Salmiya

Quasi-periodicity in 15 th century Islamic Art and whether it actually has been developed as a concept is still a matter of a somewhat controversial debate. There are three sites in the city of Esfahan which have been studied in this regard in considerable detail, two rather small patterns on a spandrel and a portal on the Darb-i Imam shrine in the Dardasht quarter of the old city (1453) and a huge pattern on the western iwan of the Great Mosque. Several authors have, in the meantime, tried to overlie Penrose patterns of kites and darts or thick and thin rhombuses in order to prove that medieval artisans were able to apply what had been described by Roger Penrose only five centuries later. See, for example, Lu and Steinhardt (2007), their response to some additional work by Makovicky (2007), or Cromwell (2008) here , here , and here . However, while a certain desire for subdivision and self-similarity can easily be traced on the respective buildings, it is not perfect, in particular...

Mathematic breakthroughs in the 10 th and 11 th centuries in Baghdad and, for instance, Esfahan may have resulted during the 15 th century in an explosion of Islamic Art and Architecture. In particular the use of so called girih tiles, that is a set of polygonal prototiles with well-defined decorating lines may have allowed medieval artists in Iran and Central Asia to create decagonal tessellations with, in few cases, Penrose-similar patterns. Between the mid-14 th and early 16 th centuries, the Timurids ruled over much of the Islamic world. The highly sophisticated and strictly geometric (‘Islamic’) patterns on glazed tiles covering buildings and monuments became later more and more floral. Exquisite examples of this changing style can be seen in Esfahan's Grand Mosque and Darb-i Imam , Mashhad’s Gohar Shad mosque , or the Friday Mosque in Yazd . The Timurids were repelled in Iran by the rulers of the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736 CE) who established the Shi’a branch of Islam...

I have visited northwestern Iran in 2005, just after the election of current Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I stayed only 72 hours or so and went on to Mashhad but, as usual when in Iran, I have met a couple of nice people there, in particular Dawoud and Alireza, who didn’t mind to show me around. So, I had the opportunity of having a ride to Daryacheh Orumiyeh and another to Kandovan. I have reported on these trips here and here on this blog. That memories lasted long was partly due to the purchase of a very nice small Shirvan rug for my own tiny gallery. Its owner Dawoud, a very knowledgeable carpet collector and honorable dealer in Tabriz, was rather reluctant to sell it to me since he had it in his own flat for 20 years. I knew at that time already that Shirvan was a region in Azerbaijan in Transcaucasia. Buying that small rug didn’t make me a collector, though. The people, exotic places, adventures, and the circumstances of finding collectibles in original places, the ...

It's a cat-friendly city. They are fed by the people and seem to enjoy life. Different from other parts of the Middle East. In Kuwait, for instance, stray cats are living in and from garbage containers and would not allow fondling. They are terrified. Istanbul's cats apparently are not.

To all my friends in the Middle East: Ramadan Kareem! Thanks for the wonderful crescent to intlxpatr.com .

When recently having read German Orientalist Tilman Nagel’s voluminous opus maximum on life and legend of the prophet of Islam , I became once more interested in the different versions of Muhammad’s ascension to heaven and his night journey to Jerusalem which had already been combined in the earliest surviving text on his life, Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 761) Sirat Rasul Allah (“Life of the Messenger of God)”, edited by one of his students, Ibn Hisham (d. 830 CE). Largely powerless, his preaching oppressed, his followers brutally persecuted, Muhammad had tried, just 18 months before emigrating to the city of Yathrib, to reassert himself by telling strange stories about night journeys. According to the Kitab al-Tarikh wa al-Maghazi by another biographer, Al-Waqidi (d. 822), the prophet ascended to heaven on Ramadan 17 (621 CE) when having a nap at the Ka’aba in Makkah. A ladder ( mi’raj ) was put up by the two angels Jibril (Gabriel) and Mikhael (Michael) between the Zamzam well...

I have mentioned in a previous post that the special charm of Mombasa’s old city can hardly be perceived instantly. My Jordanian colleagues from Kuwait and I had booked at the Whitesands Sarova Hotel north of the city. The view of the Indian Ocean just outside the hotel with camels on the beach was breathtaking. The constant breeze from the ocean made humidity and tropical temperatures very comfortable. In fact a place to die, I was thinking. My friends are not the ideal company when exploring exotic places. On my request, we went to Mombasa, but it was hot and dusty and I was told “we know all of this” from home. When I became curious about the 16th century Mandhry mosque with its strange minaret, I was informed by my Muslim friends that it was not prayer time, so asking to enter was hopeless. Nobody was either interested in the vegetable and fruit market. Was that a bazaar? We rushed through the lanes. Souvenir shops sold beautiful collectibles at reasonable prices. ...