Islamic art c. 900–1400

In the period referred to as “medieval,” based on chronologies that were created to study the history and art history of western Europe, the Islamic world stretched from Europe and Africa to China. After the breakdown of the Abbasid Empire in the 9th–10th century C.E., the Islamic world was led by a diverse set of rulers adhering to different strands of Islam and speaking different languages. We are faced with a vast geography, a wide range of monuments and objects made for Muslim and non-Muslim patrons, by Muslim and non-Muslim artists. The arts of the Islamic world are thus not easily subsumed into one short chapter, and you can read more about definitions here and here.

You may also find this chronology helpful.

The study of the medieval Islamic world sometimes divides the artistic production of the period into two geographic parts: the arts of the Islamic West (maghrib in Arabic, referring roughly to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, not including Egypt) and the Islamic East (mashriq in Arabic), referring to Egypt and what lies to the east of it.

Parts of the Iberian Peninsula (today’s Spain and Portugal) came under Muslim rule beginning in 711, when Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. After 755, al-Andalus (as the region was called in Arabic) was ruled by the Umayyads, who had lost control over the eastern Islamic world to the Abbasids in 750.

One of the major monuments surviving from this period is the Great Mosque of Córdoba, founded in 786 and expanded in several phases. It has served as a Christian cathedral since Córdoba was conquered by the king of Castile and Leon in 1236. The court of the Umayyads centered in Córdoba and Madinat al-Zahra also commissioned luxury objects including containers made of ivory, such as the Pyxis made by Khalaf and the Pyxis of al-Mughira.

With the Abbasids’ take over of the caliphate, the center of power of the Islamic world shifted to Iraq and Khurasan (where the Abbasid movement had originated). In order to remove themselves from what had been the center of Umayyad power—Damascus, and Greater Syria more broadly—the Abbasids established a new capital in Baghdad in 762, built as a round city with the palace at its center.

Artistic production shifted in this period, with new modes of production that moved away from the late antique aesthetics typical of the Umayyads. Trade played an important role in the development of Islamic art in this period—for instance, ceramics imported from Tang China inspired so-called splash ware produced in Iraq. Sea trade was crucial for the exchange with China, and direct evidence for it exists, for instance, in the Belitung shipwreck, the remains of a ship that sank in the 830s with a cargo of Tang ceramics shipped from China to West Asia.

The Umayyads declared themselves caliphs in 929, in direct rivalry with the Abbasids, who held the caliphate since 750, and were centered in present-day Iraq. In the early 10th century, the Fatimids, a Shi’ite dynasty that emerged from present-day Tunisia, conquered Egypt in 969 and made its new capital there, and also claimed the title of caliph. While direct conflict at times emerged between the Abbasids and Fatimids, especially as the Fatimids sought to expand their rule into Syria, the Umayyads did not seek to expand beyond their lands in the Maghrib. The Umayyad caliphate fell among succession struggles in 1031, and was succeeded by the so-called Taifa kingdoms, local dynasties centered in cities such as Zaragoza, Málaga, and Granada.

Two subsequent dynasties emerging from among the Amazigh tribes of North Africa, the Almoravids and the Almohads came to control the parts of al-Andalus that remained under Muslim rule. The city of Tlemcen in present-day Algeria was founded by the Almoravids (under the name Tagrart); its Great Mosque, today mostly dating to 1136, displays intricate stucco work on its mihrab (prayer niche)—with a horseshoe arch evoking the Islamic architecture of al-Andalus—and maqsura.

Over the course of the 11th to 13th centuries, Christian rulers from the northern part of Spain increasingly conquered territories under Muslim rule, a process often known as reconquista, a fraught term that emphasizes Christian re-capturing of territory. By the late 13th century, Muslim-ruled territory was limited to the Nasrid rulers centered in Granada. They were patrons of manuscripts, such as a magnificent Qur’an written on pink paper.

In Granada, the Nasrids built their fortified palace city known as the Alhambra, where vast rooms and courtyards decorated with tiles, woodwork, and stucco carved with inscriptions of Arabic poetry, vegetal, and geometric motifs testify to the court’s splendor. Nasrid rule ended in 1492, when the rulers of Castile took Granada.

Fatimids and their impact

The Fatimid ruled was centered in their palace city in what is now northern Cairo from 969 until 1174. Nothing remains of their palaces, but objects produced in this period such as jewelry and rock crystal, survive, as do religious monuments—not only mosques, but also churches for the Coptic Christian community, and the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, for the Jewish community. The impact of Fatimid art is also seen in the coronation mantle made for the Norman kings of Sicily; the muqarnas ceiling of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo built for these Norman kings and which show paintings closely connected stylistically with images on Fatimid ceramics, woodwork, and the few surviving works on paper.

Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids

One of the central developments of the 10th century was the conversion to Islam of a number of Turkic tribes in Central Asia, and their subsequent migration to regions from Afghanistan to Turkey (in present-day terms). One of these dynasties, the Samanids, are the patrons of one of the earliest surviving freestanding funerary monuments, the so-called Samanid Mausoleum in Bukhara, an undated building probably from the late 9th or early 10th centuries. Such funerary buildings, often domed structures, became widely used for rulers, their family members, and important religious figures.

The Ghaznavids ruled from 977 to 1186 in an area that extended from present-day Afghanistan into parts of Iran, and into Central Asia. Famously, Ferdowsi’s Shahnama, one of the major works of Persian literature, was dedicated to Mahmud of Ghazni. In the early 12th century, Mas’ud III commissioned a large palace complex in Ghazni, his summer capital, which was later abandoned; some of its rich architectural decoration, such as marble panels, were recovered in excavations.

The Ghurids, who emerged from central Afghanistan in the early 11th century eventually overcame the Ghaznavids. Like the Ghaznavids, they undertook raids into northern India, and were able to establish a permanent presence there. One of the major architectural monuments of sultanate India is the Qutb complex in Delhi, with elements dating to the late 12th century. Several sultanates were established in different regions of the Indian subcontinent, with a wide range of surviving monuments and objects, dating from the 12th to the 16th centuries.

Seljuqs, Buyids, and Ayyubids

The Seljuqs emerged from Central Asia as well and at times rivaled the Ghaznavids. Moving west-ward, the Seljuqs conquered Baghdad in 1055, and made themselves the protectors of the Abbasid caliph, who no longer had any actual political power. Like the Buyids, who had taken on a similar position since 945, the Seljuqs were the actual rulers. Taking on the title “sultan”, they both controlled and protected the caliph. Unlike the Buyids, who were Shi’i Muslims, the Seljuqs were Sunni. Seljuq rule expanded from Iran into Anatolia, a region they captured from the Byzantine Empire in the late 11th century. In Iran, they expanded and transformed the Great Mosque of Isfahan. Palace architecture does not survive, but stucco guardian figures have been connected to Seljuq royal monuments. Production of luxury ceramics expanded in the city of Kashan, where complex wares such as mina’i and lustre were produced by artists, some of whom signed their names like Abu Zayd who lived in the late 12th century.

The Seljuqs, and successor dynasties ruling in Anatolia, but especially Greater Syria, were part of a push-back against the Crusaders (European Christians who conquered Jerusalem in 1099 in an act of faith-based war to claim holy sites in the city). The most famous Muslim ruler fighting the Crusaders was Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub, known in the West as Saladin, who ruled Egypt and Syria since 1174 and took Jerusalem back in 1189. The dynasty he founded, known as the Ayyubids, ruled Egypt and Syria until 1250, when the Mamluks took over.

Mamluks and Ilkhanids

The Mamluks have their roots in the practice of using enslaved soldiers, current since the Abbasid period, but still used by the Ayyubids. Once the enslaved Mamluks overthrew their Ayyubid masters, they created their own system of rule. Succession was hardly ever dynastic but rather, rivaling military leaders succeeded each other, with a few exceptions of rule passing from father to son. Ruling from the 1250s until the Ottoman conquest of Cairo in 1517, the Mamluks fostered the production of luxury Qur’ans and bindings, of metalwork ranging from candlesticks to basins, and glass lamps for religious monuments. The Mamluk sultans and their affiliates were prolific patrons of architecture in cities such as Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, and Jerusalem.

Starting in the 1260s, the Mamluks rivaled with the Ilkhanids, the Mongol rulers of Iran, who were similarly prolific patrons. With the Mongol conquest beginning in the 1220s, connections were created between the Islamic world and East Asia, especially China which also came under Mongol rule, and where Muslim communities were present especially in coastal port cities. At the artistic level, the impact was most strongly felt in the arts of the book, which saw a huge increase in production beginning in the early 14th century. Religious architecture in Iran continued to be produced with elements similar to those used earlier, and tile mosaic as a technique of architectural decoration reached new heights in the second half of the 14th century.