Excavations on the Coral Mosques of the Maldives

This report presents the results of an archaeological mission done in the Maldives archipelago located to the south-west of India, in the Indian Ocean. In November 2017, we carried out archaeological excavations and surveys as well as collected oral traditions on two sites, the Fandiyaaru Mosque and Koagannu Cemetery in Hulhumeeddhoo town on Addu Atoll and the Friday Mosque of Fenfushi on Alifu Dhaalu Atoll. Two outcomes were expected from our mission: first, to provide new scientific data on the coral mosques of the Maldives in order to improve the chances of success of nomination of the mosques on the World Heritage List of UNESCO; then to support the conservation project of the Maldivian government and international organisations such as UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund (WMF). One major question during our excavation was the continuity of the settlements from pre-Islamic cultures and influences from Buddhist architecture on local Islamic architecture.

A Carved Wooden Door from Kayseri

The article deals with a little-known mo- nument of Seljuk woodcarving — a door from an ancient Friday mosque (Jami-i Kebir) in Kayseri (Turkey). The carved door, exhibited now in the Ankara Museum of Ethnography, has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive publication. Therefore, this artifact belongs to the group of Anatolian Seljuk woodcarvings, made in the 12th — early 13th centuries, that have a special significance. As rare monuments of Islamic art of the pre-Mongol Middle East, they stood at the origins of the blooming of Anatolian Seljuk art that would occur some decades later.The door was ordered and installed during the Jami-i Kebir mosque renovation, carried out in the second reign of the Seljuk Sultan Giyseddin I Kayhosrov (1205—1211), on the instructions of one of his emirs — Muzaffar al-din Mahmud son of Yagy-Basan, a descendant of the Danishmendid dynasty. The article considers the door’s ornamental decoration, organized as a classic “mihrab” composition, in a set of technical and stylistic aspects. For a comparative analysis, the author inspects a wide range of woodcarvings of the 11th—13th centuries from Anatolia and Iran. The close resemblance of used techniques and decoration, as well as motifs, ornamental themes and epigraphy makes it possible to suggest that the cabinet maker Ibrahim son of Abu-Bakr al-Rumi, who left his signature on the Minbar of the Alaaddin Mosque in Ankara Fortress, could be the author of the magnificent carved door from Kayseri’ Jami-i Kebir.

EXPOUNDING PROPHETIC BUILDING PRINCIPLES ON THE SITE LAYOUT RE-DESIGN OF CONTEMPORARY RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS

The prophetic building principles (PBP) in this paper refer to building precedents in which the prophet of Islam applied in the construction of various building typologies. This paper went a step further to demonstrate how they could be expounded in the site layout designs of contemporary housing neighborhoods to achieve a satisfactory environment for Muslims. A triangulation of literature search and case study methods were adopted as the guiding methodology. The case study was used to demonstrate how the PBP was expounded in the redesign of the site layout of the Sardauna housing estate in Katsina. The first PBP expounded in the redesign results in the introduction of Friday mosque, daily prayer mosques, and educational institutions, while the second was achieved through overall redesign of the initial layout from the gridiron to the cluster layout concept. The third PBP of promoting a classless community was achieved by placing residents of different socioeconomic status together within a cluster. The last PBP has affected the management of the ecosystem. It was achieved through the provision of multiple sources of water to sustain wildlife and plants, provision of additional walkways, reduced walking distances, and reduced tarred roads. This study shows that contemporary site layouts of residential neighborhoods could be designed in line with Islamic values and yet achieves universally acceptable design criteria.

Family

This chapter describes the endowment that Nurbanu Sultan established, including a Friday mosque with many dependencies (schools, hospital, soup kitchen, inn) on the hills of Üsküdar. Furthermore, it analyses the economic relations between the charitable and the revenue-generating buildings and properties. Among these revenue-generating buildings counted the Çemberlitaş Hamamı, together with the Atik Valide Hamamı and the Büyük Hamam and the Havuzlu Hamam. Like a large, immobile grandee who lived a pious life in his mansion, distributing charity in the form of food, money and medicine to his kapı halkı, his retinue of dependents living in the neighbourhood, the mosque complex was not able to conduct the business necessary to sponsor that charity. Rather, it sent out its four sons (the four hamams) and relatives of its sons’ generation (residences, shops, workshops, mansions, farms and pastures) to do business on its behalf and to generate the large sums of money it needed to sustain itself and its philanthropic activities.

Die frühe Sultanatsarchitektur in Nordindien im 12.–14. Jahrhundert als herrschaftspolitisches, identitätsstiftendes Ausdrucksmittel im Spannungsfeld wechselnder Legitimierungsstrategien

The following paper discusses how the experience and perception of contingency and strategies to cope with it are evident in the architecture of the Muslim ruling class during the early Delhi Sultanate (1190–1320). The discussed building is the most important Friday Mosque in this context, a quasi-visualized symbol of the thematic concept of rulership for the new Muslim political elite. This ruling class established itself in Northern India in the late 12th century within a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and socially heterogeneous society, in which extremely different forms of communication, social hierarchies, worldviews, religious concepts, social norms and perceptions of historical images and experiences met. From the 13th century onwards, the countless immigrants and refugees from Persian-speaking areas had a remarkable influence on the local culture which was already multifaceted due to the various indigenous Northern Indian conceptions of life, faith and perception. Examining the architecture of the mosque as well as its decoration and systems of inscriptions, it will be shown how these almost text-like visual systems where adapted and used by different rulers as part of their diverging strategies of legitimization of their rule and how they created visualized reference systems to promote a coherent, specific historical narrative and a visual experience and language of a meaningful collective past to which all social and religious groups in Northern India could relate.