Islam

{iz'-luhm}
Islam, a major world religion, is customarily defined in non-Islamic sources as the religion of those who follow the Prophet MUHAMMAD. The prophet, who lived in Arabia in the early 7th century, initiated a religious movement that was carried by the ARABS throughout the Middle East.
Today, Islam has adherents not only in the Middle East, where it is the dominant religion in all countries (Arab and non-Arab) except Israel, but also in other parts of Asia, Africa and, to a certain extent, in Europe and in the United States. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims (sometimes spelled Moslems).

The Name and Its Meaning

The Arabic word al-islam means the act of committing oneself unreservedly to God, and a Muslim is a person who makes this commitment. Widely used translations such as "resignation," "surrender" and "submission" fail to do justice to the positive aspects of the total commitment for which al-islam stands--a commitment in faith, obedience, and trust to the one and only God (ALLAH). All of these elements are implied in the name of this religion, which is characteristically described in the KORAN (Arabic, Qur'an; the sacred book of Islam) as "the religion of Abraham." In the Koran, ABRAHAM is the patriarch who turned away from idolatry, who "came to his Lord with an undivided heart" (37:84), who responded to God in total obedience when challenged to sacrifice his son (37:102-105), and who served God uncompromisingly. For Muslims, therefore, the proper name of their religion expresses the Koranic insistence that no one but God is to be worshiped. Hence, many Muslims, while recognizing the significance of the Prophet Muhammad, have objected to the terms Muhammadanism (or Mohammedanism) and Muhammadans (or Mohammedans)--designations used widely in the West until recently--since they detect in them the suggestion of a worship of Muhammad parallel to the worship of Jesus Christ by Christians.

Numbers

Estimates of the world population of Muslims range from a low of 750 million to a high of 1.2 billion; 950 million is a widely used medium. Notwithstanding the significant variations in these estimates, many observers agree that the world population of Muslims is increasing by approximately 25 million per year. Thus, a 250-million increase is anticipated for the decade 1990-2000. This significant expansion, due primarily but not entirely to the general population growth in Asia and Africa, is gradually reducing the numerical difference between Christians (the largest religious community) and Muslims, whose combined totals make up almost 50 percent of the world's population.




Origin

While many Muslims vehemently oppose the language that the Prophet Muhammad is the "founder" of Islam--an expression which they interpret as an implicit denial of God's initiative and involvement in the history of Islam's origins--none would challenge that Islam dates back to the lifetime (570-632) of the Prophet and the years in which he received the divine revelations recorded in the Koran. At the same time, however, most of them would stress that it is only in a sense that Islam dates back to the 7th century, since they regard their religion not as a 7th-century innovation, but as the restoration of the original religion of Abraham. They would also stress that Islam is a timeless religion, not just because of the "eternal truth" that it proclaims but also because it is "every person's religion," the natural religion in which every person is born.

Islam's Comprehensive Character

When applied to Islam, the word religion has a far more comprehensive meaning than it commonly has in the West. Islam encompasses personal faith and piety, the creed and worship of the community of believers, a way of life, a code of ethics, a culture, a system of laws, an understanding of the function of the state--in short, guidelines and rules for life in all its aspects and dimensions. While many Muslims see the SHARIA (the "way," denoting the sacred law governing the life of individuals as well as the structures of society) as fixed and immutable, others make a clear distinction between the unchangeable message of the Koran and the mutable laws and regulations for Muslim life and conduct. Throughout history, practices and opinions have differed with regard to the exact way in which Islam determines life in all its aspects, but the basic notion of Islam's comprehensive character is so intrinsic to Muslim thought and feeling that neither the past history of the Muslim world nor its present situation can be understood without taking this characteristic into consideration. According to Muslim jurists, the sharia is derived from four sources--the Koran; the sunna ("customs") of the Prophet, which are embodied in the hadith ("tradition"); qiyas ("analogy"; the application of a decision of the past, or the principles on which it was based, to new questions); and ijma ("consensus"; the consensus of the community of believers, who, according to a saying of the Prophet, would not agree on any error).

HISTORY AND SPREAD OF ISLAM

The Prophet

Muhammad was born in 570 in MECCA, a trading centre in western Arabia. About 610 he received the first of a series of revelations that convinced him that he had been chosen as God's messenger. He began to preach the message entrusted to him--that there is but one God, to whom all humankind must commit themselves. The polytheistic Meccans resented Muhammad's attacks on their gods and finally he emigrated with a few followers to MEDINA. This migration, which is called the Hegira (Hijrah), took place in 622; Muslims adopted the beginning of that year as the first year of their lunar calendar (Anno Hegirae, or AH). At Medina Muhammad won acceptance as a religious and military leader. Within a few years he had established control of the surrounding region, and in 630 he finally conquered Mecca. There, the KAABA, a shrine that had for some time housed the idols of the pagan Meccans, was rededicated to the worship of Allah, and it became the object of pilgrimage for all Muslims. By the time of his death in 632, Muhammad had won the allegiance of most of the Arab tribespeople to Islam. He had laid the foundation for a community (umma) ruled by the laws of God. The Koran records that Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophets, the last of a line of God's messengers that began with Adam and included Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Jesus. He left for the future guidance of the community the words of God revealed to him and recorded in the Koran, and the sunna, the collective name for his opinions and decisions as recorded in the tradition literature (hadith).

A Rapidly Growing Empire, 632-750

After the death of Muhammad, a successor (khalifa, or caliph; see IMAM) was chosen to rule in his place. The first caliph, the Prophet's father-in-law, ABU BAKR (r. 632-34), initiated an expansionist movement that was carried out most successfully by the next two caliphs, UMAR I (r. 634-44) and Uthman (r. 644-56). By 656 the CALIPHATE included the whole Arabian peninsula, Palestine and Syria, Egypt and Libya, Mesopotamia, and substantial parts of Armenia and Persia. Following the assassination of Uthman, the disagreements between those upholding the rights of the fourth caliph, ALI (r. 656-61), the Prophet's son-in-law, and their opponents led to a division in the Muslim community between the SHIITES and the SUNNITES that still exists today. When the governor of Syria, MUAWIYA I, came to power after the murder of Ali, the Shiites refused to recognize him and his successors. Muawiya inaugurated an almost 90-year rule by the UMAYYADS (661-750), who made Damascus their capital. A second wave of expansion followed. After they conquered (670) Tunisia, Muslim troops reached the northwestern point of North Africa in 710. In 711 they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, rapidly overran Spain, and penetrated well into France until they were turned back near Poitiers in 732. On the northern frontier Constantinople was besieged more than once (though without success), and in now bordered China and India, with some settlements in the Punjab.

Rival Dynasties and Competing Capitals, 750-1258

In 750, Umayyad rule in Damascus was ended by the ABBASIDS, who moved the caliphate's capital to Baghdad. The succeeding period was marked more by an expansion of horizons of thought than by geographical expansion. In the fields of literature, the sciences, and philosophy, contributions by such Muslim scholars as al-KINDI, al-FARABI, and Ibn Sina (AVICENNA) far surpassed European accomplishments of that time. Politically, the power of the Abbasids was challenged by a number of rival dynasties. These included an Umayyad dynasty in Cordoba, Spain (756-1031); the FATIMIDS, a dynasty connected with the ISMAILIS (a Shiite sect), who established (909) themselves in Tunisia and later (969-1171) ruled Egypt; the ALMORAVIDS and the ALMOHADS, Muslim Berber dynasties that successively ruled North Africa and Spain from the mid-11th to the mid-13th century; the SELJUKS, a Muslim Turkish group that seized Baghdad in 1055 and whose defeat of the Byzantines in 1071 led indirectly to the Christian CRUSADES (1096-1254) against the Islamic world; and the AYYUBIDS, who displaced the Fatimids in Egypt and played an important role in the later years of the Crusades. The Abbasids were finally overthrown (1258) in Baghdad by the MONGOLS, although a family member escaped to Egypt, where he was recognized as caliph. While the brotherhood of faith remained a reality, the political unity of the Muslim world was definitely broken.

Two Great Islamic Powers: The Ottomans and the Moguls

The Ottoman Turkish dynasty, founded by OSMAN I (c.1300), became a major world power in the 15th century, and continued to play a very significant role throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The BYZANTINE EMPIRE, with which Muslim armies had been at war since the early days of Islam, came to an end in 1453 when Ottoman sultan MEHMED II conquered Constantinople. That city then became the capital of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE. In the first half of the 16th century, Ottoman power, already firmly established over all Anatolia and in most of the Balkans, gained control over Syria, Egypt (the sultans assumed the title caliph after deposing the last Abbasid in Cairo), and the rest of North Africa. It also expanded significantly northwestward into Europe, besieging Vienna in 1529. The defeat of the Ottoman navy in the Battle of LEPANTO in 1571 was not, as many in Europe hoped, the beginning of a rapid disintegration of the Ottoman Empire; more than one hundred years later, in 1683, Ottoman troops once again besieged Vienna. The decline of the empire becomes more visible from the late 17th century onward, but it survived through World War I. Turkey became a republic under Kemal ATATURK in 1923, and the caliphate was abolished in 1924. The MOGULS were a Muslim dynasty of Turko-Mongol origin who conquered northern India in 1526. The Mogul Empire reached the climax of its power in the period from the late 16th century until the beginning of the 18th century. Under the emperors AKBAR, JAHANGIR, SHAH JAHAN, and AURANGZEB, Mogul rule was extended over most of the subcontinent, and Islamic culture (with a strong Persian flavor) was firmly implanted in certain areas. The splendor of the Moguls is reflected in a special way in their architecture. In the 18th century Mogul power began to decline. It survived, at least in name, however, till 1858, when the last sultan was dethroned by the British.

Two Examples of the Coming of Islam in Frontier Areas

Indonesia and West Africa. While there may have been sporadic contacts from the 10th century onward with Muslim merchants, it was only in the 13th century that Islam clearly established itself in Sumatra, where small Muslim states formed on the north-east coast. Islam spread to Java in the 16th century, and then expanded, generally in a peaceful manner, from the coastal areas inward to all parts of the Indonesian archipelago. By the 19th century it had reached to the north-east and extended into the Philippines. Today there are 140 million Muslims in Indonesia, constituting 90 percent of the population. Islam penetrated West Africa in three main phases. The first was that of contacts with Arab and Berber caravan traders, from the 10th century onward. Then followed a period of gradual Islamization of some rulers' courts, among them that of the famous MANSA MUSA (r. 1312-27) in Mali. Finally, in the 16th century the Sufi orders (brotherhoods of mystics), especially the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyya, and Muridiyya, as well as individual saints and scholars, began to play an important role. The 19th century witnessed more than one JIHAD (holy war) for the purification of Islam from pagan influences, while later in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, Muslims formed a significant element in the growing resistance to colonial powers. In the post-colonial period Islam plays an important role in smaller Muslim communities in the other states in West Africa.

ISLAM IN MODERN HISTORY

Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, followed three years later by the expulsion of the French troops by the combined British-Ottoman forces, is often seen as the beginning of the modern period in the history of Islam. The coming to power of MUHAMMAD ALI (r. 1805-49) and the modernization of Egypt under his leadership was the beginning of a long struggle throughout the Muslim world to re-establish independence from the colonial powers and to assume their place as autonomous countries in the modern world. Resistance to foreign domination and an awareness of the need to restore the Muslim community to its proper place in world history are integral parts of the pan-Islamic efforts of JAMAL AL-DIN AL-AFGHANI as well as the nationalist movements of the 20th century. The political, social, and economic developments in the various countries with Muslim majorities show significant differences. For example, Turkey and many of the Arab countries have become secular republics, whereas Saudi Arabia is virtually an absolute monarchy, ruled under Muslim law. Iran was ruled from 1925 to 1979 by the Pahlavi dynasty, which stressed secularization and westernization. Growing resistance from the Muslim community, which is overwhelmingly Shiite, culminated in the forced departure of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic republic under the leadership of the Ayatollah KHOMEINI. However, while opinions differ with regard as to how Islam can continue to function in modern societies as a force relevant to all aspects of life, the great majority of Muslims hold fast to the notion of the comprehensive character of Islam as well as to its basic theological doctrines.

ISLAMIC DOCTRINES

Islamic doctrines are commonly discussed and taught widely--often by means of a catechism, with questions and answers--under six headings: God, angels, Scriptures,
messengers, the Last Day, and predestination. The Muslims' notion of God (Allah) is, in a sense, interrelated with all of the following points and will be referred to below. Some of the angels (all of whom are servants of God and subject to him) play a particularly important role in the daily life of many Muslims: the guardian angels; the recording angels (those who write down a person's deeds, for which he or she will have to account on Judgement Day); the angel of death; and the angels who question a person in the tomb. One of those mentioned by name in the Koran is Jibril (GABRIEL), who functioned in a special way as a transmitter of God's revelation to the Prophet. The importance of the Muslim recognition of Scriptures other than the Koran and of messengers other than Muhammad will be referred to below.
The promise and threat of the Last Day, which occupy an important place in the Koran, continue to play a major role in Muslim thought and piety. On the Last Day, of which only God knows the hour, every soul will stand alone and will have to account for its deeds. In the theological discussions of the Last Day and, in general, of the concept of God, a significant issue has been whether the descriptions in the Koran (of HEAVEN and HELL, the vision of God, God being seated on the throne, the hands of God, and so on) should be interpreted literally or allegorically. The majority view accepts the principle of literal interpretation (God is seated on the throne, he has hands), but adds the warning and qualification that humans cannot state and should not ask how this is the case, since God is incomparable (bila kayf, "without how"; bila tashbih, "beyond comparison").
The last of the six articles, PREDESTINATION, is also a theocentric issue. Because the divine initiative is all-decisive in bringing humans to faith ("had God not guided us, we had surely never been guided," 7:43), many concluded that God is not only responsible for guiding some but also for not guiding others, allowing them to go astray or even leading them astray. In the debate of later theologians on these questions, the antipredestinarians were concerned less with upholding the notion of human freedom and, therefore, of human dignity, than with defending the honor of God. According to these thinkers--the Qadarites and the Mutazilites, of the 8th to 10th centuries--the Koranic message of the justice of God "who does not wrong people" (". . .they wrong themselves," 43:76) excluded the notion of a God who would punish human beings for evil deeds and unbelief for which they themselves were not really responsible. The major concern of their opponents was to maintain, against any such reasoning, the doctrine of the sovereign freedom of God, upon whom no limits can be placed, not even the limit of "being bound to do what is best for his creatures." Two important theologians of the 10th century, al-Ashari (d. 935) and al-Maturidi (d. 944), formulated answers that would mark for the centuries to come the traditional (Sunni) position on these points. Although one's acts are willed and created by God, one has to appropriate them to make them one's own. A recognition of a degree of human responsibility is combined with the notion of God as the sole creator, the One and Only.
Around this concept of the unity of God another debate arose on the essence and attributes of God; it focused on the question whether the Koran--God's speech--was created or uncreated. Those who held that the Koran was created believed that the notion of an uncreated Koran implied another eternal reality alongside God, who alone is eternal and does not share his eternity with anyone or anything else. Their opponents felt that the notion of a created Koran detracted from its character as God's own speech. The Sunni position that emerged from these discussions was that the Koran as written down or recited is created, but that it is a manifestation of the eternal "inner speech" of God, which precedes any articulation in sounds and letters.
None of the theological issues referred to above can be understood fully unless the socio-political context of these doctrinal debates is taken into consideration.
The interrelation between theological positions and political events is particularly clear in the first issues that arose in the history of Islam. Reference has already been made to the division between the Shiites and the Sunnites. The Shiites were those who maintained that only "members of the family" (Hashimites, or, in the more restricted sense, descendants of the Prophet via his daughter, FATIMA and her husband Ali) had a right to the caliphate. Another group, the Kharijites (literally "those who seceded"), broke away from Ali (who was murdered by one of their members) and from the Umayyads. They developed the doctrine that confession, or faith, alone did not make a person a believer and that anyone committing grave sins was an unbeliever destined to hell. They applied this argument to the leaders of the community, holding that caliphs who were grave sinners could not claim the allegiance of the faithful. While the mainstream of Muslims accepted the principle that faith and works must go together, they rejected the Kharijite ideal of establishing here on earth a pure community of a person is a believer or an unbeliever must be left to God. Suspension of the answer till Judgement Day enabled them to recognize anyone accepting the "five pillars" (see below) as a member of the community of believers, and to recognize those Muslims who had political authority over them, even if they objected to some of their practices.

ISLAMIC WORSHIP, PRACTICES, AND DUTIES

To what extent faith and works go together is evident from the traditional listing of the basic duties of any Muslim, the "five pillars" of Islam: shahada, the profession of faith in God and the apostleship of Muhammad; salat, the ritual prayer, performed five times a day facing Mecca; zakat, almsgiving; sawm (fasting), abstaining from food and drink during the daylight hours of the month of RAMADAN; and hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, incumbent on every believer who is financially and physically able to undertake it. The witness to God stands here side by side with the concern for the poor, reflected in almsgiving. The personal involvement of the individual believer, expressed most clearly in the formulation of the shahada, "I witness there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God," is combined with a deep awareness of the strength that lies in the fellowship of faith and the community of all believers, significant dimensions of both the ritual prayer and the pilgrimage.
Muslim worship and devotion is not limited to the precisely prescribed words and gestures of the salat, but finds expression also in a wealth of personal prayers, in the gathering of the congregation in the central mosque on Fridays, and in the celebration of the two main festivals: Id al-Fitr, the festival of the breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan; and Id al-Adha, the festival of the sacrifice (in memory of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son). The latter, observed on the 10th day of the month of pilgrimage, is celebrated not only by the participants in the pilgrimage, but also simultaneously by those who stay in their own locations. The interpretations of jihad (literally, "striving" in the way of God), sometimes added as an additional duty, vary from sacred war to striving to fulfil the ethical norms and principles expounded in the Koran.

ISLAMIC VIEWS OF OTHER RELIGIONS

Islam is definitely an inclusivistic religion in the sense that it recognizes God's sending of messengers to all peoples and his granting of "Scripture and Prophethood" to Abraham and his descendants, the latter resulting in the awareness of a very special link between Muslims, Jews, and Christians as all Abraham's children. Throughout history there have been believers who discerned the Truth of God and responded to him in the right manner, committing themselves to him alone. Of these "Muslims before Muhammad," the Koran mentions, among others, Abraham and his sons, Solomon and the queen of Sheba, and the disciples of Jesus. This inclusiveness is also expressed in the Muslim recognition of earlier Scriptures, namely, the Taurat (Torah) given to Moses, the Zabur (Psalms) of David, and the Injil (Gospel) of Jesus.
This recognition of other prophets besides Muhammad and other Scriptures besides the Koran is coupled with the firm conviction that the perfection of religion and the completion of God's favour to humanity have been realised in the sending down of the Koran, the sending of Muhammad as "the Seal of the Prophets," and the establishing of Islam. People's reactions and response to this final criterion of truth became, therefore, the evidence of their faith or unbelief. Those who, on the basis of what they had previously received from God, recognize the message of the Koran as the ultimate Truth show themselves thereby as true believers, while those who reject it prove themselves to be unbelievers, no matter by what name they call themselves.
Willem A. Bijlefeld

Islamic art and architecture

Islamic art and architecture refers to artistic achievements in those lands where, from the 7th century on, ISLAM became the dominant faith. The Islamic tradition encompasses the arts of the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, Anatolia and the Balkans, Central Asia, and northern and central India, from the time each of these areas became Muslim--as early as AD 622 in parts of Arabia and as late as the 15th century for Istanbul, parts of the Balkans, and central India. Generally excluded from consideration in this context are the arts of sub-Saharan and eastern Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Muslim parts of China. These areas did not adopt Islam untilrelatively late, generally after the 16th century, and by that time the artistic creativity of the central Muslim lands had weakened; their arts tend to be closer to local traditions.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

During the most creative millennium in Islamic art (about 650-1650) certain key features emerged that came to characterise the Islamic style of art and architecture. These shared characteristics appeared despite the differences in environment between such diverse lands as Mediterranean Spain, steppic Central Asia, mountainous Algeria, arid Arabia, and the subtropical Indus Valley, and despite cultural diversity of such distant ethnic groups as Arabs, Berbers, Persians, Turks, and Indians. The developing Islamic tradition drew on complex artistic inheritances that included Late Roman art, Early Christian art of the Byzantines and the Copts, and Sassanian art of Persia, and on lesser influences from Mongol, Central Asian, and Indian sources.



Function of Art

From its inception Islamic art was an art created for the setting of daily life. Most religious architecture, notably the MOSQUE and the MINARET, was built less as a testimonial to Allah than as a place where people could best express their piety and learn the precepts of the faith. In addition to that used to decorate buildings, Islamic painting developed primarily in the form of book illustration and illumination. Such painted works were generally created not as ends in themselves but to help explain a scientific text or to enhance the pleasure of reading history or literature.
In the field of the decorative arts the Islamic style is distinguished by the novelty and extraordinary quality of techniques used in the making of utilitarian objects. These techniques include the application of lustrous glazes and rich colours in ceramics and glassware; intricate silver inlays that transform the surfaces of bronze metalwork; lavish moulded stucco and carved wood wall panels; and endlessly varied motifs woven into textiles and rugs. In nearly all instances the objects decorated--whether ewers, cooking cauldrons, candlesticks, or pen cases--served fundamentally practical purposes; their aesthetic effect was aimed above all at making the daily activities or architectural setting more pleasurable.

Sources of Patronage

The vast majority of surviving examples of Islamic art reflect the patronage of a wide social spectrum, most of the patronage coming from the urban world of the great Islamic cities. From Cordoba in Spain to Samarkand in Central Asia, the cities were the centres of Islamic learning and of mercantile wealth. Of the thousands of ceramic objects excavated in the Persian city of Nishapur, the celebrated lusterwares from Fatimid Cairo, or the many inlaid bronzes from Herat (Afghanistan) or Mosul (Iraq), most were made for the bourgeoisie of the cities. The styles of these objects reflect the preferences of these urban dwellers; the variations in quality presumably reflect local variations in price and standards of appreciation.
In addition to the arts created for the urban strata of the Islamic world there was a splendid art of kings and emperors. Little has been preserved of this regal art, however, and only with imagination is it possible to reconstruct the secluded life of the 9th-century imperial palaces at Samarra, or the pleasure pavilions of the Safavids in Iran, such as the 17th-century Ali Qapu and Chehel Sutun in Isfahan. An exquisitely ornamented and rare rock-crystal ewer, preserved in the San Marco Museum, Venice, provides a hint of the richness of 10th- and 11th-century Fatimid art in Cairo; the countless treasures in the Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, attest to the enormous wealth of the Turkish Ottomans.

Decorative Character of Art

A fundamental characteristic of much Islamic art is its powerfully decorative or ornamental quality. A variety of arbitrary geometric, floral, or other types of designs--such as the swirling, interlaced ARABESQUE--tend to predominate over specific motifs taken from nature or from an idealised version of the natural world. Although there are exceptions, the vast majority of motifs, decorating everything from architectural monuments to manuscript borders, do not seem to bear direct relation to a visually perceived reality. Even CALLIGRAPHY, the art of beautifulhandwriting, often seems removed from the meaning of the words depicted; it functions instead more as a decorative element. In this decorative tendency Islamic art contrasts sharply with the representational art of the West, in which precise iconographic meanings are attached to most artistic forms.
Whether in fact the Muslim world may also have sought to transmit a concrete message through its abstract forms is a subject of debate among scholars. Several possibilities have been suggested. One is that the Muslims tended to reject the representation of the visible in their art to emphasise that visible reality is but an illusion and that Allah alone is true. Abstraction thus became a way to make a very specific theological point. Another theory holds that an art which sought above all to enhance the setting of human activities, rather than to order human behaviour or beliefs, was by necessity compelled to develop abstract forms rather than forms with a single obvious meaning.
An excellent example of the difficulty involved in even defining this problem lies in the muqarnas (sometimes called the honeycomb or stalactite motif), a form of ceiling decoration composed of small, three-dimensional units invented in Iran in the 10th century and eventually found everywhere from Spain to India. The muqarnas appears at first glance to be an arbitrary and strictly ornamental architectural motif. In Iranian domes of the late 11th and 12th centuries, however, the muqarnas ceiling carries a structural significance, in which the parts of the design are carefully aligned with support thrusts from the dome. In the intricately faceted ceilings of the Moorish ALHAMBRA outside Granada or the Cappella Porlatina (Palantine Chapel) in Palermo, inscriptions and the particular sequence of designs indicate that the muqarnas ceiling was meant to symbolically represent the dome of heaven. Other existing examples show that many seemingly abstract motifs in Islamic art carried subtle layers of meaning discernible either through their context or through an inscription.

Iconoclastic Tendency

Another characteristic of Islamic art is what is generally called its iconoclasm, or rejection of the representation of religious images and other living beings. In many ways the term iconoclasm is not an appropriate one because no formal doctrinal statement against such representations appeared in the Koran but only in the Hadith (traditions), a later writing. Even there the statements are incidental and partial (the decoration of baths or floors, for example, are exempted from the prohibition). Nevertheless, it is true that early Islamic art modified the art of previous centuries by tending to avoid the representation of humans and animals. Whether this reluctance was derived from a still undetected religious prohibition or from a search for a cultural identity distinct from the identities of other traditions remains a matter of scholarly debate.


Primacy of Calligraphy

The art of calligraphy played a pre-eminent role throughout the world of Islam. Because of its association with the divine revelation, the Arabic alphabet became the vehicle for such diverse languages as Persian and Turkish. In addition, Islamic culture in general was highly verbal, therefore, unusual attention was given to the transformation of writing into a visually appealing expression of aesthetic forms. From the sharp angles of early Kufic to the flowing rhythms of later Persian shekasteh script or to the formal compositions of an Ottoman tughra (imperial emblem), many different systems of proportions between letters, relationships between parts of letters, and arrangements of words were developed. The impact of a fascination with writing appeared throughout the Islamic world: ceramics, metal objects, textiles, and architecture all acquired calligraphic forms as a universally appreciated means of decoration.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Although no universally accepted chronology of Islamic art and architecture exists, the following three major periods are generally recognized: the Formative period (650-1000), Middle period (1000-1250), and Late period (1250 on).

The Formative Period

From about 650 to 1000--under the Umayyad and early Abbasid CALIPHATES as well as of the first local dynasties in Spain, Egypt, and eastern Iran--the Muslim world created its own identifying forms, from mosques to the abstract design known as the arabesque. Major monuments from this period are found throughout the Islamic world--the mosques of Cordoba, Ibn Tulun in Cairo, Damascus, Samarra, and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; private palaces like Khirbat-al-Mafjar in Palestine; royal palaces like Samarra's in Iraq; the urban architecture of Baghdad; tin-glazed ceramics in Iraq, Egypt, and north-eastern Iran; woodwork and rock-crystal carving in Egypt; carved ivories in Spain. However, the most influential and perhaps most creative area was Iraq, which remained the centre of the Muslim world until the early part of the 11th century. Although some of the more imaginative ceramics have been found in Nishapur in eastern Iran, it was probably in Iraq that the technique of lusterware originated (9th century), along with other uniquely Islamic forms of decorative art.

The Middle Period

The year 1000 marks the beginning of the Middle period of Islamic art. During this brilliant period, cut short by the Mongol invasion during the early 13th century, a large number of local styles were formed. Eastern Iran, western Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Anatolia (newly conquered by the Seljuks), North Africa, and Spain all acquired their own stylistic and iconographic peculiarities, which corresponded to political and social differences between provinces and the weakening of central authority. Cairo, Nishapur, Herat, Isfahan, and the Anatolian centre of Konya rivalled the early Islamic capital city of Baghdad in cultural and artistic importance. Yet common threads were maintained in the art of these diverse centres. In almost all Islamic cities an architecture of citadels and city walls rather than of palaces reflected the new power of a military elite. Next to the single mosques were built small private mosques, mausoleums for holy men, and madrasahs (schools of law and theology) or khanqahs (semimonastic establishments for holy men and women). This proliferation of architectural complexes in Islamic cities illustrates the growing complexity of the Muslim religious system during this period. Throughout the Muslim world a new emphasis was given to external forms of architecture (minarets, gates, and domes) as well as to the muqarnas.
New or reinvented techniques in the decorative arts--minai, or enamelling in ceramics, lustre painting in glass, and silver inlays in metalwork--made it possible to increase the number and character of illustrated topics. Quite suddenly in the latter part of the 12th century, during this period of intense artistic creativity, books began to be illustrated. The reasons for this proliferation of new forms of representation are difficult to assess. In part it reflected new contacts with other cultures (India and the Christian West), but it probably also reflected an internal need for more complex expressions of a richer culture. The Middle period was also an era when mysticism began to affect all aspects of Muslim piety and when local cultural traditions, especially those in Iran, began to reassert themselves.

Late Period

After the devastating Mongol invasions of 1220-60 the Muslim world became more strictly divided both politically and culturally. The separate geopolitical entities that emerged tended to remain independent of one another although still frequently subject to common influence. West to east, the principal independent cultural areas were the Muslim West, the area comprising Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; the Ottoman Empire; Iran; and Muslim India.
In the Muslim West, Islam slowly disappeared from Spain, culminating in the fall of Granada in 1492, but was maintained in North Africa. Moorish art is distinguished primarily by brilliant geometrical ornamentation adorning mostly private, interiorized, architectural monuments. This striking decorative tradition was maintained by the Mudejars, Moors remaining in Spain after its reconquest by the Christians, and exerted a strong influence on later Spanish styles of craftwork and architectural decoration. Except for the unique masterpiece of the 14th-century Alhambra palace, however, most of western Islamic art tended to be conservative and repetitive, with limited novelties in the art of objects.
From 1258 to 1517 the area comprising Egypt, Palestine, and Syria was ruled by the unique system of military slaves known as the MAMELUKES. Its major artistic achievement was in architecture, as attested by the multitude of Mameluke monuments still extant in the cities of Cairo, Jerusalem, and to a lesser degree, Damascus and Aleppo. For complex economic and social reasons the affluent classes invested in vast architectural projects that transformed these cities. The buildings are traditional in function, but their forms and techniques--superb stonework, brilliantly decorated gates and minarets, complex domes--display a level of sophistication and quality hitherto unknown in the Islamic world. A characteristic example, ranked among the masterpieces of world architecture, is the immense madrasah of Sultan Hasan in Cairo. Built around a square court surmounted by four lofty cross vaults, it houses the mausoleum of the sultan, crowned by a huge cupola.
The Ottoman dynasty, having begun in western Anatolia, conquered the Balkans and took Constantinople in 1453 and nearly all Islamic lands around the Mediterranean by 1520. A strong, centralised state, the Ottoman Empire concentrated its creative energies on the development of a uniquely logical mosque architecture. As early as the 14th and 15th centuries, in Bursa and Iznik, the Ottomans chose to use the single dome as the focal compositional element of their monuments. This fascination with the cupola was in large part inspired by the Byzantine church of HAGIA SOPHIA (which was converted into a mosque) and culminated in the 16th-century masterpiece of the Suleiman (Suleymaniye) mosque in Istanbul. Its architect, SINAN, created numerous monuments in Edirne and Istanbul, which in turn became types adapted for use from Yugoslavia to Egypt. Ottoman decorative art, especially ceramic objects and tiles, and miniature painting are largely derivative of other traditions, although many examples are noteworthy for the exceptional precision of their execution.
Of all the Islamic lands Iran was most strongly affected by the Mongol invasions, but this traumatic experience led to a rejuvenation of the arts, despite continuous political upheavals. Under the Ilkhanids (1280-1336), the Timurids (1370-1502), and Safavids (1502-1712), and several other minor dynasties, Persian architecture exhibited a whole gamut of styles ranging from the grandiloquent monumentality of the Sultaniyah mosque to the intense piety of Samarkand's mausoleums, to the colourful brilliance of the monuments around Isfahan's Masjid-i-Shah mosque. It was an imaginative, inventive, accretive tradition remarkably attuned to the composition of Persian religious thought. Especially impressive is the development of Persian painting. From the Shah-Nama (Book of Kings) to lyrical poems of Nizami, Persian literature was illuminated through a striking array of painting styles--rough and brutal in the early part of the 14th century, poetically complex in the 15th century, and marked by precisely observed details of everyday life in later times.
Farther east, after several centuries of rule by various military dynasties, Islamic India reached its apogee under the MOGULS (1526-1707). Their architecture was often inspired by Persia but rapidly acquired its own identity through the use of local materials and techniques. The Mogul achievements in architecture are most impressive in such celebrated buildings as the TAJ MAHAL or the urban complex of FATEHPUR SIKRI. The Persian influence was also strongly felt in painting in the early years, but soon Mogul art became uniquely inspired by the remarkable traditions of painting.
Oleg Grabar

Islamic Jihad

The Middle East terrorist movement that calls itself Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War) has claimed responsibility for an series of bombings, murders, and kidnappings against U.S., French, Israeli, and other and personnel since 1983. While Jihad espouses the cause of radical Islamic fundamentalism, its degree of organisation, source of support, and command structure remain largely unknown. By some accounts Jihad is just a code name used by disparate groups or individuals to claim responsibility for random acts of violence. According to other intelligence sources, it is a cohesive organisation with strong ties to the governments of Iran and Syria.
Among the acts of terrorism for which Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility are: the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut; the October 1983 bombing of U.S. and French military compounds at Beirut Airport; the December 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait; the January 1984 murder of Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut; the September 1984 bombing of the U.S. embassy annex outside Beirut; and numerous attacks against soldiers and civilians in Israel.

Islamabad

{is-lum-uh-bahd'}

Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, is located in the north-eastern part of the country, near the Himalayas. The city covers 65 sq km (25 sq mi) and has a population of 201,000 (1981). Islamabad's climate is hot and desertlike: the annual average temperature is 22 deg C (71 deg F), and average annual rainfall is 915 mm (36 in). Islamabad, whose name means City of Peace, is a new city, built between 1960 and 1975 to replace KARACHI as the capital. Nearby RAWALPINDI served as the interim capital (1959-67) until the new capital was completed. Islamabad is divided into eight districts; the government's administrative buildings make up the central district, which is surrounded by commercial, residential, and educational zones. Industrial and green zones encircle the city.

Bibliography:

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Map Location[s]

Gilgit, Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Chenab, Lahore, Lyallbur, Multan, Quetta, Malakando Pass, Sukkur, Karachi, Hyderabad, Indus, Sutlej, Ravi, Khyber Pass, Indus, Arabian Sea.