International Journal of Islamic Architecture - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2017

This article aims to conceptualize some of the varied ways Muslims have engaged with antiquity over time. Beginning with the example of Palmyra, it argues that the restoration of the Temple of Bel by the French archaeological team led by Henri Seyrig in the early twentieth century and the destruction of that same temple by ISIS in 2015 are both ideological acts oriented toward reviving an imagined and idealized past. While ISIS erased the remains of the ancient site recreated by the French, the French had previously erased 1,800 years of Christian and Muslim heritage at Palmyra. Both actions are the outcome of the logic inherent in globalized, cosmopolitan heritage ideals. As a means of moving beyond the problematic discourse of the globalized heritage model in which certain heritage values are ‘authorized’ and others are not, the article then proposes an initial conceptualization of imaginings of heritage in Islamic societies over time, suggesting a range of diverse ways Muslims have valued and continue to value ancient localities, and introduces the articles contained in this special issue.

By looking at early Abbasid writers in ninth- and tenth-century Iraq, this article will analyse the way in which the physical presence but implied immateriality of ruins has contributed to identity formation in the early Islamic period. Since the pre-Islamic period, inspiration in Arabic poetry has stemmed from the visualization of ruins. Abbasid writers treated ruins with an uncertain reverence, at once fearing their implications and admiring their abandoned beauty. Ruins have largely been dismissed as toponyms rather than material spaces in Abbasid writing and poetry. This article attempts to show the connections between the writers’ visualizations of physical ruins and their literary manifestations. In Abbasid Iraq, ruins sat in close proximity to but on the periphery of new Islamic cities. This is especially true in the case of the pre-Islamic ruins of al-Mada’in, which were located close to Baghdad. The distant presence of the ruins allowed for them to be revered almost as a shrine within the literary discourse, but also to be feared as a sign of decadence and of inevitable decay.

This article proposes that Indian Islamic architectural practices of the Sultanate period (thirteenth to sixteenth century) were in keeping with centuries-old philosophical principles of reverence for ancient wonders. Guiding Indian Islamic rulers toward this disposition were Neoplatonic philosophies and texts organized around the structuring principle of wonders or ‘aja’ib. I argue that the discourses on the ‘aja’ib had a significant twofold impact on Islamic architectural practices in India. First, they influenced Islamic rulers of India to interpret and appreciate the non-Islamic ancient monuments not as traces of idolatrous worship that warranted destruction, but as wonders of God’s creation. Second, the preservation of such wonders or their partial incorporation into new buildings made their cosmological properties available to rulers desiring to project themselves as rational, divinely ordained sovereigns. This investigation will be focused on two ancient Indian pillars found in Delhi: the iron pillar in the Quwwat al-Islam Mosque and the Ashokan pillar found in Firuz Shah Kotla Fort. Through the lens of ‘aja’ib it may be proposed that early Muslim rulers were drawing on Hindu and Buddhist architecture to create mystical spaces with the aim of ordering new relationships between the conquering power and the new topography over which they ruled.

This article examines the role of one governor in the Ottoman provinces, Tepedelenli Ali Pasha, in the ‘scramble’ for classical antiquity as it emerged in the early nineteenth century. Drawing upon a wide range of evidence – architectural inscriptions, archival documents, European travel accounts and oral tradition – this project seeks to investigate how Ali Pasha routinely appropriated the ancient past to secure his own political legitimacy in the region. Several of Ali Pasha’s constructions incorporate spoliated stone blocks from ancient sites, and the governor also conducted excavations with European archaeologists travelling through his territory. The case of Ali Pasha dispels the notion often rehearsed in western travel accounts of an Ottoman population indifferent to the antiquities lying at their feet. To the contrary, the vizier laid claim to this antique heritage as his own cultural patrimony. The governor forged explicit connections to local history in public inscriptions and poetic works, frequently referring to himself as the ‘new Pyrrhus’ (the ancient Greek king of Ioannina). The fact that Ali Pasha, an Albanian Muslim, endeavoured to position himself as the rightful heir to the region’s historical past offers an alternative discourse on classical antiquity that has largely been forgotten or even suppressed by modern scholarship.

In light of contemporary discussions on the preservation of world heritage, this article considers the cultural costs of archaeological reconstruction and site development. Popular, political and scholarly discussions often presume that the preservation of material heritage functions as a shining knight battling the dark forces of destruction. Yet far from purely constructive, sites we think of as authentically historical are often reconstructions. Their resurrection often depends on the erasure of intermediary traditions and the displacement of local communities, making them highly contested political symbols. As political frameworks shift, the tension between preservation and destruction established through this process often serves as propaganda. Examining the effects of archaeological site reconstruction on local populations at Tadmur (Palmyra, Syria); Geyre (Aphrodisias, Turkey); Wadi Halfa (Abu Simbel, Egypt and Sudan); and Bamiyan (Afghanistan), this article examines the dangers in the instrumentalization of world heritage as a rhetoric of ownership that pits civilization against barbarism without considering the complex costs that accrue as we access the past. The past can only retain value for the future if it does not come at the cost of the living present.

The early 2014 bombing in Cairo that severely damaged the newly renovated Islamic Art Museum was reported as part of a list of incidents that indicated the precarious state of cultural heritage in the Middle East. In light of such events, this article queries the following: does the cultural heritage of the Middle East need saving? If so, by, from and for whom? In exploring the moral discourses and political motivations that anchor such calls for intervention, I examine how notions of care manifest themselves in heritage practice. In response to the moral outrage that often accompanies acts of cultural destruction, this research suggests the possible expansion of the ethical framework by which the material past becomes part of social life. Through an investigation into local engagement with artefacts and historical sites, specifically the sabbakhin in Egypt and contemporary agriculturalists in northern Syria, I describe forms of vernacular heritage linked to unstated assertions to the commons. At stake is a reframing of the hegemonic discourses of heritage management, one that often reads such activities as mere materialism unable to cultivate the correct cosmopolitan disposition for how the past should be valued. Ultimately, this article highlights the risk in overstating ideological forms of destruction as the cultural norm associated with Muslim societies.

This article examines the rationale behind ISIS’s (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) destruction of the historical monuments in the Iraqi town of Mosul. Their demolition campaign started shortly after this radical organization seized control of the town on June 10, 2014 and was systematically tracked by the authors during the first fifteen months of their control of Mosul. Analysis of satellite imagery, historical literature and ISIS’s propaganda material shows that the main object of their destruction was funerary architecture. The collected data has been interpreted within the context of the discourse regarding the destruction of graves in Salafi teachings. The article assumes that among the range of possible reasons for ISIS’s behaviour toward Mosul’s architecture, special importance should be ascribed to the religious doctrine of taswiyat al-qubur (the levelling of graves). This particular policy has been supported by Salafi scholars and ideologists and often vigorously invoked by religious institutions within Saudi Arabia.

PERSIAN KINGSHIP AND ARCHITECTURE: STRATEGIES OF POWER IN IRAN FROM THE ACHAEMENID TO THE PAHLAVIS, SUSSAN BABAIE AND TALINN GRIGOR, EDS (2015) London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 260 pp., 127 illus., ISBN: 9781848857513, $99.00 (hardback)

THE AGE OF THE SELJUQS: THE IDEA OF IRAN, VOLUME VI, EDMUND HERZIG AND SARAH STEWART, EDS (2015) London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 188 pp., 25 illus., ISBN: 9781780769479, $80.00 (hardback)

TRANSCENDING ARCHITECTURE, CONTEMPORARY VIEWS ON SACRED SPACE, JULIO BERMUDEZ, ED., FOREWORD BY RANDALL OTT (2015) Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 333 pp., 62 figs., ISBN: 978081322679, $35.00 (paperback)

IN-BETWEEN: ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING AND IMAGINATIVE KNOWLEDGE IN ISLAMIC AND WESTERN TRADITIONS, HOOMAN KOLIJI (2015) Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 216 pp., 109 colour and b&w illus., ISBN: 9781472438683, $109.95 (hardback)

BUILDING A WORLD HERITAGE CITY: SANAA, YEMEN, MICHELE LAMPRAKOS (2015) Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 270 pp., 57 illus., ISBN: 9781472435408, $122.99 (hardback)

JARDINS D’ORIENT: DE L’ALHAMBRA AU TAJ MAHAL, INSTITUT DU MONDE ARABE, PARIS, FRANCE, APRIL 19–SEPTEMBER 25, 2016

CIVIL ARCHITECTURAL MEMORY ANKARA: 1930–1980, IZMIR ARCHITECTURAL CENTER, IZMIR, TURKEY, SEPTEMBER 21–23, 2016

‘WRITING HISTORIES OF NOW: MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST ART AND ARCHITECTURE’, FORUM TRANSREGIONALE STUDIEN AND DEPARTMENT OF ART AND VISUAL HISTORY (IKB), HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY, BERLIN, GERMANY, JULY 6–7, 2015

‘BEYOND THE MOSQUE: DIVERSE SITES OF MUSLIM PRAYER’, UNIVERSITIES ART ASSOCIATION OF CANADA/L’ASSOCIATION D’ART DES UNIVERSITÉS DU CANADA ANNUAL CONFERENCE, MONTREAL, CANADA, OCTOBER 27–30, 2016