New Data on the Luster Tiles of ʿAbd al-Samad’s Shrine in Natanz, Iran

This essay offers new data for identifying and reconstructing the original luster tilework decoration of the tomb chamber of the ʿAbd al-Samad shrine in Natanz, central Iran. The decorated complex around the tomb was likely built during the Ilkhanid period. The removal of Ilkhanid-period luster tiles from their original location has left very few buildings with their original decoration. Moreover, the stripping of an important number of monuments led to the arrival of thousands of tiles of unidentified or incomplete provenance in public and private collections. By cross-referencing available information about preserved revetments (e.g., dimensions, inscriptions, provenance, designs) with verifiable data collected at surviving monuments, it is possible to bridge the gap and unite formerly isolated elements. This study formulates new proposals about the luster tilework in the shrine of ʿAbd al-Samad, especially with regard to the complex ensemble of the mihrab. By locating and detailing the different zones of its decorative scheme, the ensemble becomes more coherent as a whole despite its remaining gaps.

Sculpted Muqarnas: The Five Capitals in the Alhambra as a Case Study for the Proportions of Western Profiles

In the Alhambra of the Nasrid era (1230–1492), a transformed type of capital emerged that incorporated muqarnas to materialize the transition from the column to the abacus. Although the Alhambra contains the most muqarnas compositions from the Occident (Iberian Peninsula), the present understanding of “Western” muqarnas is based upon two carpentry manuscripts from the 1630s, from different authors on each side of the Atlantic (López de Arenas and Fray Andrés de San Miguel). In this research, the proportions of the muqarnas profiles from each manuscript are studied and compared to each other to articulate the formal consequences of their differences. By sculpting four examples of muqarnas capitals in the Alhambra, this study assesses whether the results correspond to the information provided in the manuscripts. The particularities that arise from these simple muqarnas capitals shed light on the proportions of the Alhambra muqarnas, generate new profiles that are distinct from those of the manuscripts, and establish geometrical relationships that have hitherto been unclear. These observations offer a basis for future tests on other muqarnas compositions in Nasrid palaces, therefore advancing the definition of the formal language of the Alhambra muqarnas.

A History of the Ottoman Fez before Mahmud II (ca. 1600–1800)

The history of the Ottoman fez is usually told with the nineteenth century as a point of departure. In the 1820s and 1830s, the reforms initiated by Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–39) elevated the red felt cap to the rank of official headgear of the Ottoman empire. But little is known about its history prior to its adoption by the state: where did the fez come from and how did it become so prevalent in the Ottoman empire? This essay examines the global history of the fez in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Taking Mahmud II’s reforms as an endpoint, it examines the process by which the headgear first came to be both culturally visible and commercially available in the Ottoman realm. Three aspects of this history are considered: the trans-imperial history of the fez as a commercial commodity, its cultural reception in the Ottoman world, and the establishment of a community of Tunisian fez merchants in early modern Istanbul.

A Victory Tower Built by a Slave: The Chand Minar at Daulatabad in Deccan India

The Chand Minar (1446) at Daulatabad Fort is one of the tallest pre-modern stone minarets in the world and has long been recognized as a major work of Indo-Islamic architecture. Yet surprisingly little is known about the building: its iconography and the reason for its construction have not been established; even its height is frequently misreported by half. The present article analyzes the building’s architecture and urban context and critically reads its inscriptions against the Tārīkh-i Firishta (ca. 1610), the main primary text for the history of the medieval Deccan. In so doing, the article demonstrates that issues of race shaped the courtly politics in the Deccan at the time of the minaret’s construction. The Chand Minar was commissioned by Parvez bin Qaranful, an African military slave, who dedicated the building to the Bahmani sultan ʿAla⁠ʾ al-Din Ahmad II (r. 1436–58). The article shows that the building commemorated the role of African and Indian officers in a 1443 military victory of the Bahmani sultanate (1347–1527) against the Vijayanagara empire (1336–1664). The construction of the Chand Minar impressed upon Ahmad II the importance of retaining in his court dark-skinned officers from India and Africa (dakkaniyān) at a time when their standing was threatened by the lighter-skinned gharībān, who had immigrated from the western Islamic regions. The article thus presents a detailed study of an important but neglected monument while shedding new light on racial factionalism in the fifteenth-century Deccan.

Prospective and Retrospective: Le Corbusier’s Twofold Voyage d’Orient

In 1911, a twenty-three-year-old Le Corbusier embarked on a six-month journey from Dresden to Istanbul, and back to his native Switzerland through Greece and Italy. Upon his return, the young architect unsuccessfully attempted to publish his travel notes as a book in 1912 and again in 1914. Only in 1965, forty days before his death, did Le Corbusier conduct the final revision of his 1914 typescript for publication. The next year, Le Voyage d’Orient was published posthumously. Previous scholarship on this book has overlooked the importance of Le Corbusier’s 1965 edits, consequently approaching the work as an authentic testament of the author’s youthful spirit. Based on a new and contextualized reading of the 1914 typescript hand-annotated by Le Corbusier in 1965, this article demonstrates how the late edits constitute a re-writing of a segment of Le Corbusier’s own history, especially in relation to his ideas of modernity, tradition, inspiration, and attachment to Mediterranean architecture.

From Stone to Dust: The Life of the Kufic-Inscribed Frieze of Wuqro Cherqos in Tigray, Ethiopia

Until 2010 (when it was broken by a tourist), a curious Kufic-inscribed sandstone block greeted those who entered the narthex of the eleventh-century church of Wuqro Cherqos in East Tigray, Ethiopia. My paper identifies the origin of this misunderstood fragment and presents it in the longue durée, from its architectural placement as part of an inscribed arch in the great mosque of a Fatimid trading colony to its medieval spoliation and use as a chancel arch in the church of Wuqro Cherqos, after northern Ethiopia emerged as a centralized power under the Zagwe dynasty. As the chancel in Wuqro Cherqos, the stone took on new meaning as a luxurious liturgical threshold, complementing the Egyptian and Indian silks that hung alongside it. After the arch came apart in the late 1990s, I show how modern Ethiopian scholars promoted the remaining Arabic-inscribed fragment as an ancient Ethiopian inscription. The life story of this stone fragment reveals a larger picture of Islam’s changing reception in Ethiopia from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century.

Colonial Zaytuna: The Making of a Minaret in French-Occupied Tunisia

In March 1892, eleven years after the establishment of the French protectorate in Tunisia, a congregation of ulemas, religious scholars, and students, as well as representatives of the waqf administration (Jamʿiyyat al-Awqāf) gathered in the ṣaḥn of the Zaytuna Mosque to lay the cornerstone of a new minaret. The pre-exiting tower, whose latest major renovations dated from the seventeenth-century Ottoman Muradid times, was deemed hazardous; it was therefore entirely demolished and replaced by a large-scale replica of the nearby Hafsid Kasbah Mosque of Tunis. The new minaret of the Zaytuna Mosque rose in tandem with the Saint Vincent de Paul Cathedral of Tunis, and simultaneously with the nascent French neighborhoods of Tunis outside and along the medina walls. This article explores the intricate and fascinating context of the construction of a monumental minaret in a city that was gradually severing ties with its Ottoman past and surrendering to a newly established colonial rule. It questions the role and aspirations of the French administration in the minaret project, the reasons that led to the revival of the Almohad architectural style in the late nineteenth-century Maghrib, and the legacy left by the re-appropriation of this style in North Africa.

Kabul, a Forgotten Mughal Capital: Gardens, City, and Court at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century

Kabul was the seat of Mughal power during the first half of the sixteenth century, and—it is argued here—provided inspiration for the better-known Mughal metropoles of Hindustan. Sources suggest that the topography of Kabul was already well established, along with its major landmarks, decades before Babur made it the seat of his court in 1504. Among these landmarks were three remarkable royal gardens (all Timurid foundations), which performed complementary functions. The one known today as Bagh-i Babur acquired funerary connotations with the burial of Babur’s mother there in 1505, if not earlier. The Bagh-i Shahrara hosted the governor as well as distinguished guests, including widowed or divorced princesses and imperial visitors. The Chaharbagh was the seat of the court. Its functional units included residential quarters for the ruler and the harem, a courtyard of audience, administrative quarters, and service provisions. In this study, Kabul and its gardens are compared with Mughal counterparts in Hindustan, and (more briefly) with Timurid Herat and Safavid Isfahan. This comparison contributes to an understanding of the unique position occupied by gardens in the Timurid realm and in the courts of their Mughal and Safavid successors.

Images for Instruction: A Multilingual Illustrated Dictionary in Fifteenth-Century Sultanate India

This article focuses on the Miftāḥ al-Fużalāʾ (Key of the Learned) of Muhammad ibn Muhammad Daʾud Shadiyabadi (ca. 1490). The Miftāḥ is an illustrated dictionary made in the central Indian sultanate of Malwa, based in Mandu. Although the Miftāḥ’s only illustrated copy (British Library Or 3299) contains quadruple the number of illustrations as Mandu’s famed Niʿmatnāmah (Book of Delights) and is a unicum within the arts of the Islamicate and South Asian book, it has received minimal scholarly attention. The definitions in this manuscript encompass nearly every facet of Indo-Islamicate art history. The Miftāḥ provides a vocabulary for subjects including textiles, metalwork, jewelry, arms and armor, architecture, and musical instruments. The information transmitted by the Miftāḥ is not limited to the Persian, Hindavi, Turki, and Arabic language of the text, but also includes the visual knowledge depicted in paintings. Through an analysis of this manuscript as a whole, this study proposes that the Miftāḥ’s manuscript was an object of instruction for younger members of society and utilizes wonder as a didactic tool.