This period saw the Crusades, the Mongol invasions, and the rise of the powerful Timurid empire.
c. 900 - 1517 C.E.
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Rock crystal ewer, San Marco
This rock crystal ewer is a unique testament to the height of rock crystal production in Fatimid Cairo.
A glass lamp: illuminating sultan Hassan’s mosque and madrasa
The glass lamps of sultan Hassan’s mosque portrayed him as a devout and powerful ruler long after his death.
Artist, scribe, and poet: Abu Zayd and 12th-century Iranian ceramics
Poetry is central to this bowl—Persian and Arabic poems encircle the vessel on both its exterior and interior.
A Mamluk candlestick base
Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad's candlestick base exemplifies a new visual language of power that emerged in 14th-century Egypt and Syria.
The Ben Ezra Synagogue, Fustat, Egypt
The medieval architecture and decoration of the Ben Ezra Synagogue reflect the Egyptian Jewish community's connections to the local visual culture.
Bifolium from the Pink Qur’an
Pages dyed pink, script from the Maghreb, and gold medallions make this Qu'ran especially spectacular
Sultanate art and architecture, an introduction
Mosques, tombstones, textiles, and murals are only a few examples of the art and architecture created on the Indian subcontinent in the sultanates.
The Qutb complex and early Sultanate architecture
The Qutb archaeological complex and the Delhi Sultanate are important chapters in Indo-Islamic architectural history.
Madrasa and Friday Mosque of Sultan Hasan, Cairo
The madrasa-mosque of Sultan Hasan remains one of the most ingeniously designed mosques in the history of Islamic architecture.
Mamluk bindings
Book bindings made in Egypt and Syria during the reign of the Mamluk Sultanate represent the pinnacle of Islamic book design.
Aleppo
Located at the crossroads of several trade routes from the 2nd millennium B.C., Aleppo was ruled successively by the Hittites, Assyrians, Arabs, Mongols, Mamelukes and Ottomans
Khalaf, Pyxis
he exquisite, lidded container is sculpted out of ivory and dated to the mid-10th century during the reign of the Umayyad dynasty in Spain.
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