Islamic Civilization

Impact from Within, and Impact on the West

 The point of departure of Islamic construction and design, obviously, is the mosque, and in a chronological order the first such mosque: the Prophet’s (PBUH) Mosque.  Artz in his thorough and lengthy description of this edifice and those that followed captures the central element of faith as the fundamental determinant of both design and decoration.[1] The Prophet’s mosque was a small dwelling, built in 622 at Madinah  under his direction, but to evolve, and serve as the model for most of the later mosques. The whole was a square enclosure, entirely surrounded by walls of brick and stone. One side of the enclosure was roofed with palm branches covered with mud and supported by palm trunks. The next mosque, built in today’s Iraq  in 639, was erected on exactly the same plan, but the roof was supported by marble columns. Within 80 or 90 years of the Madinah mosque, all the features of the congregational mosque had evolved. Inside the basic square plan was now added a large open forecourt with a fountain for ablutions in the centre and a shaded colonnade around the sides. Within, everything was arranged for the central act of worship: prayer. Prayer in Islam is more rewarded if performed in a group, and the first row is the most rewarded. Thus, as everyone wished to be near the front, the prayer area of the mosque was thus shaped in a rectangular form; the prayer hall of the Great Mosque at Damascus  being 131 meters wide and only 38 meters deep. The annual pilgrimage to Makkah , from all parts of Islam, contributed greatly not only to the standardization of the form of the mosque and of other types of building. However, the structural materials used in both mosques (as in palaces,) (brick, stone, marble, or clay), depended on what was available in any particular region. Styles also varied, whether with respect to minarets, which followed, with some modifications, the traditional shape of the towers of the countries where they were built. The minaret was the tower from which was sent out the call to prayer.

The mosques (like the palaces), although severe externally, were lavishly decorated within with glazed tiles, low flat carvings known as arabesques, rich marble, and carpets; the mosques also had stained-glass windows. However, human and animal forms were strictly forbidden by the Qur’an. Islam also opposed luxury. "He who drinks from gold and silver vessels drinks the fire of Hell," says a Hadith  (Prophetic Saying/Muslim tradition.) In order to avoid the forbidden, the Muslims, Artz adds, made vessels and tiles of earthenware and covered them with gold lustre; they inlaid steel, brass, copper, and bronze objects with fine bands of gold and silver; and they often carved their complicated arabesques in plaster, even in a place like the mihrab. The typical Islamic decoration was based on interlacing lines and geometric designs, and used much colour. Coloured tile and carved and painted arabesque are in fact the common decorative means of Islam. These were combined with the use, in ceilings, of stalactite forms and types of complicated coffering. The designs of both tiles and arabesques showed great taste, ingenuity, and inventiveness. Muslims Arabic calligraphy, ‘the most beautiful that man has devised, as a common decorative motif,’ as Artz holds, uses the text of the Qur’an.[2]

Durant explains the architectural revolution, which transformed the old courtyard of the mosque into the madrasa or collegiate mosque throughout Eastern Islam. As mosques increased in number, it was no longer necessary to design them with a large central court to hold a numerous congregation; and the rising demand for schools required new educational facilities.[3] From the mosque proper-now almost always crowned with a dominating dome-four wings or transepts spread, each with its own minarets, a richly decorated portal, and a spacious lecture hall. Normally each of the four ‘orthodox’ schools of Islamic theology and law had its own wing.[4] This revolution in design was continued by the Mamluks  in mosques and tombs firmly built in stone, guarded with massive doors of damascened bronze, lit by windows of stained glass, and brilliant with mosaics, carvings in coloured stucco, and such enduring tiles ‘as only Islam knew how to make.’[5]

The mosque of Cordova is certainly one of the most written about for its aesthetics as much as its impact on subsequent buildings.[6] In its earliest form it was a courtyard mosque of rectangular plan, with a sanctuary of eleven aisles akin to that of the original al-Aqsa mosque at Jerusalem  and with horseshoe arches like those at Damascus  topping the arcades.[7] Al-Maqqari supplies a large number of quotations from his predecessors who admired the mosque as the best and greatest ever built.[8] The mosque construction was begun by Abd Errahman I in 786, and was repeatedly enlarged in 833 by Abd Errahman II, and again in 965 by Al-Hakam II when the great dome in front of the mirhab was completed.[9] Abd Errahman III and his immediate successors introduced major alterations such as in 950, when he ordered the construction of a minaret 89 yards high.[10] Al-Hakam II built a dome for the mihrab, placed the minbar near it, and brought water to the mosque in canals made of stone.[11] Subsequent rulers such as al-Mansur (late 10^th century) added further enlargements. The mosque is both a very remarkable structure and represents something quite new, notes Talbot Rice, for the dome is supported on a series of intersecting ribs.[12]  The hexafoil arches in two tiers also represent a new and original departure in Islamic architecture.[13] In its final shape, the mosque contained the finest artistic expressions of the Andalusians, some say it had 360 arches, each receiving the rays of the sun every day of the year; 1,293 marble columns supporting its roofs, and its many ample doors were covered with finely decorated copper.[14] It is, however, the stunning effect of the interior lighting of the Mosque , which is well captured by Scott.[15] This interior, by reason of its vast extent and its comparatively low ceiling, was more or less obscure, even at noon-day, and lamps were kept constantly burning by its aisles; two hundred and eighty chandeliers of brass and silver suspended from its arches, the oil used in them being perfumed with costly essences; the largest of these containing 1454 lamps, and measuring 38 feet in circumference; and its reflector containing 36,000 pieces of silver fastened with rivets of gold. Beauty was enhanced by the gems, and by the combined effect of the mirrors, the light was increased, thus, to nine times its original intensity. During the entire month of Ramadhan the mosque was illuminated with twenty thousand lights. An enormous taper, weighing sixty pounds, was placed in the Maksurah. Its dimensions were calculated with such accuracy that the wax was completely consumed during the last hour of the last day of the festival.[16]

The intensity of light due to the great number of lamps used is no exaggeration, or unique. Artz speaks of the Mosque  of Damascus  being lit by thousands of hanging lamps of metal and of enamelled glass.[17]

The Muslim impact on subsequent Western construction techniques is a vast subject only touched upon succinctly here. The Cordova mosque, just referred to, had a great impact on the architecture of the Christian Churches.[18] One particular area of impact is the horse shoe arch, which Artz notes was first used by Muslims in the construction of the Mosque  of Damascus , hence a very early innovation, which they spread widely as they did with pointed arches.[19] Citing Harvey, the architectural historian, Cochrane explains how it was in Anatolia that skilled masons used techniques subsequently employed by the Crusaders in their own buildings, sometimes by using local workmen they brought with them back to Europe. Cochrane refers to the use of pointed arches by the Seljuk Turks  to repair bridges affected by an earthquake in the year 1114, which soon became familiar in the West.[20] Briggs outlines further influences on subsequent developments in the West.[21] He shuns the Church and ‘pedantic humanists’ of the Renaissance for the blindness to such influence, and cites Islamic influences on constructions in Europe from Sicily  to mainland Italy, France, and also England, even on the architecture of Christopher Wren.[22] That influence also extends to military architecture copied from early constructions in Baghdad  (8^th century,) Salah Eddin's citadel at Cairo , and the citadel of Aleppo  (Syria ).[23] Influence, which Briggs also traces to the Crusades.[24] Imitation of Muslim skills, Lambert also explains, has often been such that in the Spanish Romanesque, even exteriors of building were done following the Muslim model, such as can be seen near Barcelona on the side of the Catalan church of San Cugat del Valles. This square tower is crowned with the same top as if to evoke a Spanish Muslim minaret of the prototype built in the 10^th century in Cordova under Abd Errahman III.[25] Lambert insists that during the Romanesque era, architects and decorators from France and Spain certainly borrowed heavily a great number of forms whether directly or indirectly from Oriental  forms, which they imitated with great freedom, transposing them, often in a different spirit from that which has inspired them.[26] And the same happened during the Spanish Gothic era of later centuries.[27]

Muslim masons were widely used in Christian parts, especially following Christian military victories and conquest of former Islamic territory. An early instance is the capture of Barbastro in the north-east of Spain in 1064. An army of Normans and Frenchmen, with the blessing of the Pope and under the command of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine, took many Muslim prisoners, sending several thousand to France, 1500 to Rome and 7000 to Constantinople.[28] Singers, musicians and other artists were included, but also the Muslim corps of engineers which had defended Barbastro.[29] The spoils of war included a substantial number of craftsmen who possessed a degree of technical skill hitherto unknown north of the Alps and Pyrenees.[30] Subsequently, Muslim architects from Grenada  were employed by Castilian monarchs in the construction of palaces, and even by orthodox prelates in the ornamentation of cathedrals.[31]

Contacts between Normans and Muslims also go far towards explaining the ambitious architectural programme which became manifest in northern France and in England shortly before, and in the generation succeeding, the Norman Conquest of 1066.[32]