Religious Architecture and Islamic Cultures

Calendar

Note: For the full reading list, please see the readings section.

Part I: The Formative Period

SES #	Topics	Required Readings
1	Religious Architecture: Visual Impressions and Intellectual Contours.
2	Simple Origins and Influences of pre-Islamic Traditions.	Hourani, “The Making of a World,” 1-21.
3	The Life and Message of the Prophet. The Mosque of the Prophet in Medina and other Early Mosques.	Ibn Batuta, Travels, vol. 1, chapter 3, pp. 163-75; chapter 4, pp. 188-208. Allan and Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, 3-10, 15-17. Hoag, Introduction and Chapter 1: The Beginning of Islamic Architecture. Ettinghausen and Grabar, The Art and Architecture of Islam, 17-25.
4	Rituals of Worship: The Vocabulary of Religious Architecture.	Dickie, “Allah and Eternity: Mosques, Madrasas, and Tombs,” in G. Michell, Architecture of the Islamic World, 65-79. Prochazka, Mosques, 16-25. (pay attention to diagrams). Hourani, “Ways of Islam,” 147-52;“The Articulation of Islam,” 59-79.

Part II: The Classical Period

SES #	Topics	Required Readings
5	The conquests and the adaptation of ancient motifs as assertive elements of a new faith. The First Islamic monument: the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Competing ideologies, myths, and world views.	Jeffery, “The Story of the Night Journey and the Ascencion,” 621-39. Hourani, “The Formation of an Empire,” 22-37. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 26-34. Grabar, Formation, 45-67. Allan and Creswell, 19-40.
6	First Caliphal Expressions: Umayyad Mosques (715-50). Islamization of the Empire and Arabization of the State.	Ettinghausen and Grabar, 35-45. Allan and Creswell, 43-88. Hoag, Chapter 2. Umayyad architecture. Grabar, Formation, 104-38, “Islamic Religious Art: The Mosque.”
7	The Splendors of the Abbasids at Baghdad and Samarra. An Islamic Architectural Language: Monumentalizing the Hypostyle Type.	Ettinghausen and Grabar, 75-92. Allan and Creswell, 359-76. Hoag, Chapter 3.
8	Religious Monuments of the West: Ifriqiya and Spain. Imperial versus Provincial Expressions of Power.	Ettinghausen and Grabar, 92-105, 127-40. Allan and Creswell, 291-330, 391-406. Hoag, Chapters 4 and 5. Dodds, “The Great Mosque of Cordoba,” Al-Andalus, 11-25.
9	Fatimid Cairo: New Traditions and Old Forms. Muqarnas: Decorative Purposes and Symbolic Meanings.	Wheeler Thackston, (trans.), Naser-e Khosraw’s book of travels (Safarnama). Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture of Cairo, 58-67. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 167-86. Hoag, Chapter 8.
10	Iran and Central Asia: Developments on the Eastern Frontier. The Survival and Revival of pre-Islamic Modes of Construction and Expression. The Introduction of the Mausoleum.	Allan and Creswell, 264-69, 345-51. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 209-22. Hoag, Chapter 10: The Early Islamic Architecture of Persia. Kuban, Muslim Religious Architecture, 2: 27-33.

Part III: The Medieval Period

SES #	Topics	Required Readings
11	The Achitecture of the Great Seljuqs: The Four-Iwan Plan, Fom Palatial to Religious.	Hoag, Chapter 11: The Seljuks. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 253-84. Mohammad al-Asad, “Applications of Geometry,” in Frishman and Khan, The mosque, 55-75.
12	The Architecture of the Sunni Revival: Eastern Influences and Western Traditions. The Introduction and Spread of the Madrasa and the Khanqah.	Hourani, “Ways of Islam,” 147-57, and “The Culture of the ‘Ulama,” 158-66. Jeffery, A reader on Islam: “Sufism,” 640-66. Hoag, Chapter 12: The Classic Islamic Architecture of Syria and Iraq. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 294-97, 303-13. Rogers, The Spread of Islam, 82-100.
13	Crusades and Counter Crusades. The Articulation of the Idea of Jihad. Ayyubid and Early Mamluk Religious Architecture.	Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture of Cairo, 85-110. Blair and Bloom, 70-84. Ibn Batuta, Travels, vol. 1, chapter 1, pp. 41-60 (Cairo).
14	The Mongol Invasions and Consequent Islamization. The Mosques, Madrasas, and Mausolea of the Ilkhanids.	Hoag, Chapter 14: Ilkhanids and Timurids. Rogers, The Spread of Islam, “Shrines and Mausolea,” 119-36. Blair and Bloom, 5-15.
15	Religious Architecture of India under the Sultanates.	Ibn Batuta, Travels, vol. 3, chapter 11, pp. 619-28. Hoag, Chapter 15: The Classical Islamic Architecture of India. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 291-93. Blair and Bloom, 149-60. Hasan, “The Indian Subcontinent,” in Frishman and Khan, The mosque, 159-79.
16	Cairo: The Capital of Islam. Mamluk Religious Architecture.	Behrens-Abouseif, Islamic Architecture of Cairo, 122-57. Hoag, Chapter 9: The Later Classic Islamic Architecture of Egypt. Blair and Bloom, 70-93.
17	Discussion: The Political and Social Roles of Religious Architecture.	Hourani, “Cities and Their Rulers,” 130-46. Grabar, “The Architecture of the Middle Eastern City from Past to Present: The Case of the Mosque,” in Ira Lapidus, Middle Eastern Cities: A Symposium. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969): 26-46. Ibn Khaldun, Kitab al-ibar. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Chapter 4 of the abridgment: “Countries and Cities,” 263-95.

Part IV: The Age of the Gunpowder Empires

SES #	Topics	Required Readings
18	Timurid and Uzbek Architecture: A Tradition of Monumentality.	Thackston (trans.), A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, 63-100: Sharafuddin Ali Yazdi Zafarnama. Hoag, Chapter 14: The Later Classic Islamic Architecture of Persia: Timurids. Golombek and Wilber, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, 34-52. Blair and Bloom, 37-50 and 199-207.
19	Anatolia: The Islamization of the Northern Frontiers. From the Rum Seljuks to the Early Ottomans.	Hoag, Chapter 13: The Classic Islamic Architecture of Anatolia. Ettinghausen and Grabar, 297-303, 313-27. Blair and Bloom, 132-46. Necipoglu, “Anatolia and the Ottoman Legacy,” in Frishman and Khan, The mosque, 141-53. Also check, Vogt, Mosquées: Grand Courants de l’architecture Islamique. 151-212, for her typological and formal comparisons.
20	Imperial Ottoman Mosques and Kulliyes.	Necipoglu, “The Suleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas, 3 (1985): 92-115. Hoag, Chapter 16: The Architecture of the Ottoman Empire. Blair and Bloom, 213-30. Necipoglu, “Anatolia and the Ottoman Legacy,” in Frishman and Khan, The mosque, 153-57.
21	Discussion: Religion and the City. Short film, The Islamic City.	Hourani, “The Life of Cities,” 109-29. Grabar, The Great Mosque of Isfahan, 7-20. Kostof, A History of Architecture, 453-68.
22	Imperial Safavid Mosques and Madrasas of Isfahan. Short film, Isfahan.	Hoag, Chapter 17: The Architecture of the Safavid Empire. Blair and Bloom, 183-92.
23	Mosques and Mausolea of the Great Mughals of India.	Hoag, Chapter 18: The Architecture of the Moghul Empire. Lowry, “Humayun’s Tomb: Form, Function and Meaning in Early Mughal Architecture,” Muqarnas, 4 (1987): 133-48. Blair and Bloom, 267-86.

Part V: The Modern Period

SES #	Topics	Required Readings
24	Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Mosques in Major Capitals.	Hourani, “The Age of European Empires,” 263-78. Mohammad al-Asad, “The Mosque of al-Rifa’i in Cairo,” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 108-24. Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture. Chapter 10.
25	Historicism in Contemporary Religious Architecture: The Building of Mosques in the West.	Grabar, “The Mosque in Islamic Society Today” Khan, “An Overview of Contemporary Mosques,” in Frishman and Khan, The mosque, 242-67.
26	Discussion: The Religious Image of Islam. Some Contemporary Mosques and their Messages.	Burckhardt, Sacred Art in East and West, Foundations of Islamic Art, 101-19. Thackston, “The Role of Calligraphy” Arkoun, “The Metamorphosis of the Sacred,” in Frishman and Khan, The mosque, 43-53, 268-72.