Islamic Archaeology | Chapter 4: Origins of Islamic Art

Continuation

Al-Bukhārī relates in the chapter “On the Dislike of Sitting on Images” in the Book of Dress in his Ṣaḥīḥ, on the authority of ʿĀʾisha—may God be pleased with her—that she bought a cushion on which there were images. The Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) stood at the door and did not enter. She said: “I repent to God of what I have done.” He said: “What is this cushion?” She said: “So that I may sit on it and recline on it.” He said: “The makers of these images will be punished on the Day of Resurrection and it will be said to them: ‘Bring to life what you have created.’ And the angels do not enter a house in which there are images.”¹

Al-Bukhārī also relates in the chapter “What is Trod Upon of Images” in the Book of Dress that ʿĀʾisha—may God be pleased with her—said: “The Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) returned from a journey, and I had screened a side of my chamber with a curtain that had images on it. When the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) saw it, his face changed colour and he said: ‘O ʿĀʾisha, the people who will receive the severest punishment from God on the Day of Resurrection will be those who try to imitate God’s creation.’ She said: ‘So we cut it up and made from it one or two cushions.’”²

It is also related that the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) went out one day wearing a black-haired striped cloak (mirt), and that he (may God bless him and grant him peace) used to pray in such striped cloaks. In a ḥadīth of ʿĀʾisha—may God be pleased with her—it is stated: “The Anṣār mentioned it, and each woman stood up to her own striped cloak.”³

In addition to this, the ring,⁴ the sword⁵ and the kīr⁶ are mentioned in noble Prophetic ḥadīths.

Thus from all of this we conclude that the Arabs possessed their own artistic traditions at the appearance of Islam and the rise of Islamic civilisation, and that they were therefore not dependent on other civilisations in this field. When the Muslim Arabs entered the regions that had been subject to the Sasanians, the Romans and the Byzantines—regions that extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the borders of India in the east—and their inhabitants hastened to rally under the banner of Islam and to work in its shade, the political, military and moral superiority of the Arabs at that time helped to establish the supremacy of the Arab-Islamic character in those regions.

The Muslim Arabs possessed an abundant share of political breadth of vision and civilisational sense, so that they preserved the useful artistic and industrial traditions in the countries they conquered, and worked to advance and develop them along the proper path.

The nascent Islamic state, by virtue of the new Islamic spirit and the industrial and artistic experiences enjoyed by the peoples under it—Arabs, Persians, Byzantines, Copts and others—was able to create a new art distinguished by the intermingling of different industrial traditions and by the supremacy of the Arab-Islamic character.¹

The Arab-Islamic Foundations of the Arts of Islam

The Islamic arts rested on firm Arab foundations and were formed around genuine Islamic axes.

The first of these foundations or axes is the mosque, which is regarded as the most important landmark of the Islamic arts. The construction and maintenance of the mosque is among the best acts of drawing near to God, as He says: “The mosques of God are only to be maintained by those who believe in God and the Last Day and establish prayer and give zakāh and fear none but God. It is they who are expected to be among the rightly guided.”¹

The Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) said: “Whoever builds a mosque for God, even if it be like a bird’s nest, God will build for him a house in Paradise.”²

The primary function of the mosque is the performance of prayer. God Almighty says: “A mosque founded on piety from the first day is more worthy for you to stand in.”³ Prayer is the pillar of Islam; whoever establishes it has established the religion, and whoever abandons it has demolished the religion.

The function of the mosque was not limited to prayer alone. The mosque was also a centre of government, administration, preaching and consultation; it was a place of adjudication and of the issuing of legal opinions, of teaching and of public announcement, and of other matters of religion and state. Consequently the status of the mosque rose among the Muslims.

It is well known that when the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) entered Medina after the Hijra he began the building of the mosque. A piece of land was levelled which he had purchased from two orphan boys in Medina; the plan of the mosque was then drawn, building materials of stone, mud-brick and palm trunks were prepared, and the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) and the Companions took part in the building work until the construction of the noble Prophetic Mosque was completed.¹ This was the first important architectural work in Islam (Figs. 2 and 3).

While the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) and his Companions were laying the foundations of the Prophetic Mosque, they were at the same time laying the foundations of the art of architecture and of Islamic ornament. For the architecture of the noble Prophetic Mosque developed after that on the basis of the design which the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) had begun. This mosque remained a model that was imitated by the builders of mosques in the other Islamic regions throughout the first four centuries after the Hijra, such as the mosques of Basra, Kufa and al-Fusṭāṭ (Figs. 15 and 211) and Qayrawān (Fig. 16), and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus² (Fig. 17). Its style became the most important architectural style for the building of mosques in the various periods, and the motive for that was the desire to follow the noble Prophetic Sunna (Figs. 15–43).

In the buildings of mosques the methods of planning and design developed, in addition to the architectural elements that were transferred to all other types of Islamic buildings—palaces (Figs. 94–104), madrasas (Figs. 44–57) and fortresses (Fig. 68), and others—as well as the geometric, vegetal and calligraphic ornamental styles (Figs. 125–139 and 228–230).

Through care for the foundations of mosques and the desire to beautify them, the ornamental and applied Islamic arts flourished. For example, the arts of metalwork developed thanks to the care given to metal furniture in mosques, such as lamps, chandeliers, candlesticks and stands, in addition to windows and plated doors (Figs. 163–202). Wooden crafts developed in their various kinds according to the interest in wooden furniture—minbars, chairs and raḥals (Figs. 210–218). The arts of glass developed through care for lighting lamps, niches and window glass (Figs. 203–207). The art of carpets rose thanks to the interest in furnishing mosques; indeed, this art, which the Muslims practised, almost derived its name from the very word for the mosque itself (Figs. 140–148).

Beside the mosque there existed another Arab-Islamic axis that was a principal foundation of the foundations of Islamic art: the noble muṣḥaf (Figs. 130, 131 and 221–226).

The name muṣḥaf was given to the written and preserved Holy Qur’an between two covers.¹ This designation is derived without doubt from the word ṣuḥuf, which is mentioned in the words of God Almighty: “The Messenger of God and those who are with him are severe against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and prostrating, seeking bounty from God and His pleasure. Their mark is on their faces from the trace of prostration. That is their description in the Torah. And their description in the Gospel is like a plant that produces its offshoots and strengthens them, so that they grow firm and stand upon their stalks, delighting the sowers—so that He may enrage by them the disbelievers. God has promised those who believe and do righteous deeds among them forgiveness and a great reward.”² And in His words: “Nay, it is a reminder. So whoever wills may remember it, in honoured pages, exalted and purified, by the hands of noble and dutiful scribes.”³

Artistic care for the noble muṣḥaf began after its collection in the time of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq—may God be pleased with him—and after the multiplication of the standardised copies in the time of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān—may God be pleased with him.⁴ This care was one of the most important causes that led to the flourishing of a number of the Islamic arts on the one hand, and to the development of the patterns of Islamic ornament on the other (Figs. 228 and 229).

Among the arts that advanced thanks to the care given to the noble muṣḥaf is the art of bookbinding, which flourished at the hands of the Muslims according to their care for the noble muṣḥaf (Figs. 221–226), whether as regards craftsmanship or ornament, to an extent that the Europeans had never reached in their imitation of it.

Among the most prominent features of Islamic bookbinding that the Europeans used in the Renaissance period is the “tongue of the cover” (Fig. 224), which was employed to protect the outer edges of the pages on the one hand, and to mark the places of stopping after reading so that reading could be resumed the next time on the other. The “tongue,” like the outer and inner faces of the cover (Figs. 221 and 223), was a field in which the skill of the Muslim artist appeared in inventing beautiful ornaments,¹ and in employing various industrial methods of inlay, gilding, colouring, pressing, engraving, printing, framing and the like.

The use of a type of ornament which the carpet-makers were the first to employ became widespread on the covers of books; its influence appeared in the ornament of mosque doors made of wood plated with copper. This ornamental pattern consists of a large central medallion containing ordered vegetal ornaments arranged in a geometric manner, and of a quarter-medallion in each of the four corners, and of an ornamental frame surrounding the entire rectangular surface (Fig. 142).

In addition to the art of bookbinding, the art of gilding also flourished. This art developed through care for determining the places of the divisions in the noble muṣḥaf, such as the separators of the verses, the beginnings of the sūras, the aḥzāb and the parts, and the places of prostration, in addition to the margins and the opening and closing pages, which were provided with ornaments in these places² (Fig. 230).

Then care for these places developed until gilding came to be used in the ornaments of the muṣḥaf that reached a high degree of beauty and perfection, so that they became models that the ornamenters followed in all the other Islamic arts.

Module Key Takeaways

Autonomous Foundations: Early Arab artistic traditions integrated diverse regional crafts while maintaining Arab-Islamic cultural supremacy.
The Mosque as a Pillar: The Prophetic Mosque established enduring architectural models and spurred crafts in metalwork, woodwork, glass, and carpets.
The Noble Muṣḥaf: Preserving the Holy Qur'an drove major innovations in bookbinding, cover design, geometric ornamentation, and gilding.