HOA 3

ISLAMIC (Key Codes)

GEOGRAPHICAL, HISTORY, SOCIAL, RELIGION,

• Last 3 great religions from from middle east (Christianity, Islam, Judaism)

• One god, Allah. Last Prophets, Muhammad.

• Quran – holy book

• Pillars of Islam: Shahada, Salah, Zakat, Sawm, Hajj

• Jihad – Holy sacrifice

Islamic Architecture Characters

• BALANCE AND SYMMETRY

• CONCEPT OF PERFECT CREATION

• FORMAL LANDSCAPE

• CENTERED UPON GOD

• USE OF STRIATED MASONRY

Islamic Decorative Elements

• Decoration: Abstract, Geometric Motifs, Calligraphy, Floral abstraction, geometric interlacement, molding and friezes, arabesque, calligraphy.

• Geometric Pattern: Islamic emphasis on repetition, balance, symmetry, and pattern formation. Geometry combined with optical effects.

• Calligraphy: Closely tied to geometry. All the letter proportions are mathematically determined.

• Arabesque:  Refers to floral motifs created by combining lines and vegetal elements, which can be flowers, leaves, or tree branches.

Islamic Architecture Building Types

• Mosque/Masjid: Mosque, Arabic Masjid, or Jami, any house or open area of prayer in islam. Masjid means A Place of Prostration to God.

• First mosques were modeled on the place of worship of the Prophet Muhammad with the courtyard of his house in Medina.

• Mosques were built wherever islam spread. Its prime purpose was contemplation and prayer.

• Masjid Small prayer house ; Madrassah: Religious college or school ; Fami Masjid/ Friday Mosque: Biggest type of mosque

Parts of a Mosque

• Sahn: Courtyard

• Fawwara: Fountain for ablution

• Mihrab: Niche oriented towards mecca

• Dikka: Reading Desk

• Maqsura: Screen/Divider

• Minbar: Platform

• Iwan: Open-fronted Porch

• Liwan: Prayer Hall

• Minaret: tower for call of prayer/Landmarks of Islam

• Kiblah: Axis oriented towards mecca

• Liwanit or Riwaq: Colonnad or Arcade

Muezzin – Caller ; Imam – Leads ; Caliph Succesor

Other Characteristics of Mosque

• Domes:  Appear as a part of roofs and ceilings and are hemispherical structures. Domes can stand uponm a rotunda structure, a drum, ora system of interlocking pendentives. May feature an oculus. First appeared in Mesopotamian architecture. Types include: Onion Domes, Beehive Domes, Braced Domes, Coved Domes, Compound Domes, Crossed-Arch Domes, Ellipsoidal Domes, Geodesic Domes etc.

• Arches: Prominent elements, usually define entrances in mopsques

• Types:

  
  
  
  

• Muqarnas:  Resembles stalactites or honeycombs and become the 3D sculptural ornamentations that often appear in vaults. Muqarnas – Qarnasi – Intricate work.

• Wind Scoop or Wind Catcher: Are traditional persian architectural design that creates natural ventilation in buildings.

• Hypostyle Hall: Entered the Islamic world during the Umayyad dynasty. Typically shaped rectangular of square an d the columns are arranged according to a grid pattern.
  

• Paradise Gardens: There gardens provide respite during summer to the people. Like gardens display water features ;like large marble fountains.

• Water in Islamic Architecture: All living things are made of water, emphasizing the element’s centrality in Islamic existence. It symbolizes purity and life.

• Light in Islamic Architecture: Has a crucial role in designing the interiors of mosques. Extends natural lines and illuminating specific areas of the interior façade.

• Jali:  A decorative screen, is a common component in Islamic architecture that controls the quantity of light that enters a room.

ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE EXAMPLES

• Great Mosque of Mecca: A sanctuary in pre-Islamic times. Muslims believe that Abraham and his son, Ismail constructed the Kaaba. Where Hajj takes place.

Kaaba houses the Black Stone or Hajar Al-Aswad. Believed to be given to Ibrahim by an angel.

• The Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra)

The al-Aqsa mosque on the temple mount in Jerusalem was rebuilt about the year 711 under the Caliph Al-Walid. A building central and crucial to the whole history of the architecture of Islam stands in the center of the Temple Mount. It began in 688 and the Prophet's Mosque and the Kaaba are among the most important Muslim shrines.

• The Dome of the Chain: It covers the summit of Mount Moriah “Furthest Sanctuary” from which the Prophet is believed to have been carried on a night-ride to heaven to receive fundamental revelations. Its high timber dome was carried on a stone arcade of pointed arches on Corinthian columns alternating with marble-faced piers. 

• The Mosque of the Prophet: The courtyard of the Muhammad in Medina, Arabian Peninsula, was the model for later Islamic architecture. The home of Muhammad and his family was a simple structure, made of raw brick, which opened on an enclosed courtyard where people gathered to hear him. In 624 Muhammad decreed that prayer be directed toward Mecca.
  

• The Great Mosque of Damascus: The first known minarets in Islam, however, were the extant towers of the Great Temple which became the mosque. It was traditional and symbolic in the early years of Islam that the principal church of a city which had resisted the Muslims should be taken over as the congregational mosque.

• The Great Mosque of Malwiya, Samarra:  Although started by his predecessor, it is regarded as the work of the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, who also built the nearby mosque of Abu Dulaf. The mosque consisted of an immense walled courtyard planned on a ratio of three to two, 155 m × 238 m (510ft × 780 ft), surrounded by four aisles except on the south side where nine aisles form the prayer chamber. The internal structure of mud-brick piers and timber pole-joisted roofs has long since disappeared, but the massive brick outer walls remain, buttressed at intervals of 16m (52ft) by half-round towers.

• The Minaret of Samarra: The mosque's minaret or place from where prayer is called--is a conical tower with a spiral ramp. Its shape is heavily influenced by a certain kind of Mesopotamian ziggurat. One of the most famous minarets, it is 52 meters tall and 33 meters wide.

ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE EXAMPLES (Egypt, Eastern & Central North Africa)

• The Great Mosque of Qairouan: Principal building of the Aghlabids. The building has slightly pointed horseshoe arches carried on capitals of Corinthian derivation. The gored dome is carried on cusped squinches. An important precedent was set in the the prayer-chamber which has a T-shaped plan where a central nave intersects the transverse aisle against the kiblah wall. The giant, square tapering minaret with its recessed stages as well as the incorrect southward orientation of the building itself reflect eighth-century Syrian origins

• The Mosque Ibn Tulun: Modeled on the precedents in Samarra. The mosque retains its original character despite several restorations. It is built in brick but is faced with stucco in which friezes are incised. The mixture of several forms of ornamental detailing found separately at Samara suggests not only that the mosque was essentially an Iraqi building, but that it was built by craftsmen from theAbbasid capital who had arrived in Egypt only a relatively short time before.

• Madrassa of Qaitbay: The ultimate achievement of architectural development in Cairo. It survives completely and has been fully restored. A slender minaret reduces from the square to the octagon and then to the circle and an open colonnade on which stands the high-shouldered dome, the form of which is echoed by the dome over the tomb itself. The picturesque aspect of the asymmetric exterior is heightened by the striated facing, whose colors are picked up in the elaborately banded inlaid decoration of arches, friezes, and cresting. The external surface of the dome is deeply carved with bars intertwined with floral arabesques.

ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE EXAMPLES (Spain & Western North Africa)

• Great Mosque of Cordoba: Spanish-Mezquita Cathedral de Cordoba, converted into a christian cathedral. Originally build by Umayyad ruler, Abd ar-Rahman. ⅓ occupied by Patio De Los Naranjos.

• Great Mosque of Seville: The Patio Naranjos and Giralda Tower are the only remains of the former mosque. The mosque was converted for Christian worship and was used from 1248 to 1401 before it was torn down for the current cathedral to be built.

• Giralda Tower: It is a 104.1 meters (341.5 feet) tall minaret of a mosque that stood on the site of today’s cathedral during the period of the Almohad rule.

• Alhambra: A distinct among Medieval palaces for its sophisticated planning, complex decorative programs, and its many enchanting gardens and fountains. Its intimate spaces are built at a human scale that visitors find elegant and inviting. It was built by the Nasrid dynasty (1232-1492)—the last Muslims to rule in Spain. Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr (known as Muhammad I)founded the Nasrid Dynasty and secured this region in 1237. He began construction of his court complex on Sabika hill the following year.

ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE EXAMPLES (Islam and Pre-Moghul India)

• Tomb of Ismael the Samanid: the tomb is a relatively small domed mausoleum, constructed in elaborately decorated brickwork within and without. Shaped and cut bricks are used in relief to form complex patterns. The building is an almost perfect cube, battered back externally, on which is superimposed a hemispherical masonry dome.

• Ghurid Minaret, Jam: Isolated but well preserved in a rocky valley in central Afghanistan. It stands with a height of sixty-five meters tall and consists of a tapering cylindrical shaft on a 9-meter octagonal base which is still partly buried. The decoration on the shaft of the minaret consists of calligraphic relief in brickwork, alternating with geometric patterning of a Kufic inscription in turquoise tiles.

• Kalyan Minaret: The last surviving fragment of the Kara-khanid era mosque was built by Mohammad Arslan Khan in 1127, predating the Mongol conquests. Standing tall at 45.6 meters, this unlikely survivor of the city's early days—which so astonished Genghis Khan that he refused to order its destruction—continues to serve as the centerpiece of the city

• Gur-i Amir, Samarkand: The building was unfinished when Timur died, to be buried in the tomb which dominates the funerary complex. The group includes a tomb, a madrassa, and a caravanserai. An abnormally high drum is surmounted by a high-rising, bulbous dome said to have been rebuilt to satisfy an emperor with a passion for impressive height. The wall surfaces faced in ceramics and marbles and the vault itself in gold and blue patterned inlay are magical and complete. 

ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE EXAMPLES (Safavid Persia, Ottoman Empire)

• The Great Mosque of Esfahan: A complex of buildings that centers on the 11th-century domed sanctuary and includes a second smaller domed chamber, built-in 1088, known for its beauty of proportion and design. The central sanctuary was built under the direction of Niẓām al-Mulk, vizier to the Seljuq ruler Malik-Shāh, probably between 1070 and 1075. It stands at the south end of the courtyard. Its large brick dome is supported by 12 heavy piers

• Suleymaniye Mosque: Istanbul, A large building - its dome has a diameter of 26 m (85 ft) and a height of 52 m (170 ft) The lead-faced domes, softly contoured but of powerful shape, are terminated in outward-surging eaves which contrast markedly with the lean elegance of the minarets. Internally, the ceramic panels are sparse but perfect. White calligraphic inscriptions on blue grounds are surrounded by intricate borders, and the great, glowing windows of colored glass are carried in grilles of carved stucco typical of Ottoman work.
  

  

• Mosque of Selim ll: The complex is huge and measures 190 x130 meters and is composed of a mosque, two symmetrical square madrasas, and there was a row of shops and a school for learning the recitation of the Quran located to the west and added during the reign of Sultan Murad III. The mosque's nearly square prayer hall is approached through a porticoed courtyard, making the central block of the complex rectangular. The approach to the northfaçade of the mosque is dramatic: the aligned gates of the outer precinct wall and forecourt focus the eye upwards toward the dome, which could also be seen from a distance.  

• Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque): One main dome, six minarets and eight secondary domes.

• Shalimar Gardens, Lahore: 8km east of lahore, one of the popular lahore tourist attractions. Used as the Royal pleasure garden by the mughals.