manuscripts and published sources on Arabic music. See also O. Wright, The Model System of Arab and Persian Music, A.D. 1250–1300 (1978), an analytical presentation of the system based on Persian and Arabic medieval treatises; Kurt Reinhard and Ursula Reinhard, Turquie (1969), a comprehensive presentation of Turkish music in its diverse aspects; and Ella Zonis, Classical Persian Music (1973), a comprehensive historical study.

The classic work on the shadow play in the Middle East is still Georg Jacob, Geschichte des Schattentheaters im Morgan- und Abendland, 2nd ed. (1925, reprinted 1972). Metin And, A History of Theatre and Popular Entertainment in Turkey (1963–64), is a perceptive, scholarly account of the Turkish theatre in all its manifestations, and his Pictorial History of Turkish Dancing (1976) is an excellent study on the subject. Christa Ursula Spuler, Das türkische Drama der Gegenwart (1968), treats in more detail 20th-century Turkish playwrights and theatrical literature. Nicholas N. Martinovich, The Turkish Theatre (1933, reprinted 1968); and Hellmut Ritter, Karagös, 3 vol. (1924–53), comprise translations of Turkish shadow plays into English and German, respectively. Ignacz Kunos, Das türkische Volksschauspiel Orta ojnu (1908), is an introduction to the ortaoyunu popular shows, with samples translated into German.As for the Persian theatre and dance (mainly the latter), the most up-to-date book is Medjid Rezvani, Le Théâtre et la danse en Iran (1962). Peter J. Chelkowski (ed.), Taʾziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran (1979), is a collection of scholarly writings on the subject. Charles Virolleaud, Le Théâtre persan, ou le drama de Kerbéla (1950), is a good sampling of taʿziyahs in French translation. The Arab theatre and dance (chiefly the former) are discussed in Jacob M. Landau, Studies in the Arab Theater and Cinema (1958), which also includes a detailed list of Arabic plays.

Among the numerous works dealing with Islāmic art as a whole, only one can be recommended as having a text of considerable merit—Katharina Otto-Dorn, Kunst des Islam (1964). An important, though partial, interpretation is found in Titus Burckhardt, Art of Islam: Language and Meaning (1976). Alexandre Papadopoulo, Islam and Muslim Art (1979, originally published in French, 1976), presents excellent photographic surveys. See also Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image: Paintings from the Mughal Court (1981). K.A.C. Creswell, A Bibliography of the Architecture, Arts and Crafts of Islam (1961), with a supplement covering 1960–72 (1973), is a good bibliographical source; current literature on Islāmic art in all languages is surveyed in the Abstracta Islamica, published as an annual supplement to the Revue des Études Islamiques in Paris. Textual information about the arts has never been properly gathered. For a typical text on painters, see Qādī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, trans. from the Persian by Vladimir Minorsky (1959). The only lists of artists have been collected by Leo A. Mayer in several books, of which the most important are Islamic Metalworkers and Their Works (1959) and Islamic Architects and Their Works (1956). The vast majority of material on Islāmic art is to be found in periodicals rather than in books. The three publications that have dealt or deal systematically with all aspects of Islāmic art are Ars Islamica (irregular, 1934–51; reprinted in 16 vol., 1968), Ars Orientalis (irregular from 1954), and Kunst des Orients (annual from 1950). Articles are published in English, French, and German.

(Spain): Manuel Gómez-Moreno, El arte árabe español hasta los almohades y arte mozárabe (1951); and Leopoldo Torres Balbás, Arte almohade; arte nazarí; arte mudéjar (1949). (North Africa): There is no recent general work dealing with all the arts; for architecture the indispensable manual is that of Georges Marçais, L'Architecture musulmane d'Occident (1955), which deals also with Spain. (Egypt): Dietrich Brandenburg, Islamische Baukunst in Ägypten (1966), is a convenient summary but does not supersede the exhaustive work of K.A.C. Creswell, Muslim Architecture of Egypt, 2 vol. (1952–59, reprinted 1979), going only up to the middle of the 14th century; and Louis Hautecoeur and Gaston Wiet, Les Mosquées du Caire, 2 vol. (1932). A useful periodical is the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. (Palestine, Syria): There are no coherent works dealing with the whole area; Jean Sauvaget, Alep (1941), is a model (in French) of what can be done with a single city over the centuries; key journals are Syria (quarterly), Levant (annual), and Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine (until 1950, when it was superseded in part by the annual publication of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan), and Annales Archéologiques de Syrie (annual). (Iraq and upper Mesopotamia): The main archaeological source is still Friedrich Sarre and Ernst Herzfeld, Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, 4 vol. (1911–20); a model of archaeological history is Robert M. Adams, Land Behind Baghdad (1965). The main journals are Sumer (annual) and Iraq (semiannual). (Anatolia): Esin Atil (ed.), Turkish Art (1980), covers all fields evenly and has a good bibliography; see also Yanni Petsopoulos (ed.), Tulips, Arabesques and Turbans: Decorative Arts from the Ottoman Empire (1982). Ekrem Akurgal (ed.), The Art and Architecture of Turkey (1980), is a historical treatment of major and minor arts. The principal journals are Anatolica (annual) and Anatolian Studies (annual). (Iran): Nothing has superseded Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman (eds.), A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, 3rd ed. (1977– ). One may also consult André Godard, The Art of Iran (1965, originally published in French, 1962); and the chapters by Oleg Grabar in The Cambridge History of Iran, “The Visual Arts,” vol. 4, pp. 329–63 (1975), and “The Visual Arts, 1050–1350,” vol. 5, pp. 626–58 (1968). Important information is to be found in Hans E. Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia (1966); and in several works by Arthur Upham Pope, such as Persian Architecture (1965). Periodicals of importance are the defunct Athār-é Īrān (1936–49), the Bulletin of the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology, and Iran (annual), the active journal of the British School. (India): Among several architectural surveys, Percy Brown, Indian Architecture, vol. 2, The Islamic Period, 6th ed. (1971), is the best. See also R. Nath, History of Sultanate Architecture (1978), and History of Mughal Architecture (1982); Wayne E. Begley, “Myth of the Taj Mahal and a New Theory of Its Symbolic Meaning,” The Art Bulletin, 61:7–37 (March 1979); and Elizabeth B. Moynihan, Paradise as a Garden (1979).

(Architecture): John D. Hoag, Islamic Architecture (1976); George Michell (ed.), Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning (1978); and Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar, The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture (1973, reprinted 1979). (Painting): Richard Ettinghausen, Arab Painting (1962); Basil Gray, Persian Painting from Miniatures of the XIII–XVI Centuries (1947); and Douglas E. Barrett and Basil Gray, Painting of India (1963, reissued 1978 as Indian Painting). See also Oleg Grabar, The Illustrations of the Maqamat (1984). (Metalwork): Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art (1983); Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8–18th Centuries (1982); and James W. Allan, Islamic Metalwork: The Nuhad Es-Said Collection (1982). The field owes much to the work of the late D.S. Rice: “Studies in Islamic Metalwork,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 14–16 (1952–57); “Inlaid Brasses from the Workshop of Aḥmad al-Dhakī al-Mawṣilī,” Ars Orientalis, 2:283–326 (1957); The Wade Cup in the Cleveland Museum of Art (1955); and Le Baptistère de Saint Louis (1951). See also Richard Ettinghausen, “The Wade Cup . . . ,” Ars Orientalis, 2:327–366 (1957). (Ceramics): The key studies are Arthur Lane, Early Islamic Pottery (1947, reprinted 1965), and Later Islamic Pottery, 2nd ed. (1971). (Carpets): Among scholarly studies on carpets are those of Kurt Erdmann, especially Oriental Carpets (1960, reissued 1976; originally published in German, 2nd ed., 1960), and Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets (1970; originally published in German, 1966). (Ivories): John Beckwith, Caskets from Cordoba (1960), is a scholarly study of Moorish ivory work. In addition, see Ernst Kühnel, Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen, VIII.–XIII. Jahrhundert (1971).

(Early period): Most of the problems are summarized in Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (1973). For architecture the main books are K.A.C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture (vol. 1, 2nd ed., 1969; vol. 2, 1941; reissued 1979, 2 vol. in 3); R.W. Hamilton, Khirbat al-Mafjar (1959); and Jean Sauvaget, La Mosquée omeyyade de Médine (1947). (Middle period): On the Faṭimids, see Richard Ettinghausen, “Painting in the Fatimid Period,” Ars Islamica, 9:112–124 (1942). On the Seljuqs, for Iran, in addition to vol. 4 of The Cambridge History of Iran, see Richard Ettinghausen, “Some Comments on Medieval Iranian Art,” Artibus Asiae, 31:276–300 (1969); for Syria and Egypt, one should consult Ernst Herzfeld, “Damascus,” Ars Islamica, vol. 9–12 (1942–51); and Jean Sauvaget et al., Les Monuments Ayyoubides de Damas, 4 vol. (1938–50); and for Anatolia, Kurt Erdmann, Das anatolische Karavansaray des 13 Jahrhunderts, 3 vol. (1961–76). Major monuments are discussed by Richard Ettinghausen in “The Bobrinski Kettle,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 24:193–208 (1943); “The Iconography of a Kāshān Luster Plate,” Ars Orientalis, 4:25–64 (1961); “The Flowering of Seljuq Art,” Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3:113–131 (1970); and Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani (ed.), Le Roman de “Varge et Golšâh” (1970). Newer interpretations of the Alhambra are based on Frederick P. Bargebuhr, The Alhambra (1968; originally published in Spanish, 1966); see also Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra (1978). Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam (1981), is a comprehensive study of Mamlūk art; see also Saleh L. Mostafa, Kloster und Mausoleum des Farağ ibn Barq【utilde】q in Kairo (1968). For Mongol architecture, see Donald N. Wilber, The Architecture of Islamic Iran: The Il Khānid Period (1955, reprinted 1969); Lisa Golombek, The Timurid Shrine at Gazur Gah (1969); and various accounts in the annual Iran. For painting, see Ernst J. Grube, The Classical Style in Islamic Painting (1968), but especially the rich volume of Ivan Stchoukine, Les Peintures des manuscrits tîmûrides (1954); and M.S. Ipsiroglu, Painting and Culture of the Mongols (1966; originally published in German, 1965). See also Oleg Grabar and Sheila Blair, Epic Images and Contemporary History: The Illustrations of the Great Mongol Shahnama (1980). (Late period): For Ottoman architecture, Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (1971); and Aptullah Kuran, The Mosque in Early Ottoman Architecture (1968), supersede all previous work. Painting is covered in Nurhan Atasoy and Filiz Çaǧman, Turkish Miniature Painting (1974). For ceramics, see Arthur Lane, “The Ottoman Pottery of Isnik,” Ars Orientalis, 2:247–282 (1957). For Ṣafavid architecture, see Donald N. Wilber, Persian Gardens and Garden Pavilions, 2nd ed. (1979); Renata Holod (ed.), Studies on Isfahan (1974); Eugenio Galdieri, Eṣfahān, ʿAli Qāpū: An Architectural Survey (1979); Martin Bernard Dickson and Stuart C. Welch (eds.), The Houghton Shahnameh (1981); and Anthony Welch, Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth-Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran (1976). The most important publications on painting are both by Ivan Stchoukine, Les Peintures des manuscrits Safavīs de 1502 à 1587 (1959), and Les Peintures des manuscrits de Shāh ʿAbbās I^er à la fin des Safavīs (1964). The principal work on India is Stuart C. Welch, The Art of Mughal India (1963, reprinted 1976). For contemporary architecture see Renata Holod (ed.), Architecture and Community (1983), and the quarterly journal Mimar, published in Singapore.Annemarie Schimmel Amnon Shiloah Jacob M. Landau Oleg Grabar