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Illustrates the history of iconic element of Islamic architecture. This title reveals that the Minaret, long understood to have been invented in the early years of Islam as the place from which the muezzin gives the call to prayer, was actually invented some two centuries later to be a visible symbol of Islam.

Showcases the best recent research on epigraphy across the medieval Islamic world

When was the Dome of the Rock built and what meanings was the structure meant to convey. This book returns to one of the important pieces of evidence: the mosaic inscriptions running around the two faces of the octagonal arcade. Detailed examination of the physical characteristics, morphology and content of these inscriptions provides new evidence.

In the absence of a tradition of self-portraiture, how could artists signal their presence within a painting? Centred on late Timurid manuscript painting (ca. 1470-1500), this book reveals that pictures could function as the painter's delegate, charged with the task of centring and defining artistic work, even as they did not represent the artist's likeness. Influenced by the culture of the majlis, an institutional gathering devoted to intricate literary performances and debates, late Timurid painters used a number of strategies to shift manuscript painting from an illustrative device to a self-reflective object, designed to highlight the artist's imagination and manual dexterity. These strategies include visual abundance, linear precision, the incorporation of inscriptions addressing aspects of the painting and the artist's signature. Focusing on one of the most iconic manuscripts of the Persianate tradition, the Cairo Bustan made in late Timurid Herat and bearing the signatures of the painter Bihzad, this book explores Persian manuscript painting as a medium for artistic performance and self-representation, a process by which artistic authority was shaped and discussed.

This is a comprehensive study of the surviving monuments of the Qarakhanids an important yet little-known medieval dynasty that ruled much of Central Asia between the late 10th and early 13th centuries.

This lavishly illustrated volume presents the major surviving monuments of the early period of the Rum Seljuqs, the first major Muslim dynasty to rule Anatolia.

Studies the illustrated 16th-century Ottoman manuscripts of a major hagiography of Rumi and his spiritual descendants Picturing the life story of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, an outstanding poet, mystic and founder of the Sufi Mawlawi order (later popularly known as 'The Whirling Dervishes'), the paintings in three extant manuscripts of Aflaki's Wondrous Feats of the Knowers of God provide a unique way to interpret the text. Part One's three chapters, under the heading 'History and Context', provide the medieval Anatolian historical setting; the broad contours of literary and artistic works of Islamic hagiography; and the specific details of the three manuscripts to be explored. Part Two - 'Text and Image' - proposes a method for interpreting a hybrid literary-visual document as a grand narrative of the family Rumi at the inspirational and ethical core of a virtuous community flourishing within a complex Muslim society under divine providence. The paintings in the three manuscripts were produced by studios of painters under the patronage of major late 16th-century Ottoman sultans. The result of their efforts is a kind of 'visualised hagiography' uniquely capable of suggesting distinctive and often surprising twists on the narratives, enhancing the text with images of striking beauty and rich detail. Key Features - Presents a visualised hagiography in three 16th-century Ottoman manuscripts - Includes colour images of all the paintings from the three manuscripts, accompanied by a summary of the text illustrated in each picture - Focuses on the specific relationships between literary narrative and its visual representation in late medieval Islamic art - Provides Anatolian and Ottoman historical background as context for the life story of Rumi and the Mawlawi Sufi order John Renard is Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. He has written many books including Crossing Confessional Boundaries: Exemplary Lives in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Traditions (2020), Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment and Servanthood (2008) and All the King's Falcons: Rumi on Prophets and Revelation (1994).

This book investigates the neglected, interdisciplinary contexts of medieval poetics and optics and through comparative study of Islamic court ceremonials.

Greater Iranian arts from the 10th to the 16th century are technically some of the finest produced anywhere. Focusing on objects found in the main media at the time, the author shows how artisans played with form, material and decoration to engage their audiences.

Explains how the worship requirements of the mosque and the Chinese architectural system converged. What happens when a monotheistic, aniconic, foreign religion needs a space in which to worship in China, a civilisation with a building tradition that has been largely unchanged for several millennia?

This illustrated book aims to provide a fresh insight into medieval Islamic art through the prism of Chinese elements in Iranian art under the Mongols.

Explores how Islamic art and architecture were made: their materials and their social, political, economic and religious context

The first illustrated, architectural history of the 'Alid shrines, increasingly endangered by the conflict in Syria