Islamic Civilization

Construction Skills, Aesthetics, and Historical Misrepresentations

 ‘It is only necessary to go through the literary and artistic works of the Arabs,’ [says Le Bon] ‘to notice that they always sought to embellish nature. The characteristic of Arabic art is imagination, the brilliant, splendour, exuberance in decoration, fantasy in the details. A race of poets- and poets doubled with artists. Having become rich enough to achieve all their dreams, they bred those fantastic palaces which seem to be sculptures of marbles engraved with gold and precious metals. No other people has possessed such marvels, and none will ever posses them. They correspond to an age of youth and illusion gone for ever. It is not this epoch of cold and utilitarian banality, which humanity has now entered where they could be sought.’[1]

The same impression conveyed by Talbot Rice:

‘The Period of Samarra’s supremacy (836-83), so far as art was concerned, was one of the most brilliant in Islamic history; at no time before had so much been built in so short a space of time or had such elaborate decorations been devoted to so large a number of houses as well as mosques and palaces. As one wanders over this immense field of ruins one can but marvel at the age which was responsible for such lavishness.’[2]

Madinat al-Zahra (in Cordova) is mesmerizing in Scott’s words:

‘From a royal villa, Medina al-Zahra insensibly expanded into a miniature city. Around the palace clustered the luxurious dwellings of the courtiers, the merchants, and the officers of the army. The avenues were lined with trees, whose foliage formed a continuous arch. Not a house could be seen that was not embosomed in gardens abounding with gushing water and rare exotics. Even the sides of the Sierra had been stripped of the sombre growth of the evergreens which had originally covered them, and, planted with fig and almond trees, appeared in all the beauty of luxuriant foliage and fragrant blossoms. Not far away, extensive plantations of the sweetest of flowers gave to the locality the name of Gebal al-Wardat, the Mountain of the Rose.’[3]

There is a specialised Western literature in praise of Islam’s construction skills and aesthetic accomplishments seen in buildings such as the Great Mosque  of Damascus , The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem , the Alhambra in Grenada , the Blue Mosque of Istanbul etc. Lambert, Grabbar, Harvey, Talbot Rice, Creswell, Marcais, Ettinghausen, and others, have brought to general appreciation such Islamic greatness.[4] Creswell, for instance, makes an excellent case for the walls and Baghdad  gate of Raqqa, the fortified palace of Ukhaidir, 120 miles south of Baghdad, or the buildings of Samarra.[5]

Mainstream Western literature dealing with Islamic history and civilisation, however, offers a completely different, derogatory picture, and tends to paint Muslims, some dynasties, in particular, as wholly incapable of any construction or architectural skills. The Seljuks  are amongst the dynasties that have been brutalised by nearly all Western historians. Hence, Ashtor, supposedly a leading expert on Islamic cultural, social and economic history, devotes a considerable proportion of his work lashing out at every aspect of the Seljuk history. In relation to their (lack of) construction skills, he says, for instance:

‘The attentive reader of the Arabic chronicles of the Seljukid age becomes aware of these facts at time and again he comes across reports of bridges falling down and dams bursting. For often the chronicler reveals that it was not simply the consequence of negligence but of bad construction and ineffective repairs.’[6]

A general picture of Seljuk ineptness in the field is shared by mainstream historians.[7]

Looking at historical evidence, however, once more, fundamentally contradicts this picture. During the crusades, the Seljuks  were always prompt to repair any damaged structures, whether in time of peace or war, at Nicaea, for instance, during the first crusade, an attempt by the crusaders to cause the city walls to collapse by mining was repaired overnight.[8] Seljuk engineering skills were in fact so advanced that the crusaders learnt from them the art of fixing bridges and structures falling into disrepair, or following earthquakes.[9] The Seljuk capital Konya, towards the end of the 12^th century, is impressive, a sizeable and splendid city ‘of the size of Cologne’, according to contemporary Western visitors.[10] It was laid in the form of a rectangle with rounded corners, and was enclosed by 108 great stone towers; the Pentagonal citadel built surrounding the hill.[11] A palace kiosk rivalled the honeycomb vaulted interior of the Capella Palatina at Palermo ; the inside of the cupola of the Buyuk Kataray Medrese, decorated in the mid 13^th century still glimmers in blue and gold on triangular pendentives.[12] The caravanserais, built like basilicas, had high-arched aisles.[13] The mosque of Ani in Armenia; the magnificent portal of the mosque of Diwrigi in Konya; the immense mosque of Ala-Uddin; the cavernous porch and embroidery like facade of the Sirtjeli Madrasa; the Great Mosque  of Mosul; the tower of Tughril Beg at Rayy; the tomb of Sinjar at Merw; the dazzling mihrab of the Alaviyan Mosque at Hamadan; the ribbed vault and unique squinches of the Friday Mosque at Qasvin, and there, too, the great arches and mihrab of the Haydaria Mosque: these are but a few of the structures that remain to prove the skill of Seljuk architects and the taste of Seljuk kings, Durant notes.[14] But more beautiful than any of these, Durant continues, is the masterpiece of the Seljuk age, the Masjid-i-Jami, or Friday Mosque, of Isfahan. Like Chartres or Notre Dame, it bears the labour and stamp of many centuries; begun in 1088, it was several times restored or enlarged, and reached its present form only in 1612, but the larger of the great brick domes carries the inscription of Nizam al Mulk (Seljuk minister d. 1092), and the date 1088.[15] The porch and the sanctuary portals, one eighty feet high, are adorned with mosaic tiles hardly rivalled in all the history of that art; the inner halls are roofed with ribbed vaults, complex squinches and pointed arches springing from massive piers. The mihrab (1310) has a stucco relief of vine and lotus foliage, and Kufic lettering, unsurpassed in Islam.[16] Concluding his account, Durant insists:

‘Such monuments laugh out of court the notion that the Turks  were barbarians. Just as the Seljuk rulers and viziers were among the most capable statesmen in history, so the Seljuk architects were among the most competent and courageous builders of an Age of Faith distinguished by massive and audacious designs. The Persian flair for ornament was checked by the heroic mood of the Seljuk style; and the union of the two moods brought an architectural outburst in Asia Minor, Iraq , and Iran , strangely contemporary with the Gothic flowering in France.’[17]

Also in praise of Seljuk achievements is Talbot Rice, who says:

‘Though every part of the Islamic world was responsible for the production of works of art of every type, there seem, as we look back today, to be certain especially outstanding arts that we can associate with particular areas or ages; glass with Syria , pottery and miniatures with Persia , or metalwork with modern Mesopotamia, for example, and if we were to follow up this line of thought it would be certainly architecture and architectural decoration that we would associate with the Seljuk of Rum. All over Asia Minor there survive to this day a mass of mosques and madrasas in a very distinctive style and boasting decorations either in carved stone or tile work which are among the finest in all Islam.’[18]

Talbot Rice notes how the Seljuks  were the first to develop fine buildings planned as caravanserais, some of which were of considerable size, some almost palaces, and their architecture of the finest sort.[19]

Other Islamic ethnic groups, Mamluks  and Berbers , above all, are also presented by the majority of Western historians as lacking in skills and care for aesthetics.[20] This, once more, is contradicted by evidence. The Mamluk legacy, for instance, continued to influence Islamic art up to the 20^th century.[21] In their time (mid 13^th century onward), they erected hundreds of religious and secular edifices in Cairo , their capital, as well as in the provinces, employing traditional plans, such as hypostyle mosques, four-’wan madrasas, and square mausoleums.[22] Their buildings were lavishly decorated with carved stone, stucco, and marble mosaics and panels, the most outstanding features of Mamluk architecture being soaring tiered minarets, massive carved domes and entrance portals, and marble mihrabs.[23] The elaborate floral and geometric patterns of the carved stone-work gave these structures their distinctly Mamluk character.[24]

Berber accomplishments, which will form a major part of discussion in the final part of this work, although generally denied were equally obvious. They  can be seen in the 12^th century, both in Spain and North Africa , under the Almohad dynasty.[25] The Giralda Tower of Seville , which took twenty five years to complete (1172-1195) is the work of the Almohads .[26] It first served as a minaret and observatory, being 300 feet tall, with a base of 43 square feet. It originally had four copper spheres on top which could be seen from miles away, but which were brought down by an earthquake.[27] It is today a cathedral tower from which one can contemplate a panoramic view of Seville and the Guadalquevir River.[28]  The Great Mosque  of Tlemcen (Western Algeria) (1082 restored in 1136) is typical of this phase; comparatively small, yet its ornament is lavish, whilst the horseshoe arch has been evolved to an exaggerated degree and the multi-lobed arches and the pierced stonework of the dome are amazingly intricate; which creates a ‘picturesque and delightful’ effect.[29]

It is common to find in most Western literature a countless amount of adverse assertions such as that Islamic buildings hardly rose above one floor due to lack of engineering skills, or that their interiors lacked in innovativeness, or that they neglected their immediate surroundings. Instances given under previous headings contradict this picture, and need not be repeated. Briefly here, in relation to some such arguments, evidence from medieval Al-Fustat (old Cairo ), Syrian Tripoli  and Tyre, shows that there were apartment houses of five, or even seven storeys high.[30] Evidence also contradicts the view of Muslim households packed in a mess without any consideration for the surrounding environment; 8^th century cottages occupied by the lower classes of the Spanish Muslims, for instance, were according to Scott: ‘embowered in roses, surrounded by fields of waving grain and orchards of luscious fruits, were furnished with all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life.’[31] Evidence also contradicts the assertion that Muslim buildings lacked inner innovativeness; Oriental  master builders, for instance, in seeking to reinforce their structures, introduced rows of columns into the masonry to have binding effect; and from the 12^th century onwards, the walls of ramparts and citadels often were strengthened by buttresses.[32] Private residences showed similar innovative spirit. Particular arrangements, for instance, were made to deal with the rigours of climate as during the hot season, the rich residents of Baghdad  lived in cellars, whilst others made use of punkahs, which were large fans suspended from the ceiling; whilst the terraces of Cairo, in particular, generated summer ventilation by means of air-traps opening to the north.[33]