Arts of the Islamic World (article) | Khan Academy (2024)

Islamic art is a modern conceptcreated by art historians in the 19th century to facilitate categorizationand study of the material first produced under the Islamic peoples that emerged from Arabia in the seventh century.

Today, the term Islamic art describes all of the arts that were produced in the lands where Islam was the dominant religion or the religion of those who ruled. Unlike the terms Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist art—which refer only to religious art of these faiths—the term Islamic art is not used merely to describe religious art or architecturebut applies to all art forms produced in the Islamic world.

Thus, the term Islamic art refers not only to works created by Muslim artists, artisans, and architects or for Muslim patrons. It encompasses works created by Muslim artists forpatrons of any faith, including—Christians, Jews, or Hindus—and the works created by Jews, Christians, and others, living in Islamic lands, for patrons, Muslim and otherwise.

Islamic art is not a monolithic style or movement; it spans 1,300 years of history and has incredible geographic diversity—Islamic empires and dynasties controlled territory from Spain to western China at various points in history. However, few if any of these various countries or Muslim empires would have referred to their art as Islamic. An artisan in Damascus thought of his work as Syrian or Damascene—not as Islamic.

As a result of thinking about the problems of calling such art Islamic, certain scholars and major museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have decided to omit the term Islamic when they renamed their new galleries of Islamic art. Instead, they are called “Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia,” thereby stressing the regional styles and individual cultures. Thus, when using the phrase, Islamic art, one should know that it is a useful, but artificial, concept.

In some ways, Islamic art is a bit like referring to the Italian Renaissance. During the Renaissance, there was no unified Italy; it was a land of independent city-states. No one would have thought of themselvesas an Italian, or of the art they produced as Italian.Rather, a person would have self-identified asa Roman, a Florentine, or a Venetian. Each city developed a highly local, remarkable style. At the same time, there are certain underlying themes or similarities that unify the art and architecture of these cities and allow scholars to speak of an Italian Renaissance.

Similarly, there are themes and types of objects that link the arts of the Islamic world together. Calligraphy is a very important art form in the Islamic world. The Qur’an, written in elegant scripts, represents Allah’s—or God’s—divine word, which Muhammad received directly from Allah during his visions. Quranic verses, executed in calligraphy, are found on many different forms of art and architecture. Likewise, poetry can be found on everything from ceramic bowls to the walls of houses. Calligraphy’s omnipresence underscores the value that is placed on language, specifically Arabic.

One of the most common misconceptions about the art of the Islamic world is that it is aniconic; that is, the art does not contain representations of humans or animals. Early examples of religious art and architecture, such as the Dome of the Rock andthe Aqsa Mosque—both in Jerusalem)—and the Great Mosque of Damascus—built under the Umayyad rulers—did not include human figures and animals. However, the private residences of sovereigns, such as Qasr ‘Amra andKhirbat Mafjar, were filled with vast figurative paintings, mosaics, and sculpture.

The study of the arts of the Islamic world has also lagged behind other fields in art history. There are several reasons for this. First, many scholars are not familiar with Arabic or Farsi—the dominant language in Iran. Calligraphy, particularly Arabic calligraphy, as noted above, is a major art form and appears on almost all types of architecture and arts. Second, the art forms and objects prized in the Islamic world do not correspond to those traditionally valued by art historians and collectors in the Western world. The so-called decorative arts—carpets, ceramics, metalwork, and books—are types of art that Western scholars have traditionally valued less than painting and sculpture. However, the last fifty years has seen a flourishing of scholarship on the arts of the Islamic world.

In this article, we use the phrase “Arts of the Islamic World” to emphasize that theart discussed was created in a world where Islam was a dominant religion or a major cultural forcebut was not necessarily religious art. Often, when the word Islamicis used today, it is used to describe something religious; thus using the phraseIslamic artcould be mistakenly interpreted to mean that all of this art is religious in nature. The phraseArts of the Islamic Worldalso acknowledges that not all of the work produced in the Islamic worldwas for Muslims orcreated by Muslims.

We have organized the material in this section into three chronological periods: early, medieval and late. When starting to learn about a new area of art, chronological organization often enables students to grasp the material and its fundamentals before going on to more complex analysis, like comparing building types or styles. Within each of these chronological groups, we have focused on creating geographic groups or groupings to organize the material further. The Islamic world was only unified very briefly in its history under the Umayyads (661–750 C.E.),and the early Abbasids(750–932 C.E.). Soon thereafter, various dynasties or rulers simultaneously commanded sections of territory, many of which had no cultural commonalities, aside from their religion.

We are also planning to upload a series of introductory essays on major types of art and architecture from the Islamic world, including carpets and mosques, in addition to essays and videos about specific works of art and architecture.

Arabic, Persian, and Turkish are complex languages whose transcription from their respective scripts to English has changed considerably over time. For the sake of ease, we have used the most common forms today, omitting the vocalizations. While we have aimed for consistency, we have also tried to use the simplest forms for those who are new to the arts of the Islamic world.

Additional resources

Bloom, Jonathan, and Sheila Blair, Islamic Arts (London: Phaidon Press, 1997).

Archnet, a resource focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues related to the Muslim world.

Essay by Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay