Islamic Art and Architecture

Islamic art spans a vast region from Spain to South Asia, distinguished by calligraphy, geometric and vegetal ornament, and architecture from mosques to palaces.

Definition

The art and architecture produced in or for Islamic societies across the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, Central and South Asia, from the rise of Islam to the modern period.

Scope

This topic studies the art and architecture of the Islamic world from the 7th century onward, including the mosque and its development, calligraphy as the supreme art, arabesque and geometric ornament, the arts of the book, and the great architectural achievements of the Umayyad, Abbasid, Mamluk, Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal traditions.

Core questions

• What unifies the diverse arts of the Islamic world?
• Why are calligraphy and ornament so central to Islamic art?
• How did the mosque develop as an architectural form?
• How should the relation between Islam, imagery, and figuration be understood?

Key theories

Formation of Islamic art

Oleg Grabar's analysis of how a distinctive Islamic visual language formed by adapting late antique and Sasanian sources to the needs and ideology of the new faith and empire.

Primacy of calligraphy and ornament

The account that, with figuration restricted in religious contexts, calligraphy of the Qur'anic word and abstract geometric and vegetal ornament became the highest expressions of Islamic art.

History

The modern study of Islamic art took shape in the 19th and 20th centuries, with Oleg Grabar among the most influential in defining it as a coherent field. Scholarship has moved from an emphasis on ornament and craft toward fuller social, religious, and architectural contextualization across the Islamic world's many dynasties.

Debates

Aniconism and figuration

Scholars debate the nature and extent of restrictions on figural imagery in Islam, noting abundant figuration in secular and courtly art alongside its avoidance in religious settings.

Key figures

• Oleg Grabar
• Sheila Blair
• Jonathan Bloom

Seminal works

• ettinghausen2001
• grabar1987
• blairbloom1994

Frequently asked questions

Is figural imagery forbidden in Islamic art?

Figuration is generally avoided in religious contexts such as mosques and Qur'ans, but it appears widely in secular and courtly art like manuscript painting.

Why is calligraphy so important in Islamic art?

Because the Qur'an is the word of God in Arabic, the beautiful writing of that word became the most esteemed of the Islamic arts.