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02 · Medieval

Islamic Medieval

c. 700–1500

Domes and minarets over courtyards, pointed and horseshoe arches, and dense geometric and calligraphic ornament.

Look for

Minaret Dome Horseshoe arch
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem: an example of Islamic Medieval architecture
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem. Photo: Godot13, CC BY-SA 4.0
Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria
Umayyad Mosque Damascus, Syria · Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0
Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan, Cairo, Egypt
Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan Cairo, Egypt · Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0
Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo, Egypt
Mosque of Ibn Tulun Cairo, Egypt · User:Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0
Great Mosque of Kairouan, Kairouan, Tunisia
Great Mosque of Kairouan Kairouan, Tunisia · MAREK SZAREJKO from CLONMEL, IRELAND - POLAND, CC BY-SA 2.0

what it is

A congregational mosque has a courtyard and a prayer hall facing the qibla, the direction of Mecca. Early prayer halls are hypostyle, with a flat roof on rows of columns; later Iranian mosques use the four-iwan plan, with a vaulted hall open at one end (an iwan) on each side of the courtyard. A niche, the mihrab, marks the qibla wall, and a minaret is used for the call to prayer. Religious buildings avoid images of people and animals, so ornament is geometric patterns, plant scrolls and Arabic calligraphy, along with muqarnas, tiers of small niches that fill the transition from wall to dome.

The Great Mosque of Damascus (706-715) has a three-aisled prayer hall and gold mosaics that once covered about 4,000 square meters. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo (completed 879) has courtyard arcades on brick piers. Isfahan's Friday Mosque gained its four iwans in the early 12th century. Cairo's Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan (1356-1363) has four iwans, one for each Sunni school of law.

how to spot one

Minaret A tall, slender tower attached to or near a mosque, usually with one or more balconies near the top. It is where the call to prayer, the adhan, was traditionally made. Dome A rounded roof shaped as half a sphere, often raised on a drum (a circular wall). Domes cover large central spaces on Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Renaissance and Neoclassical buildings. Horseshoe arch An arch whose curve continues past a half circle, so the opening narrows at its base. It is common in Islamic architecture, especially in Spain and North Africa.

Also look for

CourtyardGeometric ornamentArcadePointed arch

history

The oldest surviving Islamic monument is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (691-692), an octagonal shrine built for the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik on the pattern of nearby Byzantine churches. His son al-Walid I built the Great Mosque of Damascus on the site of a cathedral between 706 and 715, and its plan was copied widely. The Abbasid caliphs, who took power in 750, built large brick hypostyle mosques in Iraq, and tall minarets appeared in the early 9th century.

The Seljuks, who took Isfahan in 1050, built the Friday Mosque's south dome in 1086-1087, then the largest masonry dome in the Islamic world. Under Seljuk and later rulers the four-iwan plan spread, along with the madrasa, a college of religious law, and the caravanserai, a walled inn around a courtyard, built about a day's journey apart on trade routes. Muqarnas appeared in the 11th century in Iraq, Iran, North Africa and Central Asia. In Samarkand, Timur's Gur-e Amir mausoleum and Bibi-Khanym Mosque were completed about 1404, and his grandson Ulugh Beg built a madrasa on the Registan square in 1417-1420.

where to find it

The Great Mosque of Córdoba, the historic mosques of Cairo, the Friday Mosque of Isfahan, and the Registan in Samarkand.

easy to confuse with

Court of the Lions, Alhambra, an example of Moorish / Mudéjar Moorish / Mudéjar Spain's Islamic tradition: horseshoe arches, carved stucco, glazed tilework, and patterned brick. Hagia Sophia, an example of Byzantine Byzantine A central dome floating over a square room, round arches, plain brick outside, gold mosaics inside.