International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development

International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development

Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2013

Early Islamic Architecture and Structural Configurations

Kubilay Kaptan

Assistant professor, Disaster Education, Application and Research Center, Istanbul Aydin University, Turkey

Received 18.02.2013 ; Accepted 1.05.2013

ABSTRACT: Islam spread rapidly after its founding, encompassing much of North Africa, the Middle East, and
Southeast Asia. The art of this vast region draws its distinctive character both from Islam itself and from the diverse
cultural traditions of the world’s Muslims. Because Islam discouraged the use of figurative images, particularly in
religious contexts- unlike Christian art- Islamic artists developed a rich vocabulary of aniconic, or nonfigural, ornament
that is a hallmark of Islamic work. This vocabulary includes complex geometric patterns and the scrolling vines
known outside the Islamic world as arabesques. Figural representation, to the extent it was permitted which varied
from time to time and place to place, first developed most prominently in regions with strong pre-Islamic figural
traditions, such as those that had been under the control of the Roman and Byzantine empires. Stylized forms for
representing animals and plants developed in the regions that had been under the control of the Sassanian dynasty of
Persia (modern Iran), the heirs of the artistic traditions of the ancient Near East, who ruled from 226 to 641. Because
the Arabian birthplace of Islam had little art, these Persian and Roman Byzantine influences shaped Islamic art in its
formative centuries.
The elements of early early Islamic architecture were formed to respond effectively to people’s physical, environmental,
social, physiological and religious requirements at their time. The research demonstrates that architects used to
copy-paste various elements of the Islamic historical buildings in their design work without understanding the meanings
and values that it holds. Such approach would only transfer the element’s form though strips it from its historical
context and values. The paper argues that architect should comprehend not only the hidden values of the historical
elements only but also how values interacted and are integrated into these elements. By doing so, the architect would
be able to correctly perceive and read these elements thus incorporate it successfully in his/ her design. This article
gives perspective of early Islamic architecture and structural configurations of the related era.

Keywords: Early Islamic Architecture, Structural configurations, Islamic Architercture`s elements.

INTRODUCTION
Much of Islamic architecture can be seen as an interplay variety of selections from the domes of the Islamic Mamluk
between pure abstraction and organic form. For Muslims, Egypt as architectural elements and what they contain of
abstraction helps free the mind from the contemplation of artistic values and aesthetic support the creative process by
material form, opening it to the enormity of the divine presence. addressing the domes of the spirit of the times contemporary
Islamic artists excelled in surface decoration, using repeated art through our culture to see the production of new structural
and expanding patterns to suggest timelessness and infinite ceramic formulations help to enrich the domes of the Islamic
extension. Shimmering surfaces created by dense, highly artistic process in general and the composition of ceramics
controlled patterning are characteristic of much later Islamic in particular, the importance of the study is for these as one
art, including architecture, carpet making, calligraphy, and of the entrances Avenue to link the practices of the ceramic
book illustration. structural formations Paljmagliat emanating from the study
Anyone who examines Islamic architecture notes that art and analysis of the Islamic Mamluk domes and through the
differs from art in general in nature, characteristics and dumping of light on the Islamic Mamluk domes and decorative
philosophy until the final outputs, it is a philosophical thought elements and the linkage between the technical aspects,
of exporting the Islamic faith and has the dimensions of the intellectual and practical achievements of the structural ceramic
intellectual and profound philosophical implications still need formulations.
a lot of studies and research to detect the components, and
that comes through this research to focus the architectural MATERIALS AND METHODS
heritage and architectural elements and decoration, but the Architecture is a kind of art to setup the space and Islamic
richness of this heritage and richness we resort to the exact architecture designs its principal intent on creation a kind of
allocation and narrow the search to examine and analyze a space which has internal potential to put human in presence
of God. Islamic architecture for creation such a holly place
Corresponding Author Email: kubilaykaptan@aydin.edu.tr

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uses various techniques, one of the most standard one is The Relation Between Islam and Architecture
polarization of building toward Kaaba. Islamic architectural Islam outlines the fundamental human needs and wired
space is qualified by utilizing sacred matter. This kind of that it should be secured.Islamic studentsoutlined that the
polarization produces series of power line that concentrate human wishes represented by way of: the religion, lifestyle,
on the center. belongings, mind and posterity. This record of needs appears
Researchers have proposed a number of ways to study and to be like Maslow’s list of needs, although Maslow did not
perceive architecture. Goss (1988) recommended that place is indicate the spiritual/ religious needs. Also, it can be argued
often “multicoded”; as people read and write different languages that Maslow views the subject of basic needs from the
in the built environment, meanwhile, collective sentiments individual’s point of view only whereas Islam views basic
too can accord meaning to place. Rotenberg (1993) terms needs from three perspectives: legislative, individual and
places as social places, or “communal sites” as are textured state (Al Sari, 2010). It is however suggested that Islamic
by multiple layers of everyday meanings and sedimented buildings express the religious beliefs, social and economic
history. Hillier and Hanson (1984) have made the point that, structure, political motivation and visual sensibility of a
unique among artifacts, buildings are not only shaped by the pervasive and unified tradition (Michell, 1978). Therefore,
society that creates them: they also impose constraints on one can argue that traditional architecture in Islamic
subsequent social actions. Hillier (1984, 1996) pointed out countries have been developed in response to several factors
that spaces have qualities and characteristics that would affect that characterize each country such as people’s needs that
people interaction and use of these spaces. He suggested two highlighted above, the climate, the available building
social dimensions of buildings or in other words that buildings materials, the level of construction technology that is used,
operate socially in two ways: they constitute the social the level of society’s prosperity, and the local architectural
organisation of everyday life as the spatial configurations of traditions and practices prior to the Islamic governance in
space in which we live and move, and represent social that country.
organisation as physical configurations of forms and elements
that we see. Space creates and controls the interfaces between Architecture in the Islamic Civilization
separate categories of people and their relationships with
objects. Places and buildings should be constructed to meet The reduction of architecture that evolved in the Islamic
the demands of human beings. Maslow (1975) set the hierarchy civilization in one term is the underestimation of
of these needs as the following: civilization and cultural achievement produced by the
Physiological requirements; Islamic civilization (Bahnassi, 2003). The only
Security requirements; decoration and adornment configuration is a complete
Belongingness and love requirements; deviation from the cultural depth provided by the Islamic
Esteem requirements; civilization. The use of theterm “architecture in the
Self-actualisation requirements; Islamic civilization” as ageneral framework, while likely
The desire to know and understand; to use the term special care of the maintenance of each
Aesthesis requirements; historicalperiod on the unit such as “Architecture of
Thus buildings would address people needs and desires but Islam” or “Architecture Umayyad Early” of
how can features and values hidden in buildings can be read? “Architecture Abbasid” as well as we can in this regard,
Lawson (2001) suggested a system which can be utilized to looking deeply and in detail in the buildings’ differing
understand and study buildings thus to reveal their meanings. features that arose over the Islamic civilization:
This can be done by interpretation of the physical shape, form, geographical and temporal differences between them are
dimensions, texture. models of architecture in different regions of the Islamic
call to reach a comprehensive and logical point to
Islamic architecture (Hakim, 1991).

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The building stands on the platform of the Temple Mount
(Mount Moriah) and encloses a rock outcropping that has
Architectural and Structural Systems During the Early also long been sacred to the Jews, who identify it as the site
Caliphates on which Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Jews,
The caliphs ofthe aggressively expansionist Umayyad Christians, and Muslims associate the site with the creation
dynasty ruled from their capital at Damascus (in modern of Adam and the Temple built by Solomon. Muslims also
Syria). They were essentially desert chieftains who had scant identity it as the site from which Muhammad, led by the angel
interest in fostering the arts except for architecture and Gabriel, ascended to heaven in the Night Journey, passing
poetry, which had been held in high esteem among Arabs through the spheres of heaven to the presence of God.
since pre-Islamic times. The building of shrines and The Dome of the Rock was built by Syrian artisans trained in
mosques throughout the empire in this period represented the Byzantine tradition, and its centralized plan- an octagon
both the authority of the new rulers and the growing within an octagon- derived from both Early Christian and
acceptance of Islam. The caliphs of the Abbasid dynasty, Byzantine architecture. Unlike its Byzantine models, however,
who replaced the Umayyads in 750 and ruled until 1258, with their plain exteriors, the Dome of the Rock, crowned
governed in the grand manner of ancient Persian emperors with a golden dome that dominates the Jerusalem skyline, is
from their capitals at Baghdad and Samarra (in modern opulently decorated with tiles outside and marble veneer and
Iraq). Their long and cosmopolitan reign saw achievements mosaics inside. A dome on a talldrum pierced with windows
in medicine, mathematics, the natural sciences, philosophy, and supported by anarcade composed of alternatingpiers and
literature, music, and art. They were generally tolerant of columns- two columns to one pier in the outer ring, three to
the ethnically diverse populations in the territories they one in the inner- covers the central space containing the rock.
subjugated and admired the cultural traditions of Byzantium, Concentricaisles (ambulatories) permit the devout visitor to
Persia, India, and China. As Islam spread, architects circumambulate the rock. Inscriptions from the Koran
adapted freely from Roman, Christian, and Persian models, interspersed with passages from other texts and commentary,
which include the basilica, themartyrium, the peristyle including information about the building, form afrieze around
house, and the palace audience hall. The Dome of the Rock the inner wall. The pilgrim must walk around the central space
in Jerusalem (Fig. 1 and 2), built about 687-91, is the oldest first clockwise and then counter clockwise to read the
surviving Islamic sanctuary and is today the holiest site in inscriptions in gold mosaic on turquoise green ground. These
Islam after Mecca and Medina. texts are the first use of monumental Koranic inscriptions
in architectural decoration. Below the frieze, the walls are
covered with pale marble, whose veining creates abstract
symmetrical patterns, and columns with shafts of gray patterned
marble and gilded capitals. Above the calligraphic frieze is
another mosaic friezemonuments Koranic inscriptions in
architectural decoration. Below the frieze, the walls are
covered with pale marble, whose veining creates abstract
symmetrical patterns, and columns with shafts of gray
patterned marble and gilded capitals. Above the calligraphic
frieze is another mosaic frieze depicting thick, symmetrical
vine scrolls and trees in turquoise, blue, and green, embellished
with imitation jewels, over a gold ground. The mosaics are
thought to represent both the gardens of Paradise and

Fig. 1: Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem. Israel.Iterior. C. 687-91. Fig. 2: Cutaway drawing of the Dome of the Rock
(Source: Duroodsharifwalimasjid, 2013) ( Source: Amazonaws, 2013)

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trophies of Muslim victories offered to God. The focal point grouped around small courtyards, for the use of the caliph’s
of the building, remarkably enough, is not the decorative relatives and guests, occupied the remainder of the building.
program- ordepicting thick, symmetrical vine scrolls and trees Unique among surviving palaces, Mshatta was decorated with
in turquoise, blue, and green, embellished with imitation a frieze that extended in a band about 16 feet high across the
jewels, over a gold ground. The mosaics are thought to base of its facade. This frieze was divided by a zigzag molding
represent both the gardens of Paradise and trophies of Muslim into triangular compartments, each punctuated by a largerosette
victories offered to God. The focal point of the building, carved in high relief (Fig. 3 and 4). The compartments were
remarkably enough, is not the decorative program- or filled with intricate carvings in low relief that included
containing the rock. Concentricaisles (ambulatories)permit interlacing scrolls inhabited by birds and other animals (there
the devout visitor to circumambulate the rock. Inscriptions were no animals on the mosque side of the building), urns,
from the Koran interspersed with passages from other texts and candlesticks (Hammad, 1997).
and commentary, including information about the building, The mosque was and is the Muslim place for communal
form afrieze around the inner wall. The pilgrim must walk around worship, and its characteristic elements developed during
the central space first clockwise and then counterclockwise to the Umayyad period (Hakim, 1986). The earliest mosques
read the inscriptions in gold monuments Koranic inscriptions were very simple, modeled on Muhammad’s house. The
in architectural decoration. Below the frieze,even something mosque’s large rectangular enclosure is divided between a
that can be seen. From the entrance one sees only pure light courtyard and a simple columnar hall (the prayer hall), laid
streaming down to the unseen rock, surrounded by color and out so that worshipers face Mecca when they pray. Designating
pattern. After penetrating the space, the viewer/worshiper the direction of Mecca are the qibla wall and its mihrab (a
realizes that the light falls on the precious rock, and in a niche); the plan of identical repeated bays and aisles can easily
sense re-creates the passage of Muhammad to the heavens. be extended as congregations grow (Hakim and Rowe, 1983).
The Umayyad caliphs, disregarding the Prophet’s advice The origin and significance of the mihrab are debated, but
about architectural austerity, built for themselves palatial the mihrab is within the tradition of niches that signifies a
hunting retreats on the edge of the desert. With profuse interior holy place- the shrine for the Torah scrolls in a synagogue,
decoration depicting exotic human and animal subjects in the frame for the sculpture of gods or ancestors in Roman
stucco, mosaic, and paint, some had swimming pools, baths, architecture, the apse in a church. The maqsura, an enclosure
and domed, private rooms. One of the later desert palaces in front of the mihrabfor the ruler and other dignitaries, became
was begun in the 740s at Mshatta (near present-day Amman, a feature of the principal congregational mosque after an
Jordan). Although never completed, this square, stone-walled assassination attempt on the ruler. The minbar, or pulpit/
complex is nevertheless impressively monumental (Fig. 3). throne, stands by the mihrab as the place for the prayer leader
It measured about 470 feet on each side, and its outer walls and a symbol of authority (for a fourteenth-century example,
and gates were guarded by towers and bastions reminiscent Fig. 8-14). Minarets, towers from which the muezzins, or
of a Roman fort. The space was divided roughly into thirds, criers, call the faithful to prayer, rise outside the mosque as a
with the center section containing a huge courtyard. The main symbol of Islam’s presence in a city.
spaces were a mosque and a domed, basilica-plan audience When the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750, a survivor
hall that was flanked by four private apartments, orbayts. Bayts of the Umayyad dynasty, Abdar-RahmanI (Ruled 756-88),
fled across North Africa into southern Spain (known as
al-Andalus in Arabic), where, with the support of Syrian
Muslim settlers, he established himselfas the provincial ruler,
or emir. While the caliphs of theAbbasid dynasty ruled the
eastern Islamic world from Baghdad for five centuries,

Fig. 3: Plan of the palace, Mshatta, Jordan.Begun 740s. Fig. 4: Prayer hall, Great Mosque, Cordoba, Spain .Begun785-86,
( Source: IRCICA, 2013) extension of 987. ( Source: IRCICA, 2013)

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 International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development
the Umayyads continued their dynasty in Spain from their paying for such ostentation with an inscription giving thanks
capital in Cordoba for the next three centuries (756-1031). to God, who “helped him in the building of this eternal place,
The Umayyads were noted patrons of the arts, and one of the with the goal of making this mosque more spacious for his
finest surviving examples of Umayyad architecture, the Great subjects, something which both he and they greatly wanted”.
Mosque of Cordoba, thus is in Spain (Fig. 4 and 5). Among al-Hakam’s renovations was a new mihrab with three
In 785, the Umayyad conquerors began building the Cordoba bays in front of it. The melon-shaped, ribbed dome over one
mosque on the site of a Christian church, loiter rulers expanded bay seems to float over a web of intersecting arches that rise
the building three times, and today the walls enclose an area from polylobed, intersecting arches rather than supporting
about 620 by 460 feet, about a third of which is the courtyard, piers (Fig.5). Lushly patterned mosaics with inscriptions,
the Patio of the Orange Trees. Inside, the proliferation of geometric motifs, and stylized vegetation clothe the domes
pattern in the repeated columns and arches and the double in brilliant color and gold.
flying arches is almost disorienting. The marble columns
andcapitals in thehypostyleprayer hall were recycled from Elements of Architectural and Structural Systems
the ruins of classical buildings in the region, which had been The earliest mosques were pillared hypostyle halls such
a wealthy Roman province. Two tiers of arches, one over the as the Great Mosque at Cordoba (Fig 6).
other, surmount these columns; the upper tier springs from Approached through an open courtyard, the sahn, their interiors
rectangular posts that rise from the columns. This double-tiered are divided by rows of columns leading, at the far end, to the
design, which was widely imitated, effectively increases the mihrab niche of a qibla wall, which is oriented toward Mecca
height of the interior space and provides excellent air circulation. (Critchlow, 2004).
The distinctively shaped horseshoe arches- a form known A second type, the four-iwan mosque (Fig. 7), was originally
from Roman times and favored by the Visigoths, Spain’s associated with madrasas (schools for advanced study). The
pre-Islamic rulers- came to be closely associated with Islamic iwans- monumental barrel-vaulted halls with wide-open,
architecture in the West. Another distinctive feature of these arched entrances- faced each other across a central sahn;
arches, also adopted from Roman and Byzantine precedents, related structures spread out behind and around the iwans.
is the alternation of pale stone and red brick voussoirs Four-iwan mosques were most developed in Persia, in
forming the curved arch. buildings like Isfahan’s Masjid-i Jami (Fig. 8).
In the final century of Umayyad rule, Cordoba emerged as a Central-plan mosques, such as the Selimiye Cami at Edime
major commercial and intellectual hub and a flourishing center (Fig. 9), were derived from Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia (Fig. 10)
for the arts. It surpassed Christian European cities economically and are typical of Ottoman Turkish architecture. Central-plan
and in science, literature, and philosophy. Beginning with interiors are dominated by a large domed space uninterrupted
Abdar-Rahman III (Ruled 912-61), the Umayyads boldly by structural supports. Worship is directed, as in other
claimed the title of “caliph.” Al-Hakam II (Ruled 961-76) mosques, toward a qibla wall and its mihrab opposite the
made the Great Mosque a focus of his patronage, commissioning entrance (Omar, 2000).
costly and luxurious renovations that disturbed many of his Islamic builders used a number of innovative structural
subjects. The caliph attempted to answer their objections to devices. Among these were two arch forms, the horseshoe

Fig. 5: Dome in front of the mihrab, Great Mosque. 965. Fig. 6: Central plan of hypostyle mosque, Great Mosque, Cordoba, after
(Source: IRCICA, 2013) extension by al-Hakam II (Ruled 961-76) (Source: IRCICA, 2013)

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Fig. 7: Central plan of four-iwan mosque, Masjid-I Jami, Isfahan. Fig. 8: Masjid-I Jami, Isfahan.
( Source: Amazonaws, 2013) (Source: IRCICA, 2013 )

Fig. 9: Central-plan of Selimiye Cami (Mosque of Selim), Fig. 10: Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey. 537.
Edirne, Turkey. 1570-74. (Source: IRCICA, 2013) (Source: IRCICA, 2013)

arch (Fig.11) and the pointed arch (Fig. 11). There are many regarding to a number of social, psychological, religious,
variations of each, some of which disguise their structural environmental forces and constraints. The research has proposed
function beneath complex decoration.Structurally, a muqarna a conceptual model that outlines the above mentioned forces
is simply a squinch. Muqarnas are used in multiples (Fig. 11) and the target of this model is to enable researchers to
as interlocking, load- bearing, niche-shaped vaulting units. correctly analyze, perceive and read the Islamic architectural
Over time they became increasingly ornamental and appear heritage. The model suggested that the physical properties of
as intricately faceted surfaces (Omer , 2010). They are frequently the historical features should be analyzed. Thus the analysis
used to vault mihrabs and, on a larger scale, to support and should be combined with an examination of the historical archive
to form domes. of the historical area/building - under study-, archaeological
inspection, and a field survey that explores the views of the
CONCLUSION residents of the historical area and building about the
The study demonstrates that Islamic Architectural meanings of the historical features. Archaeological research
heritage’s elements that we see at present, was created would reveal certain facts about how people lived, how they

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 International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development
Fig. 11: Various arch forms used in structural configurations
(Source: Wikipedia, 2013)

socially and economically interacted and the outcomes can modules that are -combined with the same reproducing module
be linked to the architectural research. This may clarify the without being combined in size and measurement- around a
type and cost of materials that were used, why and how. The given center of the construct.
outcome of such inspection would help the professional Symmetry: Categorized by adopting regular pure geometrical
architect’s to develop better understand of the traditional shapes for the entire construct around a point -a central
Islamic elements thus he/ she would be able implement it position- or around axis with constructional relations per
successfully in the present and future Architectural design of constant system of dimensions.
buildings in the Islamic world. Balance: Categorized by adopting the formal and imparts
Given the depth of the decline in cultural identity, there is the visual balance to the construct amongst the dynamic
huge scope for further research within this area. There are shapes like the circle and the stable ones like the square per
numerous other examples of loss of cultural identity, particularly constant system of dimensions.
within areas of the creative arts, together with broader areas Gradation: Categorized by adopting the progression idea
of cultural decline within Islamic countries. Creating incentives from what is considered secondary towards what is regarded
and opportunities for more localised production, that utilises a principal whether as a result of orienting towards what is
local materials, skills and traditions, could also be an invaluable being principal for its strategic subscription or for its
area of further investigation. extraordinary measurement through the gradation of relations
The results also illustrate that there is a common connection among the part, the parts and the whole, such as confirming
amongst the degrees of the architectural work the part, the the elaborate integration in those relations in Islamic architecture
parts and the complete in various types and sizes of Islamic constructs.
architecture constructs, such as making the system of proportional All of it introduces a cultural species for the Islamic architecture
relations unified and classified by inclusiveness and integration that is characterized by a unified system for the dimensions
through the following: that include the noble proportions, a unified system for the
Proportional relations in Islamic architecture lean on the relations which has the characteristic of constructional flexibility
process of preferred dimensions which is recognized by the through frequency, high centralization plus preserving balance
unity of its system aspects proportions that imparted unity and evident symmetry.
on the architectural constructs through the positioning of
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