Resources & Publications

Elaine Wright, Lapis and Gold, Exploring Chester Beatty’s Ruzbihan Qur’an

Praised as one of the finest calligraphers of his time, Ruzbihan Muhammad al-Tab‘i al-Shirazi would have produced numerous Qur’ans during the course of his career, but only five signed by him have survived, of which the Chester Betty manuscript—produced in Shiraz—is surely his finest. Equally deserving of praise is the team of highly skilled, yet anonymous, artists responsible for the manuscript’s decorative programme, the combined quality, extent, diversity and complexity of which sets the manuscript apart from almost all others of its time. The manuscript is not dated, but work on it probably began about 1550.

The book is a detailed and comprehensive study of the manuscript with chapters on the writing of the text (including a discussion of problems encountered in the spacing of the text and omissions and errors made by the calligrapher), the reading and recitation of the text and the decoration of it. Much of the discussion is the result of close examination of the manuscript under high magnification, which often revealed surprising and previously unknown aspects of production. An essay on the pigments used in the manuscript, by Kristine Rose Beers, the Chester Beatty’s Senior Conservator, is also included. 

Ad Ilissum/Paul Holberton Publishing, London

Hardback, 300 x 240 mm

320 pages, 430 colour illustrations

ISBN 978 1 912168 04 0

Berlin Museum of Islamic Art: Collections Online

The Berlin Museum of Islamic Art's object database includes over 11,000 objects and is now available online, at  www.smb-digital.de. 

Please look for „Museum für Islamische Kunst“. Currently the descriptions are only available in German. However you may search the collection in a special search form („Advanced Search“) according to date, material, object/term and geographical reference and enjoy the multiple views of the objects featured under the headline „Multimedia“.

Photographic Archive: Manar al-Athar

The Manar al-Athar website, based at the University of Oxford, aims to provide free, downloadable, high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, with buildings and art, will cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through, the Islamic period to the present. It is the first website of its kind providing such material labelled jointly in both Arabic and English. There are currently over 30,000 images online. 

Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, Bayt Farhi and the Sephardic Palaces of Ottoman Damascus in the Late 18th and 19th Centuries

One of the largest and most important palatial houses of late 18th- and early 19th-century Damascus belonged to the Farhi family, who served as financial administrators to successive Ottoman governors in Damascus and Acre. The conversion of Bayt Farhi to a hotel provided a unique opportunity to make a detailed examination of its architecture, which is comparable to those of affluent Christians and Muslims, and decorated with high quality materials in the latest styles.

Lavishly illustrated with extensive color photographs, plans, and reconstruction drawings the book brings to life the home environment of the lost elite Sephardic community of Ottoman Damascus. It will be an essential resource for those studying the architecture, history, and culture of Syria and the Ottoman Empire. Co-published with Manar al-Athar, University of Oxford.

Annual of ASOR, 72

Manar al-Athar Monographs, 4  

ISBN-13 9780897571005 
ISBN-10 0897571002

356 pages (255 col & 47 b/w illus.)

$89.95

Somaiyeh Falahat, Cities and Metaphors Beyond Imaginaries of Islamic Urban Space

Introducing a new concept of urban space, Cities and Metaphors encourages a theoretical realignment of how the city is experienced, thought and discussed. 

In the context of ‘Islamic city’ studies, relying on reasoning and rational thinking has reduced descriptive, vivid features of the urban space into a generic scientific framework. Phenomenological characteristics have consequently been ignored rather than integrated into theoretical components. The book argues that this results from a lack of appropriate conceptual vocabulary in our global body of scholarly literature. It challenges existing theories, introduces and applies the concept of Hezar-tu (‘a thousand insides’) to rethink the spaces in historic cores of Fez, Isfahan and Tunis. This tool constructs a staging post towards a different articulation of urban space based on spatial, physical, virtual, symbolic and social edges and thresholds; nodes of sociospatial relationships; zones of containment; state of intermediacy; and, thus, a logic of ambiguity rather than determinacy. Presenting alternative narrations of paths through sequential discovery of spaces, this book brings the sensual features of urban space into the focus. 　

The book finally shows that concepts derived from local contexts enable us to tailor our methods and theoretical structures to the idiosyncrasies of each city while retaining the global commonalities of all. Hence, in broader terms, it contributes to a growing awareness that urban studies should be more inclusive by bringing the diverse global contexts of cities into the body of our urban knowledge.

International Journal of Islamic Architecture, 7.2

This volume contains book and exhibition reviews, conference précis, an editorial preface by Yuka Kadoi, and articles in which scholars reflect on innovative ways to present Islamic art in exhibition and museum settings. Some of these studies are based on past and current exhibitions and installations at the Ashmolean Museum, the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. Others reflect on the traveling exhibitions of the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah in Kuwait, and on the possibilities of recreating an Ilkhanid monument within an exhibition space, combining photographs of the structure with dispersed pieces of its architectural decoration.This volume contains book and exhibition reviews, conference précis, an editorial preface by Yuka Kadoi, and articles in which scholars reflect on innovative ways to present Islamic art in exhibition and museum settings. Some of these studies are based on past and current exhibitions and installations at the Ashmolean Museum, the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. Others reflect on the traveling exhibitions of the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah in Kuwait, and on the possibilities of recreating an Ilkhanid monument within an exhibition space, combining photographs of the structure with dispersed pieces of its architectural decoration.

Farzaneh Pirouz, Clay between Two Seas: From Baghdad to the Talavera of Puebla / Cerámica entre dos mares

Cerámica entre dos mares, ed. Farzaneh Pirouz-Moussavi

Spanish and English

Planeta, 2014

ISBN  978-6070739842

The Indigenous Lens? Early Photography in the Near and Middle East (Anthology), ed. Markus Ritter and Staci Gem Scheiwiller

The historiography of early photography has scarcely examined Islamic countries in the Near and Middle East, although the new technique was adopted very quickly there by the 1840s. Which regional, local, and global aspects can be made evident? What role did autochthonous image and art traditions have, and which specific functions did photography meet since its introduction? This collective volume deals with examples from Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and the Arab lands and with the question of local specifics, or an „indigenous lens." The contributions broach the issues of regional histories of photography, local photographers, specific themes and practices, and historical collections in these countries. They offer, for the first time in book form, a cross-section through a developing field of the history of photography.

Series: Studies in Theory and History of Photography (Book 8)
Paperback: 374 pages
Publisher: De Gruyter (October 11, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3110491354
ISBN-13: 978-311049135

Olga Bush, Reframing the Alhambra: Architecture, Poetry, Textiles and Court Ceremonial

The Nasrid builders of the Alhambra – the best-preserved medieval Muslim palatial city – were so exacting that some of their work could not be fully explained until the invention of fractal geometry. Their design principles have been obscured, however, by the loss of all archival material. This book resolves that impasse by investigating the neglected, interdisciplinary contexts of medieval poetics and optics and through comparative study of Islamic court ceremonials. This reframing enables the reconstruction of the underlying, integrated aesthetic, focusing on the harmonious interrelationship between diverse artistic media – architecture, poetry and textiles – in the experience of the beholder, resulting in a new understanding of the Alhambra.

Hardback, Spring 2018, 344 pages, 94 colour illustrations; ISBN 9781474416504 

Edinburgh University Press (distributed by Oxford University Press in the Americas)

Moya Carey, Persian Art: Collecting the Arts of Iran for the V&A

Today, the Victoria and Albert Museum holds extensive and renowned collections of Iranian art, spanning at least twelve centuries of Iran's sophisticated cultural history. These objects range from archaeological finds to architectural salvage, from domestic furnishings and drinking vessels to design archives. Most of this diverse material was purchased in the late nineteenth century, over a few decades - roughly between 1873 and 1893 - during a specific period of contact between Victorian Britain and Qajar Iran.

The book investigates that period through four case studies, showing how architects, diplomats, dealers, collectors and craftsmen engage with Iran's complex visual traditions, ancient and modern.

Hardback, 272 pages, ISBN 9781851779338

London, Bloomsbury, 2017