14.2: Medieval Islam Before the Mongols

Arts of the Islamic world: The medieval period

by Glenna Barlow

For many, the Muslim world in the medieval period (900-1300) means the crusades. While this era was marked, in part, by military struggle, it is also overwhelmingly a period of peaceable exchanges of goods and ideas between West and East. Both the Christian and Islamic civilizations underwent great transformations and internal struggles during these years. In the Islamic world, dynasties fractured and began to develop distinctive styles of art. For the first time, disparate Islamic states existed at the same time. And although the Abbasid caliphate did not fully dissolve until 1258, other dynasties began to form, even before its end.

Figure \(\PageIndex{12}\): Great Mosque of Samarra, 9th century, Iraq. (Photo: Taisir Mahdi, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Samarra, founded by the caliph al-Mu’tasim in 836, was different from either of the earlier sites. Although it was the size of a city, covering more than twenty square miles, it was devoted to the Abbasid court, with palaces, pavilions, mosques, monumental avenues, barracks, gardens, pools, and three horse-racing tracks. There were also areas of more modest housing, but the heart of Samarra was ceremonial (see Figure \(\PageIndex{12}\)). Despite the huge outlay of resources, the site was fully occupied for less than sixty years. The 860s saw significant political instability at Samarra caused by competing military factions in the caliphal guard, and at the death of caliph al-Mu’tamid in 892, the court moved back to Baghdad.

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The Vibrant Visual Cultures of the Islamic West, continued

by Dr. Sahahat Adil

Competing Identities

After the fall of the Umayyads of al-Andalus, Iberia saw the rise of Taifa/Party Kingdoms. These kingdoms arose in the eleventh century in the political vacuum created by the collapse of the Umayyad state in Córdoba. These rival kingdoms were independently governed city-states and often competed with one another militarily and in terms of cultural production. One of these city-states was located in Saragossa, and its palace is a stunning example of the artistic developments of Islamic visual culture on the Iberian Peninsula.

Figure \(\PageIndex{21}\): North portico, La Aljafería, Saragossa, Spain. (Photo: EmDee, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Smarthistory)

Figure \(\PageIndex{22}\): Detail of yesería, La Aljafería, Saragossa, Spain. (Photo: Luis Rogelio HM, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Smarthistory)

The Aljafería Palace has numerous arches, much like the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba and Madinat al-Zahra, but the decorative elements are striking and represent a notable departure from earlier centuries (see Figures \(\PageIndex{21}\) and \(\PageIndex{22}\)). For example, stucco, which is known as yesería, appears as complex vegetal and floral motifs. Stucco was less commonly found in the visual culture of the Umayyads of the Islamic West, though the motifs themselves were commonplace.

Stucco decoration was also an integral part of the artistic toolkit of the Mudéjar populations (Muslims living under Christian rule on the Iberian Peninsula), and these decorations reached their pinnacle under the Nasrids.

Figure \(\PageIndex{27}\): Tower/Minaret (Giralda), Seville Cathedral, Seville, Spain. (Photo: Howard Lifshitz, CC BY 2.0, via Smarthistory)

Two minarets, La Giralda in Seville (part of the Great Mosque of Seville under the Almohads) and the tower of the Qutubiyya Mosque (also spelled Koutoubiya) in Marrakesh, were both constructed under the Almohads. Both are tall rectangular towers strikingly similar to their counterpart at Tin Mal. The surface decoration found on La Giralda is intricate and worth observing, particularly because much of it has survived since the original construction.

Figure \(\PageIndex{28}\): Multifoil/polylobed arches, Tower (Giralda), Seville Cathedral, Seville, Spain. (Photo: Naroa, CC BY-NC 2.0)

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The Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm (the Church of Santa Cruz), Toledo

by DR. Razan Francis

Figure \(\PageIndex{38}\): Southwest façade, Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm, Toledo, Spain, 999-1000. (Photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY 2.0)

On the northern fringes of Toledo, Spain, the small Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm tells a compelling story about the city’s medieval period and its transition from Muslim to Christian hands. The mosque is located adjacent to one of Toledo’s oldest city gates—Bāb al-Mardūm (Puerta Mayordomo)—which once gave access from the north to the city (today’s neighborhood of San Nicolás). The mosque is one of the few surviving structures from the Islamic period in al-Andalus. Its later conversion to a church, at a time of Christian-Muslim conflict, illustrates how Toledo’s visual culture transcended the religious differences of its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim residents.

Toledo: brief background

Muslims invaded the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal today) in 711 CE, and ruled Toledo until its takeover in 1085 by the Christian army of the king of Castile, Alfonso VI. Prior to the Muslim conquest of the city, Toledo had been the capital of the Visigothic kingdom since the fifth century; before that it was under Roman rule. The Muslim conquest of the city was part of an unprecedented expansion of the Umayyad caliphate, centered in Damascus (Syria), which in 711 reached the land of Sindh (southeastern Pakistan today) in the East, and North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula in the West. After the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids in 750, a survivor of the Umayyad dynasty—’Abd al Rahman I—escaped and reached the Iberian Peninsula. There, he established at Córdoba a Muslim state (emirate), later declared a caliphate in 929. The Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm was built in the last years of the Umayyad caliphate in al-Andalus (which fell in 1031), when Toledo was the center of its northern dominions.

Figure \(\PageIndex{40}\): Inscription, Southwest façade, Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm, 999-1000. (Photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY 2.0)

Inscription, patron, and builder

Importantly, the mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm was one of many private institutions erected by elite, wealthy Muslims—unlike large congregational, or Friday, mosques that were commissioned by the state. It probably functioned as a small oratory that also promoted learning, and received local and visiting scholars and students. In the Islamic world, a mosque functioned both as a place for worship as well as learning; scholars often sat in a designated space in the mosque, where students could find them.

Before entering this small mosque, a visitor would have seen a Kufic inscription on the upper frieze of its southwest façade. The inscription informs the viewer about the mosque’s patron, builder, and year of completion before they even enter the space:In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful, Aḥmad ibn Ḥadīdī caused this mosque to be built, with his own funds, hoping through this to receive eternal compensation from God. It was completed with the aid of God, under the direction of the architect Musa ibn ‘Alī, and of Sa‘āda, concluding in [the month of] Muharram of the year three hundred and ninety [999/1000].

The mosque comprises a stone foundation of rubblework that forms a base to its brick walls. Square in plan (8 x 8 meters; Figure \(\PageIndex{42}\)), it consists of nine equal square bays, demarcated by four central marble columns. The columns and their capitals are spolia, taken from a now-destroyed Toledan Visigothic church. The horseshoe arcades render this small oratory a miniature hypostyle hall.

This is certainly not the first incident where Muslims reappropriated spolia—in fact, we could look at the the 110 Visigothic and Roman marble columns used in the first phase of the Great Mosque of Córdoba or the Roman tombstones inserted at the base of the minaret of Seville’s Great Mosque (now the Giralda of Seville Cathedral). Building with spolia speeded construction. Such incorporation, profusely practiced worldwide, may have symbolized acceptance of past authority and established continuity with the local heritage by preserving spolia’s sacredness and charged history in the new architectural settings.

Figure \(\PageIndex{43}\): Left: One of the domes, interior, Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm, 999-1000 (Photo: Manuel de Corselas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Smarthistory); right: left dome, maqsura, Great Mosque of Cordoba (Photo: Manuel de Corselas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Smarthistory)

Adding to the Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm’s richness, each of the nine square bays is surmounted by a soaring ribbed dome of a different vaulting design, evoking those covering the maqsura of the Great Mosque of Córdoba (see Figure \(\PageIndex{43}\)). Just as in the maqsura of Córdoba’s Great Mosque, where this type of vaulting first appeared on the peninsula almost fifty years earlier (960s CE), each square bay carries a multi-tiered set of lobed arches that rises high, and is surmounted by a dome of interlacing ribs. While only three such domes cover the maqsura, those of Bāb al-Mardūm replicate these three, and introduce six novel designs that nearly exhaust the whole potential of such vaulting. The most common design creates, through squinches, an octagonal base over the square bay. From this octagonal base, two sets of ribs rise either from the middle or the corner of the octagon, and extend to another, opposite side of the octagon. From this spatial interlacing of the ribs, a central, smaller geometric polygon is created, and is usually carved in the shape of a scalloped miniature dome. Showing remains of paint, the mosque’s domes may have once been polychromatic (many colored).

Figure \(\PageIndex{44}\): Southwest façade, Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm, 999-1000. (Photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY 2.0)

The mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm once stood as a pavilion-like structure open on three sides (now closed in), except for the mihrab on the southeast wall, where the mihrab niche facing Mecca used to be. The exterior facades are enlivened by the use of bricks in different thicknesses to subtly create recessed and projecting planes. The main southwest façade, overlooking the street has three different arched entryways: horseshoe, right; semicircular, center; and lobed, left (see Figure \(\PageIndex{44}\)). On top of these doors, a series of blind horseshoe arches project and interlace in a similar fashion to the interior screens marking the mihrab aisle and the maqsura of the Great Mosque of Córdoba. CC BY 2.0)

Above these blind arches, brick units laid in an angle create a sawtooth-pattern frame that inscribes a diamond-like perforated brick net. This frieze is surmounted by the dedicatory inscription (see Figure \(\PageIndex{45}\)), whose angular letters are also created by laying the bricks in both horizontal and vertical alignments. Even the series of corbels that hold the roof, on top of the inscription, are produced by stacking and recessing the bricks.

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Medieval synagogues in Toledo, Spain

by Dr. Diane Reilly

Figure \(\PageIndex{53}\): View of Toledo, Spain with the Samuel Halevi Abulafia synagogue at the center and the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in the background. (Photo: Yildori, CC BY-SA 3.0)

By the time the first surviving synagogues were built in Spain, Jews had lived there for more than a thousand years. The first Jews likely arrived on the Iberian peninsula among the Roman conquerors and colonizers who flowed there in the first century CE. Jews were persecuted by Christians during the Late Antique period (beginning in the 4th century), but when Muslim rule was established in 711, the legal and economic status of Jews improved. Often well integrated into the governments and economies of the cities in Muslim Al-Andalus, many Jews spoke Arabic and wore the same clothes as their Muslim neighbors.

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The Alhambra

by Dr. Shadieh Mirmobiny

Figure \(\PageIndex{59}\): The Alhambra, Spain. (Photo: Mirari Erdoiza, CC BY-NC 3.0, via Smarthistory)

The Alhambra in Granada, Spain, is distinct among Medieval palaces for its sophisticated planning, complex decorative programs, and its many enchanting gardens and fountains (see Figure \(\PageIndex{59}\)). Its intimate spaces are built at a human scale that visitors find elegant and inviting.

The Alhambra, an abbreviation of the Arabic: Qal’at al-Hamra, or red fort, 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, the Alhambra,following year.

Palace of the Lions

The Palacio de los Leones (Palace of the Lions) stands next to the Comares Palace but should be considered an independent building. The two structures were connected after Granada fell to the Christians.

Figure \(\PageIndex{65}\): Court of the Lions, Alhambra. (Photo: Dr. Cerise Myers, CC BY)

Muhammad V built the Palace of the Lions’ most celebrated feature in the 14th century, a fountain with a complex hydraulic system consisting of a marble basin on the backs of twelve carved stone lions situated at the intersection of two water channels that form a cross in the rectilinear courtyard (see Figure \(\PageIndex{65}\)). An arched covered patio encircles the courtyard and displays fine stucco carvings held up by a series of slender columns. Two decorative pavilions protrude into the courtyard on an East–West axis (at the narrow sides of the courtyard), accentuating the royal spaces behind them.

Figure \(\PageIndex{66}\): Muqarnas Chamber, Alhambra. (Photo: Vaughan Williams, CC BY 2.0)

To the West, the Sala de los Mocárabes (Muqarnas Chamber), may have functioned as an antechamber and was near the original entrance to the palace (see Figures \(\PageIndex{66}\) and \(\PageIndex{67}\)). It takes its name from the intricately carved system of brackets called “muqarnas” that hold up the vaulted ceiling.

Across the courtyard, to the East, is the Sala de los Reyes (Hall of the Kings), an elongated space divided into sections using a series of arches leading up to a vaulted muqarnas ceiling; the room has multiple alcoves, some with an unobstructed view of the courtyard, but with no known function.

Figure \(\PageIndex{67}\): Muqarnas ceiling, Hall of the Kings, Alhambra. (Photo: Dr. Cerise Myers, CC BY)

This room contains paintings on the ceiling representing courtly life. The images were first painted on tanned sheepskins, in the tradition of miniature painting. They use brilliant colors and fine details and are attached to the ceiling rather than painted on it.

There are two other halls in the Palace of the Lions on the northern and southern ends; they are the Sala de las Dos Hermanas (the Hall of the Two Sisters) and the Hall of Abencerrajas (Hall of the Ambassadors). Both were residential apartments with rooms on the second floor. Each also have a large domed room sumptuously decorated with carved and painted stucco in muqarnas forms with elaborate and varying star motifs.

 

Gold pendant with inset enamel decoration

by The British Museum

Figure \(\PageIndex{75}\): Pendant, Fatimid dynasty, 11th century. Gold with inset enamel decoration, 3 x 2.5 cm. (Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum, via Smarthistory)

This crescent-shaped gold pendant may originally have been hung with strings of pearls, from the three loops along the bottom (see Figure \(\PageIndex{75}\)). It is decorated with delicate bands of fine gold filigree around a small cloisonné enamel inset depicting two confronted birds and a central tree. The crescent shape is typical of jewelry produced in the Islamic world.

The Fatimid goldsmiths may have been inspired to use cloisonné enamel-work by imitating contemporary enameled gold jewelry from Byzantium. Such jewelry could have been imported, sent as diplomatic gifts from the Byzantine emperors, or made by Byzantine craftsmen who had moved to Fatimid Egypt. However, there is evidence that the Fatimid goldsmiths did not produce these enamel insets themselves, but rather bought them ready-made—perhaps as imports from Byzantium, or from Byzantine craftsmen living in Egypt.

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Articles in this section:

• Glenna Barlow, "Arts of the Islamic world: The medieval period," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Beatrice Leal, "Arts of the Abbasid Caliphate," in Smarthistory, December 19, 2021 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Sabahat Adil, "The vibrant visual cultures of the Islamic West, an introduction," in Smarthistory, January 7, 2021 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Razan Francis, "The Mosque of Bāb al-Mardūm (the Church of Santa Cruz), Toledo," in Smarthistory, August 25, 2021 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Diane Reilly, "Medieval synagogues in Toledo, Spain," in Smarthistory, April 6, 2018 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Shadieh Mirmobiny, "The Alhambra," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• The British Museum, "Gold pendant with inset enamel decoration," in Smarthistory, September 9, 2021 (© Trustees of the British Museum)