Papers by Peter Tamas Nagy
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The Encyclopaedia of Islam Three, 2023
Named after one of the two core settlements of Old Fez, the Qarawiyyīn Mosque and its annexes con... more Named after one of the two core settlements of Old Fez, the Qarawiyyīn Mosque and its annexes constitute one of the oldest continuously functioning religious and intellectual centres in Morocco. The initial neighbourhood mosque, founded in 263/877, has been expanded and modified, adopting some innovative functions; all dynasties contributed to its architectural, decorative, and operational programme. Today, the complex incorporates several madrasas, most of which date to the Marīnid period, and a library that houses a unique collection of Arabic manuscripts.
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Inscriptions of the Medieval Islamic World, ed. Bernard O'Kane, A. C. S. Peacock, and Mark Muehlhaeusler, 2023
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The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic, 2022
Constructed between 1909 and 1912, the Elephant House is one of the highlights of Budapest Zoo, a... more Constructed between 1909 and 1912, the Elephant House is one of the highlights of Budapest Zoo, an iconic monument enjoyed by a significant number of visitors every day. However, Muslims living in Hungary at the time of its completion – including the Ottoman consul-general – raised concerns about its oft-noted resemblance to a mosque. Their criticism targeted the minaret-like tower in particular, initiating a dispute that led to the decision of its demolition in 1915. The peculiarity of this case emerges from the fact that although various earlier buildings, both in Hungary and elsewhere in Christian-majority Europe, had incorporated towers that imitated the forms of minarets, none of those seems to have sparked such an outcry. In addition, when the Elephant House underwent restorations in the 1990s, the tower’s reconstruction again raised more than a few eyebrows. Although the debate has partly faded away since, critical voices are occasionally heard still today. The apparent ‘minaret problem’ may thus give various food for thought, not to mention that the architectural language of this building has hitherto received inadequate scholarly attention.
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Konstantinápoly Budapesten, ed. Máté Gergő Kovács , 2021
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Konstantinápoly Budapesten, ed. Máté Gergő Kovács, 2021
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Papers Presented to István Ormos on His Seventieth Birthday (special issue of The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic, 41), 2020
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Konstantinápoly Budapesten: Kiállítási füzet = Budapeşte’deki Istanbul: Sergi Kitapçığı, 2019
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The Art of Asia: The Centenary of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, pp. 232-253
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Ázsia művészete: A százéves Hopp Ferenc Ázsiai Művészeti Múzeum gyűjteményei, pp. 232-253, 2019
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Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebraicos: Sección Arabe-Islám, 68, 2019
Abstract: By the mid[-]14th century, the initially modest burial ground of the Marīnid dynasty (6... more Abstract: By the mid[-]14th century, the initially modest burial ground of the Marīnid dynasty (668/1269-870/1465) at Shālla developed into a funerary complex with several buildings, whose essential ‘work’ was to attract and impress masses of visitors. One of them was Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb, who, as this article will demonstrate, lived mainly at the royal shrine between 761/1360 and 763/1362. Following a reconsideration of his encounters with the site and based essentially on his accounts, the present paper focuses on two intertwined hermeneutical questions, concerning how the experience of visiting Shālla resonated in the visitors’ perception. First, it will demonstrate that some people construed the fourteenth-century garden at Shālla as a representation of paradise. Second, after a short discussion of how the Marīnid shrine developed into a centre of pilgrimage, it will argue that some of the coeval written accounts interpret Shālla as an analogue of the Kaʿba, and that its visitors performed rites adopted from the pilgrimage to Mecca. As a result, the aim of this article is to investigate the ways in which Shālla ‘worked’ for glorifying the members of the Marīnid dynasty.
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Resumen: A mediados del siglo XIV, el cementerio inicialmente modesto de la dinastía benimerín (668/1269-870/1465) en Šālla se convirtió en un complejo funerario de varios edificios, cuyo ‘trabajo’ principal era atraer e impresionar a las masas de visitantes. Uno de ellos fue Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Jaṭīb, quien, como se demostrará, vivió principalmente en el panteón real entre 761/1360 y 763/1362. Después de una reconsideración sobre su estancia en el lugar y basándonos esencialmente en sus relatos, el presente artículo se centra en dos preguntas hermenéuticas entrelazadas sobre cómo la experiencia de visitar a Šālla se reflejaba en la percepción de los visitantes. Se demuestra, en primer lugar, que algunas personas interpretaron este jardín del siglo XIV en Šālla como una representación del paraíso. En segundo lugar, después de una breve discusión de cómo el santuario benimerín se convirtió en un centro de peregrinación, se llega a la conclusión de que algunos de las fuentes coetáneas interpretan a Šālla como un sitio análogo a la Kaʿba, y que sus visitantes cumplían ritos adoptados de la peregrinación a la Meca. El objetivo de este artículo es investigar las formas en que Šālla ‘trabajó’ para glorificar a los miembros de la dinastía benimerín.
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Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 2018
This paper discusses the Islamic funerary complex in central Tlemcen, Algeria, built in 1362–1363... more This paper discusses the Islamic funerary complex in central Tlemcen, Algeria, built in 1362–1363, recorded in historical sources as "the Ya'qubiyya", and today known by the name of Sidi Ibrahim al-Masmudi. During the late middle ages, the northwest corner of Africa was shared between two related Berber dynasties, the Marinids of Fez (Morocco) and the Zayyanids of Tlemcen, who were in constant conflict with one another. The Ya'qubiyya complex was erected by the Zayyanid sultan Abu Hammu Musa II (r. 1359–1389) to commemorate his father and two of his uncles, who were praised in coeval sources as heroes of the war against the Marinids. In this article, I shall describe how the Ya'qubiyya was discovered in the 19th century, study the relevant sources in Arabic, discuss the extant buildings indicating their original parts, and touch upon the complex's relations with other sites in the region. I shall conclude that, although the Ya'qubiyya commemorated members of the Zayyanid family who had fought successfully against the Marinids, its basic concept was adopted from the earlier shrine of the Marinid dynasty at Shalla (Rabat-Salé, Morocco).
Nagy, P. (2018) “Notes on the 14th-century Ya’qubiyya Complex in Tlemcen, Algeria”, Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 49(2), pp. 126-134.
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Unpublished manuscript, 2019
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Korunk, 2018
The square sanctuary of the Kaaba, located in the Mosque of the Haram in Mecca, has a central rol... more The square sanctuary of the Kaaba, located in the Mosque of the Haram in Mecca, has a central role in Islam: it orients people who pray towards it and desire to visit it once in their lifetime as part of their religious belief. Besides these normative regulations of Islam, there is a parallel, though less known, phenomenon, namely that several buildings were – and still are – revered as local analogies of the Kaaba. The present paper touches upon some examples of this phenomenon in the medieval Islamic world, ranging from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to Shalla in Rabat (Morocco), the Eski Mosque in Edirne (Turkey), and the Shrine of Imam Reza in Meshhed (Iran). What unifies these, admittedly diverse and remote, sites is the fact that they have adopted some functions of the Kaaba, and made their visitors perform rites that are traditional parts the pilgrimage to Mecca. To that end, given that the journey to Mecca often led through inimical territories and was thus rightly considered to be precarious, many communities in the Islamic world would rather establish their own local ‘Kaaba’.
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Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, 2016
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al-Masāq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 26/2 (2014), 132-146.
The following study concerns Shāla, which was the necropolis of the Marīnid rulers from 683/1284 ... more The following study concerns Shāla, which was the necropolis of the Marīnid rulers from 683/1284 to 752/1351. The Islamic buildings on the site have rarely received scholarly attention, although these edifices – despite their delapidated condition – are among the most important constructed by the dynasty. One of my main aims is to re-establish the buildings' chronological sequence, using the written and archaeological evidence, including publications about the site written in Arabic, which have hardly been considered so far. I also address the meaning and aims behind structure erected for each founder, which, in my view, have been misinterpreted by previous scholarship. In summary, this article attempts to revise our knowledge about the site.
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Keletkutatás, 2014, Spring, 97–109, English summary p. 109
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Első Század, 13/1 (2014), 113–151.
The present study introduces the Cappella Palatina with an admitted emphasis on her Islamic featu... more The present study introduces the Cappella Palatina with an admitted emphasis on her Islamic features; this section aims to present an unstudied facet of this building in Hungarian. Then I intend to develop four main points of argument: First, the Cappella Palatina was meant to be used – at least partly – as an Islamic style reception room or majlis by her first patron, Roger II. Second, the original appearance of her western part might well have been similar to the Sala di Ruggero, the reception room of William I within the same palace complex, i.e. decorated with secular mosaics. Third, the Islamic elements of the building – notably the splendid muqarnas ceiling, the paintings on it, and some ceremonial inscriptions – ought to be interpreted with their respective Islamic meaning. Indeed, they might have been adapted in order to represent royal authority for Muslim visitors by the agency of the language of Islamic art. Fourth and finally, I move beyond the Cappella Palatina and examine other buildings and artefacts in order to find the barrier point of ceasing the meaning behind Islamic elements, especially in the case of pseudo-Arabic decoration.
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Farīq tanulmánykötet,ed. Kiss Anna Flóra, Schönléber Mónika, Piliscsaba, 2013, 129–139.
"English summary:
In this study about the necropolis of the Marīnid dynasty (1269–1465) in Rab... more "English summary:
In this study about the necropolis of the Marīnid dynasty (1269–1465) in Rabat, I focus on the patronage of Abū ʿInān (1351–1358), who has not been acknowledged as a key figure in the architectural history of the site. This misunderstanding emerges from the fact that the most important primary source, the account of al-Numayrī had not been published before previous scholars studied Shāla. By examining this text closely, I argue for the importance of Abū ʿInān, who did not only establish a madrasa and a tomb for his mother in the religious complex, but also encouraged pilgrims to visit the site. A similarly unexploited source about architectural patronage, the corpus of inscriptions in Marīnid madrasas, is also involved in my discussion. This provides a chance to explain the aims of the founder with his madrasa in Shāla: to establish an even higher degree of veneration for the previous sultans by encouraging pilgrimage and also to legitimize his position as the rightful ruler."
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Exhibition by Peter Tamas Nagy
Ithraeyat Magazine, 2024
Interview about the exhibition Colors of the City: A Century of Architecture in Doha
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Papers by Peter Tamas Nagy
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Resumen: A mediados del siglo XIV, el cementerio inicialmente modesto de la dinastía benimerín (668/1269-870/1465) en Šālla se convirtió en un complejo funerario de varios edificios, cuyo ‘trabajo’ principal era atraer e impresionar a las masas de visitantes. Uno de ellos fue Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Jaṭīb, quien, como se demostrará, vivió principalmente en el panteón real entre 761/1360 y 763/1362. Después de una reconsideración sobre su estancia en el lugar y basándonos esencialmente en sus relatos, el presente artículo se centra en dos preguntas hermenéuticas entrelazadas sobre cómo la experiencia de visitar a Šālla se reflejaba en la percepción de los visitantes. Se demuestra, en primer lugar, que algunas personas interpretaron este jardín del siglo XIV en Šālla como una representación del paraíso. En segundo lugar, después de una breve discusión de cómo el santuario benimerín se convirtió en un centro de peregrinación, se llega a la conclusión de que algunos de las fuentes coetáneas interpretan a Šālla como un sitio análogo a la Kaʿba, y que sus visitantes cumplían ritos adoptados de la peregrinación a la Meca. El objetivo de este artículo es investigar las formas en que Šālla ‘trabajó’ para glorificar a los miembros de la dinastía benimerín.
Nagy, P. (2018) “Notes on the 14th-century Ya’qubiyya Complex in Tlemcen, Algeria”, Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 49(2), pp. 126-134.
In this study about the necropolis of the Marīnid dynasty (1269–1465) in Rabat, I focus on the patronage of Abū ʿInān (1351–1358), who has not been acknowledged as a key figure in the architectural history of the site. This misunderstanding emerges from the fact that the most important primary source, the account of al-Numayrī had not been published before previous scholars studied Shāla. By examining this text closely, I argue for the importance of Abū ʿInān, who did not only establish a madrasa and a tomb for his mother in the religious complex, but also encouraged pilgrims to visit the site. A similarly unexploited source about architectural patronage, the corpus of inscriptions in Marīnid madrasas, is also involved in my discussion. This provides a chance to explain the aims of the founder with his madrasa in Shāla: to establish an even higher degree of veneration for the previous sultans by encouraging pilgrimage and also to legitimize his position as the rightful ruler."
Exhibition by Peter Tamas Nagy
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Resumen: A mediados del siglo XIV, el cementerio inicialmente modesto de la dinastía benimerín (668/1269-870/1465) en Šālla se convirtió en un complejo funerario de varios edificios, cuyo ‘trabajo’ principal era atraer e impresionar a las masas de visitantes. Uno de ellos fue Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Jaṭīb, quien, como se demostrará, vivió principalmente en el panteón real entre 761/1360 y 763/1362. Después de una reconsideración sobre su estancia en el lugar y basándonos esencialmente en sus relatos, el presente artículo se centra en dos preguntas hermenéuticas entrelazadas sobre cómo la experiencia de visitar a Šālla se reflejaba en la percepción de los visitantes. Se demuestra, en primer lugar, que algunas personas interpretaron este jardín del siglo XIV en Šālla como una representación del paraíso. En segundo lugar, después de una breve discusión de cómo el santuario benimerín se convirtió en un centro de peregrinación, se llega a la conclusión de que algunos de las fuentes coetáneas interpretan a Šālla como un sitio análogo a la Kaʿba, y que sus visitantes cumplían ritos adoptados de la peregrinación a la Meca. El objetivo de este artículo es investigar las formas en que Šālla ‘trabajó’ para glorificar a los miembros de la dinastía benimerín.
Nagy, P. (2018) “Notes on the 14th-century Ya’qubiyya Complex in Tlemcen, Algeria”, Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 49(2), pp. 126-134.
In this study about the necropolis of the Marīnid dynasty (1269–1465) in Rabat, I focus on the patronage of Abū ʿInān (1351–1358), who has not been acknowledged as a key figure in the architectural history of the site. This misunderstanding emerges from the fact that the most important primary source, the account of al-Numayrī had not been published before previous scholars studied Shāla. By examining this text closely, I argue for the importance of Abū ʿInān, who did not only establish a madrasa and a tomb for his mother in the religious complex, but also encouraged pilgrims to visit the site. A similarly unexploited source about architectural patronage, the corpus of inscriptions in Marīnid madrasas, is also involved in my discussion. This provides a chance to explain the aims of the founder with his madrasa in Shāla: to establish an even higher degree of veneration for the previous sultans by encouraging pilgrimage and also to legitimize his position as the rightful ruler."
La exposición traza la historia arquitectónica de Doha del último siglo a través de una variedad de estilos, como el «Arabic Deco», «Doha Classicism» y las adaptaciones de estilos euro-norteamericanos e indios, así como la era del Brutalismo. La segunda parte de la muestra está dedicada a la obra del arquitecto Ibrahim Al Jaidah, autor del Estadio Al Thumama, construido para el Mundial de Fútbol de 2022, reflejando cómo en sus diseños se equilibran una mirada cosmopolita con los elementos propios del patrimonio arquitectónico regional. Mediante maquetas, fotografías, entrevistas y películas, Colors of the City recorre la historia arquitectónica reciente de Doha, descubriéndonos que existe un patrimonio arquitectónico valioso que precedió a la Doha del siglo XXI, antes del meteórico desarrollo que puso a esta ciudad en el foco global.
But this is hardly the case. Doha, which was founded in the 1820s, actually experienced its first ambitious period of expansion following the discovery of oil in 1940. Somewhat like the 2022 FIFA World Cup, this served as a powerful accelerant for development. International architects, particularly from the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) and South Asia, were attracted to work here. A city of stone, wood, and dried mud was reimagined in concrete. Progressive tendencies in architecture – Art Deco, modernism, and brutalism – arrived in succession. Each in turn was inflected with its own distinctive Qatari interpretation and character, reflecting local climate, customs, and tastes.
Colors of the City tracks these developments, beginning with a look at traditional Qatari architecture, proceeding to examine responses to successive modern styles, and coming right down to the present day. The exhibition has been developed in close collaboration with Ibrahim Mohamed Jaidah, Qatar’s leading architect, and a leading scholar of the country’s architectural history. His own contributions in Doha, and elsewhere in the region, have been extraordinary and wide-ranging, and have been deeply informed by building styles and materials of the past. Our exhibition traces this fascinating, little-known history, culminating in Mr Jaidah’s powerfully conceived masterpiece, Al Thumama Stadium.
We offer this exhibition in respect to the work of generations of architects, builders, and artisans in Qatar, and also in support of current efforts to preserve this vital historic fabric.
(Intro text by Glenn Adamson, co-curator of Colors of the City)
My research stems from the premise that the current discourses on Shālla ought to be reoriented, thereby leaving behind notions inherited from the colonial era. Each of the five core chapters will address a specific aspect of the site: its medieval historiography, the chronology of its complex, its social functions, the origin of its concept, and the later tradition of royal funerary architecture. These aspects require to apply distinct methodological and theoretical frameworks, as well as to discuss various periods in the history of Morocco. The arguments will be constructed on two bases: one is a corpus of little-studied sources in Arabic, the other is the fieldwork carried out in Shālla and other relevant sites. As a result, the overarching narrative culminating in the Epilogue will position Shālla as the source of a tradition of royal funerary architecture, stretching from the fourteenth century until the present day.
My undergraduate thesis research has focused on the well-known Fatimid fortification of Cairo, built by the grand vizier, Badr al-Jamālī between 1087 and 1092. According to the 15th century author, al-Maqrīzī, the three gates (Bāb an-Naṣr, Bāb al-Futūḥ and Bāb Zuwayla) were built by three brothers from Edessa (ar-Ruhā). Despite the fable-like features of the story, this source has been used by modern scholars for explaining the apparent North-Syrian (roughly between and around Aleppo and Edessa) characteristics of the gates and ramparts. However, a task hitherto not executed is to show what North-Syrian architectural tradition actually meant. By examining the remaining buildings of the region from late antiquity until 1100, I point out some stylistic features, and also argue for the retention of the tradition through all the centuries, contrary to ‘revivalist’ notions. The Fatimids, or Badr al-Jamālī himself, chose the vivid architectural style to adapt for his fortification with, I would suggest, a territorial reference to Northern Syria in mind. This might well have meant to emphasize the territorial reclaim of the Fatimid Empire for a region which had been lost shortly before."
The second part of my paper will begin by highlighting a few examples of Moroccan Revival architecture, including the great mosques of Kapurthala (1930) and Casablanca (1934). During the French colonial period, the Service des Antiquités, Beaux-Arts et Monuments Historiques carried out various documentations of heritage architecture in the country, and their collection of photographs and survey drawings resulted in various architectural mimesis. Conversely, upon Morocco’s independence, the revival of traditional craftsmanship encouraged a shifting attitude towards historic buildings, focusing equally on the intangible aspects of heritage. As an illustration of this phenomenon, I shall concentrate on the Amiri Diwan (1988) in Doha. This building features wooden ceilings, tileworks, and chandeliers produced in Morocco. My underlying argument is how Morocco’s independence, following the discovery of the Qarawiyyīn ceilings, inferred a new stance towards the local heritage in Morocco and how that became exemplary to another newly independent state, Qatar.
By analysing the appearance and furnishing of the Oriental Pavilion, this paper will argue that it applied two antithetical approaches to interiors. One section of the building closely followed the straightforward layout of the Viennese Museum of Applied Arts, reusing and exhibiting various Islamic objects in a typical museum setting. Significantly, a series of unpublished drawings and plans, signed by Schmoranz, reveal that this room was designed and furnished by him and his students from the Prague School of Applied Arts. The intricate woodwork design also echoed the Egyptian Pavilion at the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair. In contrast, another section of the Oriental Pavilion was reportedly dedicated to recreating a street in Cairo, furnished by the Zacchiri company. They assembled an Arab smoking room with materials from their factories in Uşak and Cairo, thereby providing an organic antithesis to the European museological approach.
Through the presented visual and textual sources, we wish to assess the Hungarian Oriental Pavilion not only as the prototype of a larger project but also as a microcosm of different displays, agents, and approaches to Islamic interiors in Europe. Furthermore, given the government’s cultural and economic gains expected from the Oriental Museum project, this building may also reveal a hitherto unknown aspect of Hungarian imperialism.
The first in the chain was Shālla, Rabat, where the Marinid sultan Abū al-Ḥasan (r. 1331–1351) converted the hitherto modest burial ground into a monumental funerary complex, glorifying his predecessors as saints and setting the site’s operation into motion. The result was virtually unprecedented in the western Islamic world, indeed establishing a local precedent for later dynasties who would adopt analogous practices to commemorate themselves. The tradition included the sixteenth-century Tombs of the Saʿdids; contemporary court historians reveal how its chief patron, Aḥmad al-Manṣūr (r. 1587–1603), took inspiration from the monuments erected by the Marinid dynasty. In addition, while glorifying his capital with a royal funerary complex and dynastic cult, he also incorporated the cenotaph of the Marinid sultan Abū al-Ḥasan into his building. Then, the ʿAlawid sultan Ismāʿīl (r. 1672–1727) established his new capital, Meknes, and textual sources describe the masses of spolia he transferred from Marrakesh. Among his new buildings was a royal funerary complex completed around 1720. The spoliation in case, rather than an attempt to erase the memory of the Saʿdids, may better be explained as an attempt to surpass the previous dynasty’s funerary monument. Lastly, the Tomb of Muḥammad V, completed in 1971, is a manifestation of historical consciousness, just as described by its architect Eric Vo Toan. It stands over part of the twelfth-century Ḥassān Mosque and imitates the styles of several historic buildings in the country. As indicated by the current dynastic ceremonies and the foreign dignitaries who have visited the site, its operation harkens back to the tradition that began with Shālla under Marinid rule. That is, the legacy of this tradition is still alive today.
Scholars of Islamic architecture have unanimously interpreted these buildings as following models from al-Andalus or Mamluk Egypt. In contrast, challenging this historiographical bias against Moroccan architecture, I aim to demonstrate how a local concept of honouring and sanctifying the deceased rulers survived through centuries. A corpus of little-studied textual sources reveals what the rulers knew and thought about their ancestors’ achievements and how they intended to vie with those. In short, I shall argue that the patrons’ historical consciousness encouraged them to take inspiration from earlier royal funerary monuments within their territories.
comprised a pastiche of replicas of Mamluk monuments in Cairo, introducing a style that has subsequently made a considerable impact on architects in Austria-Hungary. My paper seeks to explore a hitherto overlooked aspect of this phenomenon, namely examples of neo-Mamluk designs in Budapest. I shall focus on two ephemeral pavilions made for the 1896 Hungarian Millennial Exhibition. The first was an eventually unexecuted draft for the Historical Hall, the show’s centrepiece, by Ignác Alpár, who proposed representing Hungarian history mostly – and somewhat startlingly – in neo-Mamluk style. A recently rediscovered photo-album of Cairo, once in the possession of Alpár, indicates that he drew his designs after those photos, including imitations of the minarets of the sultan al-Muʾayyad and the mausoleum of the amīr Sawdūn. The second neo-Mamluk building complex was the entertainment district known by the name of Ős-Budavára (‘Old Buda Castle’), designed by the Galician architect Oskar Marmorek. Its ‘great mosque’, similar to several other ephemeral structures, incorporated imitations of Mamluk architectural elements, some of which had also appeared in Vienna in 1873.
On the basis of contemporary iconographic evidence and interpretations, I shall argue that the 1873 exhibition is likely to have inspired the neo-Mamluk replicas at the 1896 Hungarian Millennial Exhibition. Moreover, it will emerge that this architectural style featured in the ongoing debate about the appropriate means of expressing the Eastern origin of the Hungarian nation.
Based on my recent fieldwork in Morocco, resulting in a complete photogrammetric documentation of the Marīnid funerary complex at Shālla, the core part of my paper will discuss the architectural history of the site. I shall present some of the results of my analysis of building archaeology, retracing how the architectural complex developed in the Marīnid period, and combining the results with a careful reading of some of the contemporary textual sources. To that end, my presentation will comprise visual reconstructions of the main phases in which the funerary complex was modified, expanded, and restored. Finally, I shall conclude on the sanctification and aggrandisation of the Marīnid sultans, and how the epigraphic programme at the site was aimed at legitimising the architectural patronage. It emerges that the historical and social theory of Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), who served at the Marīnid court at the time, is particularly relevant for shedding some light on Hillenbrand’s “dead letter”.
Although square Kufic clearly originated in the Islamic East, this style was adopted in the Maghrib to fulfill new functions and convey innovative messages, such as foundational texts extolling Hafsid patronage, or pious formulae specific to the religious context of the region. The main aim of this paper is to add a new element to our understanding of the arts and architecture of the medieval Maghrib, demonstrating how, in the propagation of doctrinal and ideological principles, the placement and configuration of certain epigraphic texts mattered just as much as their content. In particular, we shall argue that the appearance of the formula “Barakat Muḥammad” on several buildings commissioned by the Marinid sultan Abū al-Ḥasan (r. 1331–1351) should be understood as part of his attempts to capitalize on certain popular forms of cult and remembrance of the Prophet, which were becoming increasingly common among his subjects. A close examination of the intellectual milieu and religious currents in the Marinid realm demonstrates that these two words must have meant much more than their literal translation (“Muḥammad’s blessing”) to their contemporaries. In fact, we believe that these ostentatious inscriptions in square Kufic reflected the sultan’s espousal of certain Sufi doctrines mainly followed by the shurafāʾ or descendants of Muḥammad, in keeping with the Marinids’ endeavors to officialize the celebration of the Mawlid, the Prophet’s birthday, throughout their domains.
Europe and the motives behind collecting them.
Szicília szigetén a teljes Mediterráneum művészete egyesült a Normann Királyság (1130–1194) idején, Észak-Afrika és Andalúzia területéről több muszlim műhely is Palermóban és II. Roger (1130–1154) személyében talált pártfogóra. Legismertebb alkotásuk a Cappella Palatina, de számos más épület és tárgy mögött is muszlim mestereket tisztelhetünk. Kevésbé jól ismert kapcsolatra utalnak Magyarország és Szicília művészeti párhuzamai, ugyanakkor – amint előadásomban bemutatom – ezen útvonal segít megérteni egyes iszlám tárgyak és motívumok Magyarországra kerülését.
III. Béla korának művészete kapcsán elsősorban a király által veretett pszeudo-arab feliratos pénzekkel és a sírjában talált gyűrűvel foglalkozom, de emellett a korabeli plasztika, festészet, ötvösség és a jogarfej kérdésére is kitérek. Az alkotások összessége széleskörű érdeklődésre, a Francia Királyságtól Bizáncig terjedő művészeti kapcsolatokra utal. Ehhez járult hozzá egy további szereplőként az iszlám művészet, a korabeli Európához hasonlóan Magyarországra is eljutottak az iszlám világban készült tárgyak. A jelenség a keresztes kor vallási buzgalmában értelmezhető; az iszlám tárgyak iránti érdeklődés elsősorban azok közel-keleti, pontosabban szentföldi származásának volt köszönhető.
Előadásom keretét egy jelen szempontból sosem vizsgált forrás, III. Sándor pápa 1177-ben kelt levele adja, amely érdekes adalékokkal szolgál általában a magyarországi iszlám tárgyakhoz, és különösen az itt kiemelt pénzérmék és gyűrű eredetéhez. Emellett elsősorban művészeti párhuzamokra támaszkodom, mindezek alapján pedig egy korábban feltáratlan útvonal bemutatásának irányában teszek kezdeti lépéseket."