1.
Quran
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The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature, the Quran is divided into chapters, which are then divided into verses. The word Quran occurs some 70 times in the text of the Quran, although different names, according to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammads death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and these codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthmans codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today. There are, however, variant readings, with minor differences in meaning. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical scriptures and it summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance and it sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law, during prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic. Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz, some Muslims read Quranic ayah with elocution, which is often called tajwid. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers, in order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir. The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself and it is a verbal noun of the Arabic verb qaraʼa, meaning he read or he recited. The Syriac equivalent is qeryānā, which refers to reading or lesson. While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammads lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the act of reciting, as reflected in an early Quranic passage, It is for Us to collect it, in other verses, the word refers to an individual passage recited. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example, So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it, the word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel. The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran, each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb, āyah, and sūrah, the latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with an article, the word is referred to as the revelation
2.
Islamic calligraphy
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Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, based upon the alphabet in the lands sharing a common Islamic cultural heritage. It includes Arabic, Ottoman, and Persian calligraphy and it is known in Arabic as khatt Islami, meaning Islamic line, design, or construction. The development of Islamic calligraphy is strongly tied to the Quran, chapters, deep religious association with the Quran, as well as suspicion of figurative art as idolatrous has led calligraphy to become one of the major forms of artistic expression in Islamic cultures. As Islamic calligraphy is highly venerated, most works follow examples set by well established calligraphers, in antiquity, a pupil would copy a masters work repeatedly until their handwriting was similar. The most common style is divided into angular and cursive, each divided into several sub-styles. Some styles are often written using a metallic-tip pen, Islamic calligraphy is applied on a wide range of decorative mediums other than paper, such as tiles, vessels, carpets, and inscriptions. Before the advent of paper, papyrus and parchment were used for writing, the advent of paper revolutionized calligraphy. While monasteries in Europe treasured a few volumes, libraries in the Muslim world regularly contained hundreds. Coins were another support for calligraphy, beginning in 692, the Islamic caliphate reformed the coinage of the Near East by replacing visual depiction with words. This was especially true for dinars, or gold coins of high value, generally the coins were inscribed with quotes from the Quran. By the tenth century, the Persians, who had converted to Islam, so precious were calligraphic inscribed textiles that Crusaders brought them to Europe as prized possessions. A notable example is the Suaire de Saint-Josse, used to wrap the bones of St. Josse in the Abbey of St. Josse-sur-Mer near Caen in northwestern France, Kufic is the oldest form of the Arabic script. The style emphasizes rigid and angular strokes, which appears as a form of the old Nabataean script. The Archaic Kufi consisted of about 17 letters without diacritic dots or accents, afterwards, dots and accents were added to help readers with pronunciation, and the set of Arabic letters rose to 29. It is developed around the end of the 7th century in the areas of Kufa, Iraq, the style later developed into several varieties, including floral, foliated, plaited or interlaced, bordered, and squared kufi. There were no set rules of using the Kufic script, the common feature is the angular, linear shapes of the characters. Common varieties include square Kufic, a known as bannai. Contemporary calligraphy using this style is popular in modern decorations
3.
Arabic script
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The Arabic script is a writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, dialects of Mandinka, Central Kurdish, Luri, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and others. Until the 16th century, it was used to write some texts in Spanish. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by the number of countries using it, the Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style. In most cases the letters transcribe consonants, or consonants and a few vowels, the script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʼān, the holy book of Islam. It is also the basis for the tradition of Arabic calligraphy, the Arabic script has been adopted for use in a wide variety of languages besides Arabic, including Persian, Malay and Urdu which are not Semitic. Such adaptations may feature altered or new characters to represent phonemes that do not appear in Arabic phonology, the modified version of the Arabic script originally devised for use with Persian is known as the Perso-Arabic script by scholars. In the cases of Bosnian, Kurdish, Kashmiri, and Uyghur writing systems, the Arabic script can therefore be used in both abugida and abjad, although it is often strongly, erroneously connected to the latter. Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, to a certain degree the style and usage tends to follow those of the Maghreb. Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language, the term ʻAjamī, which comes from the Arabic root for foreign, has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages. There is evidence that writing Arabic in this set of letters influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant, Kazakh in China Kurdish in Northern Iraq and Northwest Iran. It is mainly used in Sri Lanka and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu for religious purposes, arwi language is the language of Tamil Nadu Muslims. Malayalam language represented by Arabic script variant is known as Arabi Malayalam, the script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is used in madrasas of the South Indian state of Kerala. It is similar to Chittagonian language in neighboring Bangladesh and sometimes using the Roman script. Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi, in some cases it can be seen in the signboards of shops or market stalls. In addition, some television programming uses Jawi, such as announcements, advertisements, news, social programs, Berber languages have often been written in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet. The use of the Arabic alphabet, as well as the competing Latin, West Africa Zarma language of the Songhay family
4.
Nabataean alphabet
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The Nabataean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet that was used by the Nabataeans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra, Jordan, and Sinai, the alphabet is descended from the Syriac alphabet, which was itself descended from the Aramaic alphabet. As compared to other Aramaic-derived scripts, Nabataean developed more loops and ligatures, the ligatures seem to have not been standardized and vary across time and space. There were no spaces between words, numerals in Nabataean script were built from characters of 1,2,3,4,5,10,20, and 100. Note that the Syriac and Arabic alphabets are always cursive and that some of their letters look different in medial or initial position, see Aramaic alphabet § Letters for a more detailed comparison of letterforms. The Nabataean alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0
5.
Kufa
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Kufa is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River, the estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Najaf, Kufa is one of five Iraqi cities that are of importance to Shiite Muslims. The city was the capital of Ali ibn Abu Talib. It is also related that, Muslims after conquest of Al-Madain were searching to have a place for habitation. Likewise others, Salman and Hudhayfa bin al-Yamman were also looking for, just choosing the land they offered prayers there. Since that day the foundation of Kufa had taken place, the city contains the Great Mosque of Kufa, one of the earliest mosques in Islam, built in the 7th century. The town has produced several Shiite Muslim scholars, the Arabs, led by Caliph ʻUmar ibn Khattāb, conquered Iraq and began ruling Suristan around 637. Umar, who assigned the land of the Jews in Arabia to his warriors, Umar became the second caliph in 634. After the Arab victory against the East Roman Empire at Battle of Yarmouk in 636, Kūfah was founded and given its name in 637–638 CE, about the same time as Basra. The Companion of the Prophet Saʻd ibn Abī Waqqas founded it as an encampment adjacent to the Lakhmid Arab city of al-Hīrah, non-Arabs knew the city under alternate names, Hīrah and Aqulah, before the consolidations of ʻAbdu l-Mālik in 691. In the 640s, the Kūfan commons agitated that the Caliph ʻUmars governor was distributing the spoils of war unfairly, in 642 ʻUmar summoned Saʻd to Medina with his accusers. Despite finding Sad to be innocent, ʻUmar deposed Saʻd to avert ill feelings, at first, ʻUmar appointed Ammar ibn Yasir and secondly Basras first Governor Abū Mūsā al-Ashʻarī, but the Kūfan instigators accepted neither. ʻUmar and the Kūfans finally agreed on al-Mughīra ibn Shuʻbah, following Umars death, his successor Uthman replaced Mughira with al-Walid ibn Uqba in 645. While this was going on, the Arabs were continuing their conquest of western Persia under Uthman ibn hakam from Tawwaj, but late in the 640s these forces suffered setbacks. Uthman in 650 reorganised the Iranian frontier, both Basra and Kufa received new governors, and the east came under Basras command while north of that remained under Kufas. The few but noticeable trouble makers in Kufa sought in 654 and had Said deposed and instead showed satisfaction with the return of Abu Musa, Kufa remained a source of instigations albeit from a minority. In 656 when the Egyptian instigators, in co-operation with those in Kufa, marched onto the Caliph Uthman in Medina, upon Uthmans assassination by rebels, governor Abu Musa attempted to restore a non-violent atmosphere in Kufa
6.
Seljuq dynasty
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The Seljuqs established both the Seljuk Empire and Sultanate of Rum, which at their heights stretched from Anatolia through Iran and were targets of the First Crusade. During the 10th century, due to events, the Oghuz had come into close contact with Muslim cities. Around 985, Seljuq converted to Islam, in the 11th century the Seljuqs migrated from their ancestral homelands into mainland Persia, in the province of Khurasan, where they encountered the Ghaznavid empire. In 1025,40,000 families of Oghuz Turks migrated to the area of Caucasian Albania, the Seljuqs defeated the Ghaznavids at the battle of Nasa plains in 1035. Tughril, Chaghri, and Yabghu received the insignias of governor, grants of land, at the battle of Dandanaqan they defeated a Ghaznavid army, and after a successful siege of Isfahan by Tughril in 1050/51, they established an empire later called the Great Seljuk Empire. The Seljuqs mixed with the population and adopted the Persian culture. The Great Seljuqs were heads of the family, in theory their authority extended over all the other Seljuq lines, turkish custom called for the senior member of the family to be the Great Seljuq, although usually the position was associated with the ruler of western Persia. Muhammads son Mahmud II succeeded him in western Persia, but Ahmad Sanjar, the rulers of western Persia, who maintained a very loose grip on the Abbasids of Baghdad. Several Turkic emirs gained a level of influence in the region. Kerman was a province in southern Persia, between 1053 and 1154, the territory also included Umman. Kerman was eventually annexed by the Khwarezmid Empire in 1196, the Empire of the Steppes, a History of Central Asia. Early Seljuq History, A New Interpretation, New York, NY, Routledge,2010 Previté-Orton, C. W
7.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
8.
History of the Republic of Turkey
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The Republic of Turkey was created after the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin by the new Republican Parliament in 1922. This new regime delivered the coup de grâce to the Ottoman state which had been wiped away from the world stage following the First World War. The history of modern Turkey begins with the foundation of the republic on October 29,1923, the government was formed from the Ankara-based revolutionary group, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues. The second constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly on April 20,1924, chronology of Major Kemalist Reforms, November 1,1922, Abolition of the office of the Ottoman Sultan. October 29,1923, Proclamation of the Republic of Turkey, march 3,1924, Abolition of the office of Caliphate held by the Ottoman Caliphate. November 25,1925, Change of headgear and dress, November 30,1925, Closure of religious convents and dervish lodges. March 1,1926, Introduction of the new penal law, October 4,1926, Introduction of the new civil code. November 1,1928, Adoption of the new Turkish alphabet, June 21,1934, Introduction of the law on family names. November 26,1934, Abolition of titles and by-names, december 5,1934, Full political rights, to vote and be elected, to women. February 5,1937, The inclusion of the principle of laïcité in the constitution, the first party to be established in the newly formed republic was the Womens Party. It was founded by Nezihe Muhiddin and several women but was stopped from its activities. The actual passage to multi-party period was first attempted with the Liberal Republican Party by Ali Fethi Okyar, the Liberal Republican Party was dissolved on 17 November 1930 and no further attempt for a multi-party democracy was made until 1945. Turkey was admitted to the League of Nations in July 1932, atatürks successor after his death on November 10,1938 was İsmet İnönü. After failing in 1939 to get an alliance against Germany with Britain. Ambassadors from the Axis powers and Allies intermingled in Ankara, İnönü signed a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany on June 18,1941,4 days before the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union. Nationalist magazines Bozrukat and Chinar Altu called for the declaration of war against the Soviet Union, in July 1942, Bozrukat published a map of Greater Turkey, which included Soviet controlled Caucasus and central Asian republics. In August 1942, during talks with the German ambassador, Turkish prime minister Şükrü Saracoğlu stated, in the summer of 1942, Turkish high command considered war with the Soviet Union almost unavoidable. An operation was planned, with Baku being the initial target, Turkey traded with both sides and purchased arms from both sides
9.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
10.
Flag of Iraq
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The flag of Iraq includes the three equal horizontal red, white, and black stripes of the Arab Liberation flag. This basic tricolor has been in use since 1963, with changes to the green symbols in the central white stripe. The first flag of modern Iraq was the Kingdom of Iraq and it was a black-white-green horizontal flag, with a red trapezoid extending from the mast side, inspired by the flag of the Arab Revolt. Two seven-point white stars on the triangle denoted the two peoples of the kingdom, the Arabs and the Kurds. The design also reflected the newly installed Hashemite Dynasty in Iraq, as such, it was similar to the flags of Hashemite Jordan, and the short-lived Kingdom of Hejaz. Prior to Iraqi independence in 1932, this flag was used by the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. Today, it is used by pro-Hashemite monarchists in Iraq, in 1958, in response to the merger of Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic, the two Hashemite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan established the Arab Federation, a confederation of the two states. The flag of the union was essentially that of Jordan but without seven pointed star in the red chevron and this flag is identical to the flag of Palestine adopted in 1964, and almost identical to the flag of the Baath Party. The union lasted less than six months, being terminated by the Iraqi Revolution of 1958 in July, the black, white, green, and red are the pan-Arab colours, representing pan-Arabism, while the yellow sun represented the Kurdish minority. In addition, the red star was used to represent Iraqs ancient heritage, after Qassim was overthrown by the Baath Party in 1963, the new Baathist government adopted a modified version of the Arab Liberation flag as the new flag of Iraq on 31 July 1963. This horizontal tricolour of red, white, and black bands formed the basis of the flag of the United Arab Republic, though the UAR broke up in 1961, hopes for Arab unity persisted. Sharing this goal, Syria adopted the new Iraqi flag as its own later that same year and this remained the flag of Syria until 1971, when the green stars were replaced by the Hawk of Qureish. The Iraqi Flag Law No.28 of 1963 was replaced by Flag Law No, on 13 January 1991, the flag was modified by Flag Law No.6 of 1991. At the instigation of Saddam Hussein, the takbīr was added in green between the stars, the form of the takbīr was said to be Saddams own handwriting. As with other flags inscribed with Arabic script, the hoist is to the right of the obverse of the flag. The basic form of the flag was retained, however. The modified flag was unveiled at the marking the technical handover of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority occupation forces to the U. S. -appointed administration on 28 June 2004. On 22 January 2008, a new design for the flag was confirmed by Law 9 of 2008, in this current version, the three stars were removed
11.
Takbir
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The Takbīr, also transliterated Tekbir or Takbeer, is the Arabic phrase Allāhu akbar, usually translated as God is greatest. The form Allāhu is the nominative of Allah, meaning God, in the context of Islam, it is the proper name of God. The form akbar is the elative of the adjective kabīr, meaning great, as used in the Takbīr it is usually translated as greatest, but some authors prefer greater. The phrase is often transliterated less accurately as Allah akbar, the term Takbīr itself is the stem II verbal noun of the triliteral root k-b-r, meaning great, from which Akbar greater is derived. The phrase is known in the West for its common use as a battle cry in Islamic extremism. This phrase is recited by Muslims in many different situations, the phrase is not found in the Quran, which does not refer to God as Akbar, but uses the name Al-Kabir or Kabir, commonly translated as Most Great. The phrase is said during each stage of both obligatory prayers, and supererogatory prayers, the Muslim call to prayer by the muezzin and to commence prayer also contains the phrase. This phrase is used in times of distress. Just before a Garuda Airbus A300B-4 crashed into the jungle near Medan, Indonesia and it was suspected that the crash may have been due to either disorientation or engine failure caused by local dense smog resulting from forest fires. As a multi-purpose phrase, it is used by Arab football commentators as an expression of amazement. The phrase is used after the birth of a child as a means of praising God, in the hadith, Muhammad is reported to have spoken the Takbīr after a funeral. During the festival of Eid al-Adha and the days preceding it and this is particularly the case on the Day of Arafa. The phrase is known in the West for its common use as a battle cry in Islamist protests, Islamic extremism. It included a checklist of final reminders for the 9/11 hijackers, an excerpt reads, When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, Allahu Akbar, because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers. and giving out boxes of halva, imam Samudra, who was sentenced to death for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, chanted the phrase upon hearing his sentence. In the video of Nick Berg being beheaded in Iraq in 2004, in 2008, Aafia Siddiqui is alleged to have fired at US interrogators while yelling Allah Akbar. During the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, witnesses reported that gunman Nidal Malik Hasan shouted Allahu Akbar before opening fire, killing 13 people, times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad smiled and said Allahu Akbar after receiving a life sentence in 2010 for his attempted bombing. During the incident aboard American Airlines Flight 1561 in 2011, the person attempting to bash his way into the cockpit was heard shouting Allahu Akbar, mohammed Merah recorded himself shouting Allahu Akbar as he killed three French paratroopers in the 2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings
12.
Flag of Iran
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The current flag of Iran was adopted on 29 July 1980, and it is a reflection of the changes brought about by the Iranian Revolution. Its field is a tricolour comprising equal horizontal bands of green, white, the parliament, per the 1980 constitution, changed the flag and seal of state insofar as the Lion and Sun were replaced by the red emblem in the centre of the flag. Above the central stroke is a tashdid resembling W and this emblem is somewhat similar to the Khanda but has no relation to Sikhism and its meaning to that religious community. Written in white and repeated eleven times on the edges of each the green. This writing renders the flag non-reversible, in the Iranian culture, it symbolizes growth, happiness, unity, nature, vitality, and the Persian language. Historically, a green and white flag in a form used to be the flag of the Persians. The traditional colour of white stands for freedom, because white is blank, in the Iranian culture, it symbolizes bravery, fire, life, love, warmth, and sophistication. Historically, a red and white flag in a form used to be the flag of the Medes. Since Cyrus the Great, a Persian, defeated his grandfather Astyages the High Judge of the Medes and founded Iran by uniting the Persians, the Iranian flag symbolized this unity and victory as the flag of the people of Iran. Physical requirements for the Iranian flag, the shape of the emblem. Flags, standards, and banners have always been important national and imperial symbols for Iranians, xenophon reports that Cyrus the Greats standard was a golden eagle with spread wings, mounted on a long shaft. Late in the century the Lion and Sun motif was combined with an earlier scimitar motif and superimposed on a tricolour of green, white. With minor modifications, this remained the flag until the revolution of 1979. The oldest flag found in Iran is the Bronze Age Shahdad Standard, found in Shahdad, Kerman Province, dating back to c.2400 BC and it features a seated man and a kneeling woman facing each other, with a star in between. This iconography can be found in other Bronze Age pieces of art in the area as well, the Old Persian word for banner, standard was derafš. Xenophon in Cyropaedia describes the standard of Artaxerxes II at Cunaxa as an eagle, with outspread wings. Since the flag being described is different from the flag made by Cyrus the Great, according to Herodotus, each Persian army division had its own standard, and all officers had banners over their tents. One such banner, a plaque in saltire, is depicted on a Greek vase
13.
Banna'i
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This technique originated in Syria and Iraq in the 8th century, and matured in the Seljuq and Timurid era, as it spread to Iran, Anatolia and Central Asia. If the brickwork design is in relief then it is referred to as hazarbaf, the earliest surviving example of decorative brick work with colored bricks is found in the city gate of Raqqa. The earliest known example of hazārbāf is found in the Ukhaydir Palace near Baghdad, the technique appeared in Iran and central Asia more than a century later but with more sophisticated designs. The tomb of the Samanid ruler Ismāīl, had walls with protruding, islamic brickwork grew in sophistication of its techniques over the centuries. In the 11th century, the use of multiple brick sizes, rows of brick were set deep inside the face of the building and raised above it, to create positive and negative spaces. Chihil-Dukhtaran Minaret in Isfahan is one of the earliest example of work with triangles, squares, octagons. The Gunbad-i Sorkh monument in Azerbaijan was made of ten different types of carved bricks in its corner columns, in the 12th century in Azerbaijan, bricks were combined with glazed tiles. Such bricks were typically cobalt blue and turquoise colored, the earliest example of script set in brick work is seen on a minaret in Ghazni about 1100, spelling out the name of the ruler, the Ghaznavid ruler Massud III and his titles. This building pieces of terra cotta were inserted between the bricks to create the inscription, later buildings used the shadows of raised bricks and others used different colored bricks to spell out words. This practice eventually led to the covering whole brick buildings in sacred writing spelling out the names of Allah, Ali, square kufic, the version of the Arabic kufic calligraphy consisting of square angles only, is believed to have been an architectural adaptation of this script. Kufic writing was usually achieved using square bricks
14.
Pseudo-Kufic
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Pseudo-Kufic appears especially often in Renaissance art in depictions of people from the Holy Land, particularly the Virgin Mary. It is an example of Islamic influences on Western art, some of the first imitations of the Kufic script go back to the 8th century when the English king Offa produced gold coins imitating Islamic dinars. These coins were copies of an Abbasid dinar struck in 774 by Caliph Al-Mansur and it is clear that the moneyer had no understanding of Arabic as the Arabic text contains many errors. The coin may have produced in order to trade with Islamic Spain. In Medieval southern Italy from the century, imitations of Arabic coins, called tarì, were widespread. Examples are known of the incorporation of Kufic script and Islamic-inspired colourful diamond-shaped designs such as a 13th French Limoges enamel ciborium at the British Museum, the band in pseudo-Kufic script was a recurrent ornamental feature in Limoges and had long been adopted in Aquitaine. Numerous instances of pseudo-Kufic are known from European art from around the 10th to the 15th century, pseudo-Kufic would also be used as writing or as decorative elements in textiles, religious halos or frames. Many are visible in the paintings of Giotto, from around 1450, northern Italian artists also started to incorporate pseudo-Islamic decorative devices in their paintings. Francesco Squarcione started the trend in 1455, and he was followed by his main pupil. The exact reason for the incorporation of pseudo-Kufic or pseudo-Arabic in Medieval or early Renaissance painting is unclear, pseudo-Hebrew is also sometimes seen, as in the mosaic at the back of the abse in Marco Marziales Circumcision, which does not use actual Hebrew characters. It was especially common in German works, finally pseudo-Arabic elements became rare after the second decade of the 16th century. According to Rosamond Mack, The Eastern scripts, garments, ISBN 978-0-631-22637-6 Grierson, Philip Medieval European Coinage Cambridge University Press,2007 ISBN 0-521-03177-X, ISBN 978-0-521-03177-6 Mack, Rosamond E
15.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
16.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
17.
Arab culture
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Language, literature, gastronomy, art, architecture, music, spirituality, philosophy, mysticism are all part of the cultural heritage of the pan-Arab world. The Arab world is divided into separate regions including Nile Valley, Al-Maghrib Al-Arabi, Fertile Crescent and the Arabian Peninsula. The Arab culture is divided into three parts, the urban culture, the rural culture, and the nomad culture. Typically, most of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, along parts of Jordan. Other countries countrysides such as Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and their cities are considered to be urban cultures. In fact, most of the Arab major cities are recognized with urban cultures, like Jaffa, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut, Baghdad, Alexandria, Damascus, etc. The Levant, particularly Palestine, Lebanon, Syria as well as Egypt are known to have an urban culture history. Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by speakers of the Arabic language and it does not include works written using the Arabic alphabet but not in the Arabic language such as Persian and Urdu literature. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning to invite someone for a meal and implies politeness, culture. Arabic literature emerged in the 6th century, with fragments of the written language appearing before then. The Quran, from the 7th century, had the greatest, al-Khansa, a female contemporary of Muhammad, was an acclaimed Arab poet. The Muallaqat is the given to a series of seven Arabic poems or qasida that originated before the time of Islam. Each poem in the set has a different author, and is considered to be their best work, Muallaqat means The Suspended Odes or The Hanging Poems, and comes from the poems being hung on the wall in the Kaaba at Mecca. The seven authors, who span a period of around 100 years, are Imru al-Qais, Tarafa, Zuhayr, Labīd, Antara Ibn Shaddad, Amr ibn Kulthum, all of the Mu’allaqats contain stories from the authors’ lives and tribe politics. This is because poetry was used in time to advertise the strength of a tribe’s king, wealth. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights, the individual stories were created over several centuries, by many people from a number of different lands. The nucleus of the collection is formed by a Pahlavi Sassanid Persian book called Hazār Afsānah, during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the 8th century, Baghdad had become an important cosmopolitan city. Merchants from Persia, China, India, Africa, and Europe were all found in Baghdad, during this time, many of the stories that were originally folk stories are thought to have been collected orally over many years and later compiled into a single book
18.
Nabataean architecture
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Nabatean architecture refers to the building traditions of the Nabateans in Jordan. It includes the temple and tombs of Petra in the cliffs of Jordan’s Negev desert. The style appears a mix of Mesopotamian and Hellenistic influences, much of the surviving architecture was excavated out of rock cliffs. So the columns do not actually support anything, ceramics and coins were also part of the culture. In addition to the most famous sites in Petra, there are also Nabatean complexes at Obodas and residential complexes at Mampsis and a religious site of et-Tannur
19.
Umayyad architecture
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Umayyad architecture developed in the Umayyad Caliphate between 661 and 750, primarily in its heartlands of Syria and Palestine. The Umayyad caliphate was established in 661 after Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, was murdered in Kufa, muawiyah I, governor of Syria, became the first Umayyad caliph. The Umayyads made Damascus their capital, the Umayyads built new cities, often unfortified military camps that provided bases for further conquests. Wasit, Iraq was the most important of these, and included a square Friday mosque with a hypostyle roof, the empire was secular and tolerant of existing customs in the conquered lands, creating resentment among those looking for a more theocratic state. In 747 a revolution began in Khorasan, in the east, by 750 the Umayyads had been overthrown by the Abbasids, who moved the capital to Mesopotamia. A branch of the Umayyad dynasty continued to rule in Iberia until 1051, almost all monuments from the Umayyad period that have survived are in Syria and Palestine. The sanctuary of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is the oldest surviving Islamic building, the Umayyads adopted the construction techniques of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires. There was some innovation in decoration and in types of building, most buildings in Syria were of high quality ashlar masonry, using large tightly-joined blocks, sometimes with carving on the facade. Stone barrel vaults were used to roof small spans. Wooden roofs were used for spans, with the wood in Syria brought from the forests of Lebanon. These roofs usually had shallow pitches and rested on wooden trusses, wooden domes were constructed for Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, both in Jerusalem. Baked brick and mud brick were used in Mesopotamia, due to lack of stone, where brick was used in Syria, the work was in the finer Mesopotamian style rather than the more crude Byzantine style. The Umayyads used local workers and architects, some of their buildings cannot be distinguished from those of the previous regime. However, in many eastern and western elements were combined to give a distinctive new Islamic style. For example, the walls at Qasr Mshatta are built from cut stone in the Syrian manner, the horseshoe arch appears for the first time in Umayyad architecture, later to evolve to its most advanced form in al-Andalus. Umayyad architecture is distinguished by the extent and variety of decoration, including mosaics, wall painting, sculpture, the Umayyads are known for their desert palaces, some new and some adapted from earlier forts. The largest is Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, the palaces were symbolically defended by walls, towers and gates. In some cases the outside walls carried decorative friezes, the palaces would have a bath house, a mosque, and a main castle
20.
Abbasid architecture
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Abbasid architecture developed in the Abbasid Caliphate between 750 and 945, primarily in its heartland of Mesopotamia. The Abbasids inherited Persian architectural traditions in Mesopotamia, and were influenced by Central Asian styles. They evolved distinctive styles of their own, particularly in decoration of their buildings, while the Abbasids lost control of large parts of their empire after 850, their architecture continued to be copied by successor states in Iran, Egypt and North Africa. In 750 the Abbasids seized power from the Umayyad rulers of the Arab empire, the Abbasid caliphs based in what is now Iraq ruled over Iran, Mesopotamia, Arabia and the lands of the eastern and southern Mediterranean. The period between 750 and 900 has been described as the Islamic Golden Age, where the Umayyads had typically reused pre-Islamic buildings in the cities they had conquered, by the Abbasid era many of these structures required replacement. The spread of Muslim beliefs had also brought changes in needs, the Abbasids had to erect mosques and palaces, as well as fortifications, houses, commercial buildings and even facilities for racing and polo matches. In 762 the caliph al-Mansur founded a new capital of Baghdad on the Tigris, in 836 the caliph al-Mutasim transferred the capital to Samarra. The Abbasids began to control over the outlying parts of the empire, with local dynasties gaining effective independence in Khorasan in eastern Iran, Egypt. The caliph al-Mutamid, by now the effective ruler only of Iraq, in 945 the Buyids, followers of Shia Islam, became effective rulers as amirs, while the Abbasid caliphs retained their nominal title. With Caliph al-Nasir the Abbasids once again gained control of Iraq, early Abbasid architecture was very similar to the architecture of the Sassanid Empire, as exemplified by the Palace of Ukhaidhir. It used the techniques, the same materials of mud brick, baked brick and rough stone blocks set in mortar. With the conquest of Central Asia, the influence of Soghdian architecture increased, in Samarra the stucco and wall paintings are similar to that of the palaces of Panjakent in what is now Tajikistan. Later, in the 12th and 13th centuries, architecture in the lands ruled by the Abbasids became dominated by Seljuk architecture, Abbasid cities were laid out on huge sites. The palaces and mosques of Samarra sprawled along the shores of the Tigris for 40 kilometres. To match the scale of the sites, monumental buildings were erected, such as the huge spiral minarets of the Abu Dulaf Mosque and the Great Mosque of Samarra, which had no counterparts elsewhere. The two-centered pointed arch and vault had appeared before the Abbasids took power, the first fully developed example of the four-centered pointed arch was at the Qasr al-Ashiq, built between 878 and 882. Three new types of decoration were developed in Samarra and rapidly became popular elsewhere. The first two styles may be seen as derivative from Late Antique or Umayyad decorative styles, but the third is entirely new, style C used molds to create repeating patterns of curved lines, notches, slits, and other elements
21.
Fatimid architecture
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The wealth of Fatimid architecture was found in the main cities of Mahdia, Al-Mansuriya and Cairo. The Fatimid Caliphs competed with the rulers of the Abbasid and Byzantine empires and their palaces, their greatest architectural achievements, are known only by written descriptions, however. Several surviving tombs, mosques, gates and walls, mainly in Cairo, retain original elements, notable extant examples of Fatimid architecture include the Great Mosque of Mahdiya, and the Al-Azhar Mosque, Al-Hakim Mosque, Juyushi and Lulua of Cairo. They typically had features such as portals that protrude from the wall, domes above mihrabs and qiblas, and façade ornamentation with iconographic inscriptions, the woodwork of the doors and interiors of the buildings was often finely carved. The Fatimids also made considerable development towards mausoleum building, the mashad, a shrine that commemorates a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, was a characteristic type of Fatimid architecture. Three Fatimid-era gates in Cairo, Bab al-Nasr, Bab al-Futuh and Bab Zuweila, though they have been altered over the centuries, they have Byzantine architectural features, with little trace of the eastern Islamic tradition. Recently a Neo-Fatimid style has emerged, used in restorations or in modern Shia mosques by the Dawoodi Bohra, in 899 his grandson, to be known as Abd Allah al-Mahdi, became leader of the movement. He fled from his enemies to Sijilmasa in Morocco, where he proselytized under the guise of being a merchant, the empire grew to include Sicily and to stretch across North Africa from the Atlantic to Libya. The Fatimid caliphs built three capital cities, which they occupied in order, Mahdia and al-Mansuriya in Ifriqiya. Mahdia was a city located on a peninsula that projected into the Mediterranean from the coast of what is now Tunisia. The Carthaginian port of Zella had once occupied the site, Mahdia was founded in 913 by Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah, the first Fatimid imam, and later was the port from which the Fatimid invasion of Egypt was launched. Al-Mahdi built the Great Mosque of Mahdiya, the earliest Fatimid mosque, the other buildings erected nearby at that time have since disappeared, but the monumental access gate and portico in the north of the mosque are preserved from the original structure. Al-Mansuriya, near Kairouan, Tunisia, was the capital of Fatimid Caliphate during the rules of the Imams Al-Mansur Billah, built between 946 and 972, it was a circular walled city holding elaborate palaces surrounded by gardens, artificial pools and water channels. The caliph Al-Muizz moved from the city to the new city of al-Qāhira in 973, in 1057 it was abandoned and destroyed. Any useful objects or materials were scavenged during the centuries that followed, the Fatimid general, Jawhar al-Siqilli built a new palace city near to Fusṭāt upon conquering Egypt in 969, which he at first called al-Manṣūriyya after the capital in Tunisia. When Al-Muizz arrived in 973, the name was changed to al-Qāhira, the new city incorporated elements of the design of Al-Mansuriya, although it was rectangular rather than circular in plan. Both cities had mosques named al-Azhar after the Prophets daughter, Fatima al-Azhar, both cities had two palaces, for the caliph and for his heir, opposite and facing each other. Al-Aziz Billah is generally considered to have been the most extensive of Fatimid builders, similar to the first mosque, Al-Azhar Mosque, it had some fourteen gates but was later destroyed by fire, leaving only its green mihrab
22.
Moorish architecture
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Moorish architecture is the architectural tradition that appeared in the Maghreb region and the Iberian peninsula after the Arab Islamic conquest. Other notable buildings include the palace city of Medina Azahara, the church San Cristo de la Luz in Toledo. The term is used to include the products of the Islamic civilisation of Southern Italy. The Palazzo dei Normanni in Sicily was begun in the 9th century by the Emir of Palermo, there is archeological evidence of an eighth-century mosque in Narbonne, France. Arabic architecture Islamic architecture Arab-Norman culture Islamic influences on Christian art Moorish Revival* Moroccan architecture Mudéjar Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon Curl, a Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
23.
Mamluk architecture
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Mamluk architecture was a flowering of Islamic art during the reign of the Mamluk Sultanate which is most visible in medieval Cairo. Religious zeal made them generous patrons of architecture and art, it was influenced by the Ancient Egyptian. Trade and agriculture flourished under Mamluk rule, and Cairo, their capital, became one of the wealthiest cities in the Near East and the center of artistic and intellectual activity. This made Cairo, in the words of Ibn Khaldun, the center of the universe and the garden of the world, with domes, courtyards. The architectural identity of Mamluk religious monuments stems from the purpose that individuals erected their own memorials. Each building reflected the individual tastes, choices, and name. Mamluk architecture is oftentimes categorized more by the reigns of the sultan, than a specific design. Interestingly, the elite were often more knowledgeable in the art of buildings than many historians. Mamluk sultans and emirs were known for their zealous patronage of art and their projects could include a single mausoleum or a small charitable building, while their larger architectural complexes typically combined many functions into one or more buildings. These could include charitable functions and social services, such as a mosque, khanqah, madrasa, bimaristan, maktab, sabil, or hod, or commercial functions, such as a wikala/khan or rabʿah. These buildings and their institutions were protected by waqf agreements, which rendered them the status of charitable endowments or trusts which were legally inalienable under Islamic law. As such, the zeal of the Mamluk rulers was also motivated by very real pragmatic benefits. While the organization of Mamluk monuments varied, the funerary dome and these attributes are prominent features in a Mamluk mosques profile and were significant in the beautification of the city skyline. In Cairo, the dome and minaret were respected as symbols of commemoration. Patrons used these visual attributes to express their individuality by decorating each dome, patterns carved on domes ranged from ribs and zigzags to floral and geometric star designs. The funerary dome of Aytimish al-Bajasi and the dome of Qaitbays sons reflect the diversity. The creativity of Mamluk builders was effectively emphasized with these leitmotifs, expanding on the Fatimid Caliphates development of street-adjusted mosque façades, the Mamluks developed their architecture to enhance street vistas. In addition, new concepts and architectural solutions were created to reflect their assumed role in history
24.
Ablaq
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Ablaq is an architectural style involving alternating or fluctuating rows of light and dark stone. Records trace the beginnings of this type of technique to the south parts of Syria. It is associated as an Arabic term, especially as related to Arabic Islamic architectural decoration, the first recorded use of the term ablaq pertained to repairs of the Great Mosque of Damascus in 1109, but the technique itself was used much earlier. This technique is a feature of Islamic architecture, the ablaq decorative technique is a derivative from the ancient Byzantine Empire, whose architecture used alternate sequential runs of light colored ashlar stone and darker colored orange brick. The first known use of the term ablaq in building techniques is in work in reconstruction improvements to the walls of the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. According to records, these reconstruction masonry improvements to the wall began in the early twelfth century. The local stone supply may have encouraged the use of alternating courses of light, in the south part of Syria there is abundance of black basalt as well as white-colored limestone. The supplies of each are equal, so it was natural that masonry techniques of balanced proportions were used. The technique itself, however, was used earlier, Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba being a notable example, Medina Azahara. The Mamluks utilized mottled light effects and chiaroscuro in their buildings, finely dressed ashlar stones was often combined with brickwork for vaults. These Mamluk and Syrian elements were applied and shared by the Ayyubids and Crusaders in Palestine, Syria, in 1266 –1269 Sultan al-Zahir Baybars al-Bunduqdari built a mosque known as Mosque of al-Zahir Baybars or the Qasr Ablaq Palace which was constructed with alterations of light and dark masonry. Based on this mosque, ablaq as a technique of alternate rows of light. The Mamluk architecture of Syria, Egypt and Palestine adopted the technique in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In these countries at about this black and white stone were often used as well as red brick in recurring rows. The ablaq masonry technique is used in the Azm Palace in Damascus, in fact, Dr. Jerusalem mamluk architecture include multi-colored mansonry in white, yellow, red and black. The origins of the marble ablaq treatments at the Dome are controversial, some theorizing them original, in Jordan, the Mamluk fortified khan at Aqaba is a medieval fortress modeled after those used by the Crusaders. It contains an arch above the protected entrance, the horsesoe arch has ablaq masonry, harkening to Mamluk architecture in Egypt. Various architectural motifs—ablaq, the arch, and voussoir were used
25.
Hypostyle
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In architecture, a hypostyle hall has a roof which is supported by columns. The word hypostyle comes from the Ancient Greek ὑπόστυλος hypóstȳlos meaning under columns, the roof may be constructed of with bridging lintels of stone, wood or other rigid material such as cast iron, steel or reinforced concrete. The architectural form has many applications, occurring in the cella of Ancient Greek temples and in many Asian buildings, with a combination of columns and arches, the hypostyle hall became one of the two main types of mosque construction. In many mosques, especially the early congregational mosques, the hall has the hypostyle form. One of the finest examples of the mosques is the Great Mosque of Kairouan in the city of Kairouan. The hypostyle is widely used in modern architecture, peristyle Portico Apadana Ancient Egyptian architecture This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Hypostyle
26.
Mashrabiya
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The mashrabiya is an element of traditional Arabic architecture used since the Middle Ages up to the mid-20th century. It is mostly used on the side of the building, however. Mashrabiyas were mostly used in houses and palaces although sometimes in buildings such as hospitals, inns, schools. They are found mostly in the Mashriq – i. e. the eastern part of the Arab world and they are very prevalent in Iraq, the Levant, Hejaz and Egypt. They are mostly found in settings and rarely in rural areas. Basra is often called the city of Shanasheel, Mashrabiya is derived from the triliteral root Š-R-B, which generally denotes drinking or absorbing. There are two theories for its name, the most common one is that the name was originally for a small wooden shelf where the drinking water pots were stored, the shelf was enclosed by wood and located at the window in order to keep the water cool. Later on, this shelf evolved until it became part of the room with a full enclosure, the second theory is that the name was originally mashrafiya, derived from the verb Ashrafa, to overlook or to observe. During the centuries the name changed due to changing accents. Whatever is left in Arabic cities is mostly built during the late 19th century, in Iraq in the 1920s and 1930s, the designs of the latticework was affected by the Art Deco and Art Nouveau movements of the time. This was evident in Al Rasheed street Mashrabiyas up to the late 1960s before most of them were demolished, traditionally, houses are built of adobe, brick or stone or a combination of that. Wooden houses are not popular and hardly ever found, building heights in urban setting range from two to five floors with the Mashrabiyas on the second level and above. The roofs are built using wooden or steel beams with the areas between filled with brick in a semi vault style. These beams were extended over the street, enlarging the footprint of the upper floor, the upper floor is then enclosed with latticework and roofed with wood. The projection is cantilevered and does not bear the weight of building materials. There are different types of Mashrabiyas, and the designs differ from region to region. One of the purposes of the Mashrabiya is privacy, an essential aspect of Arabic culture. A good view of the street can be obtained by the occupants without being seen, the wooden screen with openable windows gives shade and protection from the hot summer sun, while allowing the cool air from the street to flow through
27.
Iwan
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An iwan is a rectangular hall or space, usually vaulted, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open. Since the definition allows for some interpretation, the forms and characteristics can vary greatly in terms of scale, material. Iwans are most commonly associated with Islamic architecture, however, the form was invented much earlier and fully developed in Mesopotamia, the root for this term is Old Persian apadana where king Darius I declares in an inscription, I Darius. This is a given to this particular palace in modern literature, although the name simply implies a type of structure—the iwan. The term in Old Persian stand for unprotected, since the design allows for the structure to be open to the elements on one side, whence the term. At Persepolis, however, the apadana takes the form of a veranda, a comparable structure would be found 2000 years later in Isfahan at the Palace of Chehel Sotoun. This development reached its peak during the Seljuki era, when iwans became a unit in architecture. The form is not confined to any function, and is found in buildings for either secular or religious uses. Ivan is a form of the name, used in Iran. Many scholars including Edward Keall, André Godard, Roman Ghirshman, and Mary Boyce, discuss the invention of the iwan as developing in Mesopotamia, the area around todays Iraq. Although debate remains among scholars as to how the developed, there is a general consensus that the iwan evolved locally. The feature which most distinctly makes the iwan a landmark development in the history of Ancient Near Eastern architecture is the incorporation of a vaulted ceiling, a vault is defined as a ceiling made from arches, known as arcuated, usually constructed with stone, concrete, or bricks. Earlier buildings would normally be covered in a manner, with post. However, vaulted ceilings did exist in the ancient world before the invention of the iwan, outside Mesopotamia, a number of extant vaulted structures stand, including many examples from Ancient Egypt, Rome, and the Mycenaeans. For example, the Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus, constructed around 1250 BCE, egyptian architecture began to use vaulting in their structures after the Third Dynasty, after around 2600 BCE, constructing very early barrel vaults using mud brick. Although some scholars have asserted that the form may have developed under the Seleucids. One of the earliest Parthian iwans was found at Seleucia, located on the Tigris River, other early iwans have been suggested at Ashur, where two buildings containing iwan-like foundations were found. The first building, located near the ruins of a ziggurat, the proximity of the building to a ziggurat suggests that it may have been used for religious preparations or rituals
28.
Liwan
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Liwan is a word used since ancient times into the present to refer to a long narrow-fronted hall or vaulted portal found in Levantine homes that is often open to the outside. An Arabic loanword to English, it is derived from the Persian eyvān. In its simplest form, the history of the dates back more than 2,000 years. In its more complex forms, the house is composed of a large ceremonial entrance hall at the front of the complex. The back of the house opens onto a columned peristyle courtyard from which the main room and the private apartments opposite can be accessed, with symmetry on either side of the central axis. Mats and carpets are typically spread along the length of the floor of the liwan, one type of liwan house is the three-arched house or Central Hall House, as coined by Friedrich Ragette in 1974. It is also known as the house or Late-Ottoman Arab House in Haifa or the Beiruti House in Mersin. The 19th century Levantine model of the house with many regional variations is found in the coastal regions of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel. A representative example of the liwan house commonly found in throughout the West Bank
29.
Moroccan riad
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A riad is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. The word riad comes from the Arabian term for garden, Arabic, رياض, the ancient Roman city of Volubilis provided a reference for the beginnings of riad architecture during the Idrisid Dynasty. When the Almoravids conquered Spain in the 11th century they sent Muslim, Christian, the Riad is the Moroccan traditional house, normally with two or more storeys around an Andalusian-style courtyard that contained a fountain. Riads were the city homes of the wealthiest citizens such as merchants. The riads were inward focused, which allowed for family privacy and this inward focus was expressed with a centrally placed interior garden or courtyard, and the lack of large windows on the exterior walls of clay or mud brick. This design principle found support in Islamic notions of privacy, entrance to these houses encourages reflection because all of the rooms open into the central atrium space. In the central garden of traditional riads there are four orange or lemon trees. The walls of the riads are adorned with plaster and zellige tiles. The style of these riads has changed over the years, many of the crumbling or ruined properties in Marrakech have been bought by foreigners
30.
Sahn
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A sahn, is a courtyard in Islamic architecture. Most traditional mosques have a large central sahn, which is surrounded by a riwaq or arcade on all sides, in traditional Islamic design, residences and neighborhoods can have private sahn. In Islamic and Arab architecture, the courtyard is a common element in religious buildings and residences throughout the Arab world and beyond, used in urban. The cloister is its equivalent in European medieval architecture and its religious buildings, originally, the sahn was used for dwellings, as a secure and private setting within a residence compounds walls. Ruins of houses in Sumerian Ur with sahns have been found, in historic Persian garden design sahns were the location for private Paradise gardens. In traditional Persian architecture, the courtyard contained a howz or symmetrical pool. The use of sahn in Islamic architecture continued until the mid-twentieth century, almost every historic or traditional mosque has a sahn. The use of the sahn in Middle Eastern countries mosques was carried on to most Islamic countries mosque architecture, traditional mosque sahns are surrounded by the riwaq arcade on all sides. They also contain fountain water basins, such as a howz, for ritual cleansing and performing of wudu. The inner courtyard is not a religiously proscribed architectural feature, and some mosques, especially since the twentieth century, residential sahns, part of a courtyard house, are the most private. The scale and design details differ, from urban to rural locales, different regions and climates, the sahn can be a private garden, a service yard, and a summer season outdoor living room for the family or entertaining. Usually the main entrance of the house does not lead directly to the sahn and it is reached through a broken or curved corridor called a majaz. This lets residents admit guests into the majlis, a salon or reception room and it is then a protected and proscribed place where the women of the house need not be covered in the hijab clothing traditionally necessary in public. In urban settings, the sahn is usually surrounded by a colonnaded riwaq, the residences iwan, a private family room veranda of three walls, usually overlooks the sahn and gives direct or stairway access to it. Upper floor rooms may also view it through mashrabiya, wooden lattice covered windows, the Moorish sahn patios of al-Andalus, in present-day Spain, include World Heritage Sites such as the Court of the Lions and Court of the Myrtles at the Alhambra palace. Public The idea of open space, central in the middle of a city. Ancient examples are the Greek agora and Roman forum and they can provide a place for various civic uses, such as, public gatherings, celebrations, and protests, city parks, open air markets and festivals, and transportation links. Index, Islamic architectural elements Media related to Islamic courtyards at Wikimedia Commons
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Tadelakt
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Tadelakt is a waterproof plaster surface used to make baths, sinks, water vessels, interior and exterior walls, ceilings, roofs, and even floors. It is made from plaster, which is rammed, polished. Tadelakt is labour-intensive to install, but durable, since it is applied as a paste, tadelakt has a soft, undulating character, it can form curves, and it is seamless. Pigment can be added to give it any colour, but deep red is traditional and it may have a shiny or matte finish. Tadelakt means to rub in, from the Moroccan Arabic تدلاكت, tadelakt is thought to have evolved from qadad, a similar plaster treated with calcium hydroxide and oils and fats instead of soaps. The basic constituents of tadelakt plaster are, lime plaster in some cases, marble or limestone sand natural soap to speed carbonation of the surface, the soap chemically reacts with the lime plaster, forming lime soaps. Calcium soaps are insoluble in water, and fairly hard and they are familiar, in areas with calcium-rich water, as deposits in bathtubs, sinks, and showers, when soap is mixed with the waters dissolved calcium carbonate/lime, calcium soaps form. In Morocco, the application technique, plaster powder is mixed with water for 12 to 15 hours prior to the addition of pigment. The plaster is applied in one coat with a wooden float. Before the plaster sets, a flat, smooth, hard stone is used to compress the plaster and it is mechanically polished using stones or abrasives harder than the plaster, providing a smooth, sometimes shiny, finish. Tadelakt can be carved into yeseria. Tadelakt is the coating of the palaces, hammams and bathrooms of the riads in Morocco. The restoration of the riads of Morocco had led to a resurgence in its use, in modern times, it has been used outside. Stucco Zellige Earthen plaster Polished plaster Plasterwork Qadad Moroccan style Moroccan architecture
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Vault (architecture)
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Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that requires a counter resistance, when vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required. However, when the vault is built above ground, various replacements are employed to supply the needed resistance, an example is the thicker walls used in the case of barrel or continuous vaults. Buttresses are used to supply resistance when intersecting vaults are employed, the simplest kind of vault is the barrel vault, which is generally semicircular in shape. The barrel vault is an arch, the length being greater than its diameter. As in building an arch, a support is needed while rings of voussoirs are constructed. Until the topmost voussoir, the keystone, is positioned, the vault is not self-supporting, with a barrel vault, the centering can then be shifted on to support the next rings. Amongst the earliest known examples of any form of vaulting is to be found in the village of Khirokitia on Cyprus. Dating from ca.6000 BCE, the circular buildings supported beehive shaped corbel domed vaults of unfired mud-bricks, similar Beehive tombs, called tholoi, exist in Crete and Northern Iraq. Their construction differs from that at Khirokitia in that most appear partially buried, the inclusion of domes, however, represents a wider sense of the word vault. The distinction between the two is that a vault is essentially an arch which is extruded into the third dimension, whereas a dome is an arch revolved around its vertical axis. Pitched-brick vaults are named for their construction, the bricks are installed vertically and are leaning at an angle, examples have been found in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia dating to the 2nd and 3rd millennium BC which were set in gypsum mortar. A barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault and resembles a barrel or tunnel cut lengthwise in half, the effect is that of a structure composed of continuous semicircular or pointed sections. The earliest known examples of barrel vaults were built by the Sumerians, possibly under the ziggurat at Nippur in Babylonia, which was built of fired bricks cemented with clay mortar. The earliest barrel vaults in ancient Egypt are thought to be those in the built by the 19th dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II. The vault being over 800 feet long,10 feet in span, the enormous Eyvan-e Khosro at Ctesiphon was built over 1,500 years ago during the Persian Sasanian period as a throne room. The arch is about 37 metres high,26 metres across and 50 metres long, built entirely without centering, the rings relieved the centering from the weight imposed, and the two layers of bricks carried the concrete till it had set. As the walls carrying these vaults were built in concrete with occasional bond courses of brick
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Voussoir
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A voussoir /vuˈswɑːr/ is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, the keystone is the center stone or masonry unit at the apex of an arch. The springer is the lowest voussoir on each side, located where the curve of the springs from the vertical support or abutment of the wall or pier. The keystone is decorated or enlarged. The word is a term borrowed in Middle English from French verbs connoting a turn. Each wedge-shaped voussoir turns aside the thrust of the mass above, transferring it from stone to stone to the bottom face. Voussoir arches distribute weight efficiently and take advantage of the compressive strength of stone. In Visigothic and Moorish architecture, the voussoirs are often in alternating colors, usually red and this is sometimes found in Romanesque architecture also. The bricks used in such an arch are referred to as voussoirs
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Multifoil arch
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A Multifoil arch is a style of arch that was an architectural element in the Moorish architecture of al-Andalus. The multifoil arch design was influenced by Islamic art and architecture, examples are found in the Moorish Umayyad Caliphate mosque maqsuras and arcades, that are located in present-day Spain. The term is French, foil means leaf, the number of foils involved is indicated by a prefix, trefoil —3, quatrefoil —4, etc. and multifoil —many. Horseshoe arch Index, Islamic architectural elements Spanish architecture
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Horseshoe arch
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The horseshoe arch, also called the Moorish arch and the Keyhole arch, is the emblematic arch of Moorish architecture. Horseshoe arches can take rounded, pointed or lobed form, horseshoe arches are known from pre-Islamic Syria, where the form was used in the fourth century CE in the Baptistery of Mar Yaqub at Nisibin. However, it was in Spain and North Africa that horseshoe arches developed their characteristic form, prior to the Muslim invasion of Spain, the Visigoths used them as one of their main architectural features, which may come from at least the Roman period. Some tombstones from that period have been found in the north of Spain with horseshoe arches in them, also, the arch of the Church of Santa Eulalia de Boveda —part of a previous Roman temple— in Lugo, points in that direction. The Visigothic form was adopted and developed by the Umayyads, who accentuated the curvature of the horseshoe and this can be seen at a large scale in their major work, the Great Mosque of Córdoba. The Mozarabs also adopted this style of arch into their architecture, horseshoe arches were also used in the Mosque of Uqba, in Kairouan and, in a slightly pointed form, in the Mosque of Muhammad ibn Khairun, Tunisia. Mudéjar style, developed from the 12th to the 17th centuries, in addition to their use across the Islamic world, horseshoe arches became popular in Western countries at the time of the Moorish Revival. They were widely used in Moorish revival synagogues, horseshoe arches are also a feature of Indo-Saracenic architecture, a style associated with the British Raj
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Alfiz
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The alfiz is an architectonic adornment, consisting of a moulding, usually a rectangular panel, which encloses the outward side of an arch. It is an Islamic Arab architectonic ornament, but has appeared in non-Arab Spanish architecture since the 8th century and it is frequent in the Islamic Hispanic art and mozarabic art. As the image illustrates, there are two variants, A Alfiz starting from the impost. B Alfiz starting from the floor, the space between the arch and the alfiz is called enjuta or arrabá, usually richly decorated. Each curved triangle is called albanega
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Arabesque
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Another definition is Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which were combined with spiralling stems. It usually consists of a design which can be tiled or seamlessly repeated as many times as desired. Interlace and scroll decoration are used for most other types of similar patterns. Arabesques are an element of Islamic art but they develop what was already a long tradition by the coming of Islam. The past and current usage of the term in respect of European art can only be described as confused, some Western arabesques derive from Islamic art, but others are closely based on Ancient Roman decorations. At the popular level such theories often appear uninformed as to the context of the arabesque. The case for a connection with Islamic mathematics is much stronger for the development of the patterns with which arabesques are often combined in art. The arabesque developed out of the traditions of plant-based scroll ornament in the cultures taken over by the early Islamic conquests. Early Islamic art, for example in the famous 8th century mosaics of the Great Mosque of Damascus, often contained plant-scroll patterns, in that case by Byzantine artists in their usual style. The plants most often used are stylized versions of the acanthus, with its emphasis on leafy forms, the evolution of these forms into a distinctive Islamic type was complete by the 11th century, having begun in the 8th or 9th century in works like the Mshatta Facade. In the process of development the plant forms became increasing simplified and stylized, typically, in earlier forms there is no attempt at realism, no particular species of plant is being imitated, and the forms are often botanically impossible or implausible. Leaf forms typically spring sideways from the stem, in what is called a half-palmette form, named after its distant and very different looking ancestor in Ancient Egyptian. New stems spring from leaf-tips, a type often called honeysuckle, the early Mshatta Facade is recognisably some sort of vine, with conventional leaves on the end of short stalks and bunches of grapes or berries, but later forms usually lack these. Flowers are rare until about 1500, after which they more often, especially in Ottoman art. In Ottoman art the large and feathery leaves called saz became very popular, eventually floral decoration mostly derived from Chinese styles, especially those of Chinese porcelain, replaces the arabesque in many types of work, such as pottery, textiles and miniatures. The arabesques and geometric patterns of Islamic art are often said to arise from the Islamic view of the world, the depiction of animals and people is generally discouraged, which explains the preference for abstract geometric patterns. There are two modes to arabesque art, the first recalls the principles that govern the order of the world. These principles include the basics of what makes objects structurally sound and, by extension
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Girih
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Girih, also girih sāzī or girih chīnī, is a Persianate Islamic decorative art form used in architecture and handicrafts, consisting of geometric lines that form an interlaced strapwork. In Iranian architecture, gereh sazi patterns were seen in bannai brickwork, stucco, girih has been defined as geometric designs composed upon or generated from arrays of points from which construction lines radiate and at which they intersect. Straight-edged symmetric shapes are used in girih, girih typically consists of a strapwork that form 6-, 8-, 10-, or 12-pointed stars separated by polygons and straps, and often they were drawn in an interlacing manner. Such patterns usually consist of a unit cell with 2-, 3-. The three-dimensional equivalent of girih is called muqarnas and it is used to decorate the underside of domes or squinches. The girih style of ornamentation is thought to have inspired by the Syrian Roman knotwork patterns dating back to the 2nd century AD. The predecessors of the form were curvilinear interlaced strapwork with three-fold rotational symmetry. The Umayyad Mosque, in Damascus, Syria has window screens made of interlacing undulating strapwork in the form of six-pointed stars, early examples of Islamic geometric patterns made of straight strap lines can be seen in the architecture of the surviving gateway of the Ribat-i Malik caravanserai, Uzbekistan. The earliest form of girih on a book is seen in the fronticepiece of a Koran manuscript from the year 1000 and this Koran has an illuminated page with interlacing octagons and thuluth calligraphy. In woodwork, one of the earliest surviving examples of Islamic geometric art is the 13th-century minbar of the Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, in woodwork, girih patterns can be created by two different methods. In one, a grill with geometric shapes would be created first. In the other method, called gereh-chini wooden panels of geometric shapes would be created individually and this woodwork technique was popular during the Safavid period, examples of it can be seen in various historic structures in Esfahan. The term girih was used in Turkish as a polygonal strap pattern used in architecture as early as the late 15th century, also in the late 15th century, girih patterns were compiled by artisans in pattern catalogs such as the Topkapı Scroll. While curvilinear precedants of girih were seen in the 10th century and it became a dominant design element in the 11th and 12th centuries, as for example, the carved stucco panels with interlaced girih seen in Kharraqan towers near Qazvin, Iran. Stylized plant decoration were sometimes co-ordinated with girih, after the Safavid period, the use of girih continued in the Seljuk and later the Ilkhanid period. In the 14th century girih became an element in the decorative arts and was replaced by vegetal patterns during the Timurid era. However, geometrical strap work patterns continued to be an important element of decorative arts in Central Asian monuments after the Timurid period, the first girih patterns were made by copying a pattern template along a regular grid, the pattern was drawn with compass and straightedge. Today, artisans using traditional techniques use a pair of dividers to leave a mark on a paper sheet that has been left in the sun to become brittle
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Islamic geometric patterns
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Islamic decoration, which tends to avoid using figurative images, makes frequent use of geometric patterns which have developed over the centuries. These may constitute the entire decoration, may form a framework for floral or calligraphic embellishments, interest in Islamic geometric patterns is increasing in the West, both among craftsmen and artists including M. C. Islamic art mostly avoids figurative images to avoid becoming objects of worship, Islamic geometric patterns derived from simpler designs used in earlier cultures, Greek, Roman, and Sasanian. They are one of three forms of Islamic decoration, the others being the based on curving and branching plant forms. Geometric designs and arabesques are forms of Islamic interlace patterns, david Wade states that Much of the art of Islam, whether in architecture, ceramics, textiles or books, is the art of decoration – which is to say, of transformation. Wade argues that the aim is to transfigure, turning mosques into lightness and pattern and she argues that beauty, whether in poetry or in the visual arts, was enjoyed for its own sake, without commitment to religious or moral criteria. Many Islamic designs are built on squares and circles, typically repeated, overlapped and interlaced to form intricate, a recurring motif is the 8-pointed star, often seen in Islamic tilework, it is made of two squares, one rotated 45 degrees with respect to the other. The fourth basic shape is the polygon, including pentagons and octagons, all of these can be combined and reworked to form complicated patterns with a variety of symmetries including reflections and rotations. Such patterns can be seen as mathematical tessellations, which can extend indefinitely and they are constructed on grids that require only ruler and compass to draw. Artist and educator Roman Verostko argues that such constructions are in effect algorithms, the circle symbolizes unity and diversity in nature, and many Islamic patterns are drawn starting with a circle. On this basis is constructed a star surrounded by six smaller irregular hexagons to form a tessellating star pattern. This forms the basic design which is outlined in white on the wall of the mosque and that design, however, is overlaid with an intersecting tracery in blue around tiles of other colours, forming an elaborate pattern that partially conceals the original and underlying design. A similar design forms the logo of the Mohammed Ali Research Center and he observed that many different combinations of polygons can be used as long as the residual spaces between the polygons are reasonably symmetrical. For example, a grid of octagons in contact has squares as the residual spaces, every octagon is the basis for an 8-point star, as seen at Akbars tomb, Sikandra. Hankin considered the skill of the Arabian artists in discovering suitable combinations of polygons and he further records that if a star occurs in a corner, exactly one quarter of it should be shown, if along an edge, exactly one half of it. The mathematical properties of the tile and stucco patterns of the Alhambra palace in Granada. Some authors have claimed on dubious grounds to have found most or all of the 17 wallpaper groups there, the earliest geometrical forms in Islamic art were occasional isolated geometric shapes such as 8-pointed stars and lozenges containing squares. These date from 836 in the Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia, the next development, marking the middle stage of Islamic geometric pattern usage, was of 6- and 8-point stars, which appear in 879 at the Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo, and then became widespread
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Islamic interlace patterns
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Interlacing patterns are patterns of lines and shapes that have traditionally dominated Islamic art. They can be divided into the arabesque, using curving plant-based elements. Both of these forms of Islamic art developed from the rich interlacing patterns of the Byzantine Empire, eva Baer, in her book Islamic Ornament, describes the art. One of the first Western studies of the subject was E. H. Hankins The Drawing of Geometric Patterns in Saracenic Art, published in Memoirs of the Archaeological Society of India in 1925. In this essay, Hankin takes the view that the artists who created these designs used a method based on the use of the compass and the straight edge. This view is supported by the majority of authorities on the subject, such as Keith Critchlow in his book, Islamic Patterns. This explains how ornamented objects as varied in size as a book or a mosque, were treated by using the same geometric methods adapted to the size. On the other hand, Owen Jones describes a method whereby interlace ornament is designed on a foundation of geometric grids, possessing, equally with the Greeks, an appreciation of pure form, the Moors exceeded them in variety and imagination. It usually consists of a design which can be tiled or seamlessly repeated as many times as desired. Girih, also girih sāzī or girih chīnī, is an Islamic decorative art form used in architecture and handicrafts, in Iranian architecture, gereh sazi patterns were seen in bannai brickwork, stucco, and mosaic faience work. Girih has been defined as geometric designs composed upon or generated from arrays of points from which lines radiate
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Muqarnas
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It is used for domes, and especially half-domes in entrances, iwans and apses, mostly in traditional Islamic and Persian architecture. Where some elements project downwards, the style may be called mocárabe, these are reminiscent of stalactites, Muqarnas developed around the middle of the 10th century in northeastern Iran and almost simultaneously — but apparently independently — in North Africa. Examples can be found across Morocco and by extension, the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, the Abbasid Palace in Baghdad, Iraq, and the mausoleum of Sultan Qaitbay, Cairo, Egypt. Large rectangular roofs in wood with muqarnas-style decoration adorn the 12th century Cappella Palatina in Palermo, Sicily, Muqarnas is also found in Armenian architecture. Muqarnas is typically applied to the undersides of domes, pendentives, cornices, squinches, arches, Muqarnas is a downward-facing shape, that is, a vertical line can be traced from the floor to any point on a muqarnas surface. It is also arranged in courses, as in a corbelled vault. The edges of surfaces can all be traced on a single plan view, architects can thus plan out muqarnas geometrically. Muqarnas does not have a significant structural role, Muqarnas need not be carved into the structural blocks of a corbelled vault, it can be hung from a structural roof as a purely decorative surface. Muqarnas may be made of brick, stone, stucco, or wood, the individual cells may be called alveoles. Some modern muqarnas elements have been designed, if not built, with upwards-facing cells, Architecture of Iran Islamic architecture Islamic geometric patterns Mathematics and art Ottoman architecture Muqarnas, A Three-dimensional Decoration of Islam Architecture. Contains a database of over a thousand plans of extant muqarnas, indexed by location and geometry
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Socarrat
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Socarrat refers to fired clay tiles covered with a white base and generally painted in red and black. These were placed between beams and joists in buildings’ ceilings and eaves and their origin is typically medieval but subsequent production of these objects is known, mainly in Valencia. There are other words to name objects with similar such as rajola, maó prim. The first register about its existence takes us back to 1604, traditionally, they’re said to come from Paterna but the presence of these and other similar objects has been documented too in Manises and in some other places in Valencia, Aragon and Catalonia. Socarrat can also refer to the crust that forms on the bottom of the pan when cooking paella, socarrats were mainly manufactured in two basic sizes, the smaller with 30 x 15 x 3 cm and the larger with 40 x 30 x 3 cm. The first one could be used in buildings in two ways, decorating eaves either leaning on walls or on joists. They could also be used in ornamental friezes, in balconies and staircases, the largest tiles filled the space between joists on interior ceilings, with both structural and decorative functions, supporting pavements or roofs. The smaller size could carry out the same function, socarrats were frequently reused to build new walls and levelling out pavements. There’s a wide debate in what concerns to socarrat manufacturing, being objects with ceramic base, controversy starts when one considers the stages that occur after drying the moulded ceramic paste. González Martí and Blat Monsó are the most representative authors on this subject, according to González Martí, the dry tile should be covered with a kaolin based earth and painted with iron and manganese oxides. Then, it should be fired and the result should be a matte decoration, the existence of a firing process and the nature of pigments were not always clear. Before González Martí, some authors have referred the lime used to decorate socarrats could not have been fired after application on the tile, afterwards, Blat Monsó and others have reinforced this statement. There are three types of representations in socarrats, religious, magic and social ones. The first one includes crosses and inscriptions, such as the verses written on the socarrats of the Xara mosque in Valdigna. Fatima’s hands or Hamsa, boats, towers, animals and chimeric figures such as Butoni, the use of heraldic symbols and decorated elements made visible in public spaces and the representation of courtesan and satiric scenes fulfilled the third one. Socarrats were also used to do public announcements, such as the edict for recruit of soldiers of the Duke of Segorbe, la cerámica de los siglos XVI y XVII
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Zellige
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Zellige, zelige or zellij (Arabic, or Mosaic is tilework made from individually chiseled geometric tiles set into a plaster base. This form of Islamic art is one of the characteristics of Berber. It consists of geometrically patterned mosaics, used to ornament walls, ceilings, fountains, floors, pools, the art of zellige flourished during the Hispano-Moresque period of the Maghreb and the area known as Al-Andalus between 711-1492. The technique was developed during the Nasrid Dynasty and Merinid dynasty who gave it more importance around the 14th century and introduced blue, green. Red was added in the 17th century, the old enamels with the natural colours were used until the beginning of the 20th century and the colours had probably not evolved much since the period of Merinids. The cities of Fes and Meknes in Morocco, remain the centers of this art, patrons of the art used zellige historically to decorate their homes as a statement of luxury and the sophistication of the inhabitants. Zellige is typically a series of patterns utilizing colourful geometric patterns and this framework of expression arose from the need of Islamic artists to create spatial decorations that avoided depictions of living things, consistent with the teachings of Islamic law. Fez and Meknes in Morocco are still the centers for zellij tiles due to the Miocene grey clay of Fez. The clay from this region is composed of Kaolinite. For Fez and Meknes, the composition is 2-56% clay minerals. Meriam El Ouahabi states that, From the other sites, the mineral composition shows besides kaolinite the presence of illite, chlorite, smectite. Meknes clays belong to illitic clays, characterized by illite, kaolinite, smectite and chlorite, Fes clays have a homogeneous composition with illite. and kaolinite as the most abundant clay minerals. Chlorite and smectite are generally present as small quantities, mixed layer illite/chlorite is present in trace amounts in all the examined Fes clay materials. The colour palette of the increased, making it possible to multiply the compositions ad infinitum. The most current form of the zellige is a square, other forms are possible, the octagon combined with a cabochon, a star, a cross, etc. It is then moulded with a thickness of approximately 2 centimetres, there are simple squares of 10 by 10 centimeters or with the corners cut to be combined with a coloured cabochon. To pave the grounds, bejmat, a stone of 15 by 5 centimetres approximately and 2 centimetres thick. An encyclopedia could not contain the full array of complex, often individually varied patterns, star-based patterns are identified by their number of points—itnashari for 12, ishrini for 20, arba wa ishrini for 24 and so on, but they are not necessarily named with exactitude
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Reflecting pool
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A reflecting pool or reflection pool is a water feature found in gardens, parks, and at memorial sites. It usually consists of a pool of water, undisturbed by fountain jets. Reflecting pools are designed with the outer basin floor at the rim slightly deeper than the central area to suppress wave formation. They can be as small as a bath to as large as a major civic element. Their origins are from ancient Persian gardens, the Miroir deau on Place de la Bourse in Bordeaux, France, is the worlds largest reflecting pool. The Mughal garden reflecting pools at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India Chehel Sotoun in Iran The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the modernist Palácio do Planalto and Palácio da Alvorada in Brasília, Brazil The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located in New York City, has two reflecting pools on the location where the Twin Towers stood
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