It is next to impossible to review a Thames & Hudson book with remarking on the general excellence of the photographic illustrations. Islamic Architecture: A World History is no exception with several hundred photographs from, as the subtitle promises, around the world.
Eric Broug, an artist and designer with a degree in the History of Islamic art and architecture, has an expansive view of his subject matter. Many, perhaps most, of the photos will be familiar to those with even a passing interest in the subject, but even here, Broug manages to find either an interesting angle such as an aerial view of the great Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, Mimar Sinan’s 1575 masterpiece, or a less familiar detail, such as the 13th-century Winged Angels that originally appeared on the Konya Citadel.
But he has also found extraordinary buildings which, being somewhat off the beaten path, are perhaps less well-known. One is the round 13th-century Saltukid Tomb of Melike Mama Hatun near Erzincan in Turkey. Others are tiny, such as the 15th-century Al-Bidya Mosque in Fujairah or use unexpected materials such as the late 13th-century wooden Eşrefoğlu Mosque Beyşehir in Turkey’s Konya Province. Building from East Asia and Africa make welcome appearances.
Broug divides the book geographically rather than chronologically. It’s a choice that emphasizes the breadth—architectural and artistic as well as geographical—of the material but which makes it hard to discern developments and influences. Broug rightly points out that there are other books on the latter. But the structure and the high (even for Thames & Hudson) ratio of illustration to explanatory text means that the result is a visual collage, more impressionistic than definitive.
This also allows Broug the flexibility to include a great many modern examples without needing to worry too much about how they fit into an overall narrative; these serve today as a reminder that Islam is very much a forward-looking, living religion whose adherents are as likely, perhaps more likely, to worship in glistening examples of modernity as in edifices that are legacies of past empires. It also illustrates, perhaps serendipitously, how some aspects of classical Islamic architecture can seem very modern, notably the almost hypnotic patterns in the 14th-century Friday mosque of Kerman.
Broug rather dodges the question, however, of exactly what is Islamic Art is:
Indeed, the term ‘Islamic architecture’ itself is not always a comfortable one. It can seem to suggest that a unifying religious component is always important and present. ‘Architecture from Muslim societies’ is probably a more accurate term.
Calling the Ottoman Topkapi Palace an example of “Islamic” architecture—for Broug includes this and many other examples of secular architecture, even the Kuwait Opera House—leads inevitably to asking, somewhat uncomfortably, whether that makes Hampton Court or Versailles “Christian” architecture. The inclusion of Moorish revival buildings (for example, the 1927 cigar room of Ogasawara Palace in Tokyo) seems stretching the point. Visually interesting no doubt, and thought-provoking, but intellectually a bit messy.
The pictures themselves are sourced from all over. (The one for the Guangzhou Mosque seems, based on the people in it, to be several decades old.) The largest stretch of text is, slightly ironically, reserved for an epilogue chapter on “Women in Islamic Architecture”, a thoughtful addition.
No single volume can cover everything from all angles. This is a book for wetting the appetite, rather than sating it,
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