Early period

Gold dinar of caliph Abd al-Malik, © The Trustees of the British Museum — The Dome of the Rock. The Great Mosque in Damascus. The Great Mosque in Córdoba. These remarkable achievements are all Umayyad.

The Umayyads (661–749 C.E.)

View of the Courtyard of the Great Mosque of Damascus, photo: Eric Shin, CC BY-NC 2.0 — Once a temple to Zeus, the Great Mosque of Damascus, has survived the Syrian Civil War, and stands as one of the world's most important historic structures.

The Great Mosque of Damascus

The Great Mosque of Kairouan — Kairouan was an important early Islamic city in north Africa. Marble and porphyry columns flank its Great Mosque.

Kairouan (from UNESCO)

Mosque of Kairouan thumb — Used for Friday prayer, this mosque stood at the center of Kairouan’s commercial, educational, and religious life.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan

The Great Mosque of Cordoba — Recycled Roman columns fill the prayer hall of this dazzling mosque, one of the oldest built in Islamic Spain.

The Great Mosque of Córdoba

Dome of the Rock — While not a mosque, the Dome of the Rock is one of the earliest surviving buildings from the Islamic world.

The Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra)

Dome of the Rock — Two powerful dynasties, the Umayyad and the Abbasid, ruled the Islamic World between the 7th and 13th centuries.

Arts of the Islamic world: The early ...