Blog #4 - Islamic Architecture throughout the World

Islamic religious architecture offers a great example of just how advanced civilizations within Northern Africa and parts of Spain where when compared to continental Europe at the time. The exquisite sense of detail, along with a different set of customs altogether led to the creation of structures that to this day leaves visitors brimming with fascination.

Two of the central features to any mosque that remain to this day are the Minbar, and the Mihrab. Both of these features are found inside of a mosque and are essential to conducting five daily prayers. The Mihrab is a semicircular niche found within a wall of the building. It serves those inside by indicating the direction of the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca. The Mihrab often features elaborate decoration utilizing anything from intarsia inlays to highly detailed Iznik tiling. When visiting a mosque during a prayer ceremony, the visitor’s eye is thus drawn instinctively towards the Mihrab, as all participants will bow and kneel in its direction. The Minbar will generally be found immediately to the side of the Mihrab, as the Iman conducts his service from here. These commonly wooden structures are highly stylized using intarsia and parquetry, and feature a narrow gated entry leading to a short stairway from which the Iman can call to prayer while in an elevated position.

Another core feature of these structures is the use of advanced geometry, which greatly reflected the level of mathematical understanding already being utilized by architects of the time. This meant that complex geometrical floor plans where transformed from two-dimensional concepts into three-dimensional structures with great effectiveness, and present any visitor with countless angles and viewpoints that mesh together beautifully into one multifaceted structure. One of the key ways architects were able to achieve such a powerful symbiosis was through the effective combination of spheres and angles. By using pendentives, architects were able to join angular walls with the domes situated above them, creating fluidity between these otherwise contradicting shapes in a way one only finds from great visionaries like Michelangelo in Europe (Pedro Muchaca’s Palace). 

With respect to decoration, these structures are just as impressive, but have to be considered with respect to customs common to these civilizations. Because Islamic artists were often prohibited from using iconography, interior spaces would have to be decorated much differently. Where the middle ages in Europe required the use of visual representations in order to move the largely illiterate members of church, high literacy rates within Islamic societies allowed for a different approach. Thus one sees calligraphy taking the place of iconography, with artists forming the Arabic script into the very shape they represent. Both the Hagia Sophia and the Selimiye Mosque are great examples of this, relying on massive circular panels with inscriptions as simple as “Allah,” to entire Quran verses being displayed in minute detail along the walls and ceiling.

Islamic architecture to this day remains highly captivating, and visiting structures such as the Cairo citadel leaves today’s adventurer as breathless as one from 800 years ago. It should indeed come as no surprise that the Muslim religion has flourished so remarkably, as the people of Islam have such powerful places of worship to associate with.