Islamic Art and Architecture - Essay Example

Under caliphs 'Abd al-Malik, al-Wahid I and al-Wahid II, the sense of dynastic pride indulged through a heady consciousness of family power found its most public expression in ambitious building campaignsBetween 690 and 750, architecture became a family business backed by the immense financial resources of the Islamic state swollen by the accumulated booty of the Arab conquests and by the taxation revenue which came pouring in at the disposal of the Umayyad builders."There was both the will and the means to embark on grandiose building projects.

"Undue parochialism was avoided although there was the exclusivity of the massive building programme of the Umayyads in Syria: most favoured land in the Islamic empire, Damascus its principal city is the capital of the empire, agricultural installations, abundant wealth.Importing craftsmen and materials from the Byzantium to Aphrodito in Upper Egypt documents an Islamic corve systemOne governor provided money to cover living expenses of men to work on the Damascus mosqueStucco sculpture of Persian type, Iraqi techniques of vault construction, mouldings from south-eastern Anatolia, figural style in Coptic sculpture evidence style and building practice of Syria.

Position of Syria draw inspiration from the major cultures yoked together to bring Graeco-Roman, Egypt, North Africa, Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia."The fact that those same Umayyads were not a family of local Syrian notables but the representatives of the greatest empire in the contemporary world gave their art a mission of the utmost seriousness."Forms and ideas of classical art were much better understood in Syria that entered the bloodstream of Islamic art resulting to familiar Western column.

Undue parochialism was avoided although there was the exclusivity of the massive building programme of the Umayyads in Syria: most favoured land in the Islamic empire, Damascus its principal city is the capital of the empire, agricultural installations, abundant wealth. "The fact that those same Umayyads were not a family of local Syrian notables but the representatives of the greatest empire in the contemporary world gave their art a mission of the utmost seriousness." The helicoidal tower of the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo composed of a central cylinder around which twists an external stircase which Hillenbrand suggested to have originated from Zoroastrian Persia towers of the more ancient Mesopotamian ziggurat Abbasid art is much understood through Samarra as new way of carving surfaces called bevelled style and repetition of abstract geometric or pseudo-vegetal forms called arabesque were used as wall decoration Jawhar the Sicilian, commander of the Fatimid troops sent by the Fatimid Caliph Almuiz to conquer Egypt, founded Cairo in 358 AH / 969 SD and built Al-Azhar mosque, now including the Al-Azhar University It is characterised by major technical