Spirit & Life

This series of short videos was created for visitors to the Islamic Middle East gallery at the V&A. The videos show some of the great historical buildings of the Islamic period. This is the architectural setting for which many of the objects on display in the gallery were made.

The Islamic period began with the rapid rise of Islam in the 7th century AD. The religion’s founder, the Prophet Muhammad, was a political leader as well as a religious guide, and after his death in 632, his successors established a vast empire. By 750 it stretched from Spain and Morocco in the west to Central Asia and Afghanistan in the east. Two hundred years later this single Islamic empire had been replaced by a number of competing states. Despite their rivalries, the Muslim rulers of the time shared many ideas on culture and politics, as well as religion. This common Islamic heritage was maintained until the 1920s.

The videos show both secular and religious architecture from this long period. The first sequence, Three Palaces, shows surviving residences of Islamic rulers in Spain, Turkey and Iran. The subject of the second sequence, Mosques of the Middle East, is places of worship in Syria, Iran, Turkey and Egypt. The last of these short films, recorded in the mosque of Sultan Hasan in Cairo, shows worshippers gathering for the midday prayer on Friday, the main service of the week. It reminds us that Islamic art and architecture are still part of everyday life for an important part of the world’s population.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/asia/islamic_gall/videos/index.html

Widely regarded as Spain’s greatest masterpiece of Islamic Architecture.

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From the official website of the Ismaili Muslim community:

At the heart of the port city of Maputo, capital of Mozambique, stands a building that testifies to the long history of the Ismaili Muslim community in the region. The Maputo Jamatkhana is located a short distance from the heart of the old city’s baixa (commercial area). Flanked by two intricately carved glass-wall minarets, the concrete structure is easily identified by the words Edificio Sua Alteza Aga Khan (The Building of His Highness the Aga Khan) that adorn the central clock tower.

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The work of revitalizing the mosques is gradually being extended to their surrounding neighbourhoods to include all residential accommodation situated in the shadow of the minarets. How wonderfully symbolic it is that the outcome of efforts to restore the mosques should be to improve the quality of life of the people whose lives follow the same rhythm as theirs!

The restoration of the Great Mosque of Mopti is the fruit of close collaboration between the Ministry of Culture and the National Cultural Heritage Department (DNPC), the regional and local authorities, the Mosque Committee and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and of the dedication of numerous professionals and craftspeople from architects and conservation experts to stone masons, brick-makers, plasterers, metal workers, potters and electricians.

This project has made it possible to combine modern heritage conservation techniques with the processes and materials traditionally employed in the construction of earth buildings. The participation in the project of the few stone masons who still practise banco pourri has meant that more than 30 young people have been trained in this traditional technique, thus ensuring that is handed down to the next generation.

This is especially relevant in Mali where there is a danger that traditional artisans will gradually disappear, taking with them the skills and knowledge accumulated by previous generations of builders. Hence, restoring this important monument has provided the opportunity to perpetuate a tradition and also to ensure the future conservation of built heritage with appropriate techniques, competently applied.

– His Highness the Aga Khan, speech delivered at the ceremony of inauguration of the Great Mosque of Mopti

The architecture of Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, India, inspired subsequent Mughal imperial architecture.

The construction of the tomb of the second Mughal Emperor Humayun began in 1565 and took over ten years to complete.

It is believed that the construction of the tomb was commissioned by Humayun’s widow Haji Begum. Although the architect of the tomb was ‘imported’ from Persia, it has been observed that the distinctly Indian aspects of the tomb, such as the domed pavilions that surround the central dome, set Humayun’s tomb firmly in the Indo-Islamic tradition that was already emerging at the time. Many of the tomb’s basic elements, such as the octagonal plans and high iwans (large, vaulted chambers with a monumental arched openings on one side), are derived from earlier tombs built for Delhi sultans.

Humayun’s tomb may be the earliest existing example in India, and perhaps in Islam, of a tomb placed in the most formal of settings. The synthesis of garden and mausoleum at Humayun’s tomb as well as the unprecedented scale and grandeur of the monument, established a new dynastic tomb building that was repeated later in several tombs including the Taj Mahal in Agra.

In the year 2000, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in collaboration with the Archeological Survey of India undertook the restoration of Humayun’s tomb which is one of twenty three World Heritage Sites in India; the work was completed in 2003. For further information on Humayun’s tomb, log on to the website of the ArchNet at

http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.tcl?site_id=8

“A society without a strong sense of its own identity has time and again in human history proved to be well on the way to decay….For five centuries, Muslim architecture led the world in concept, in design, in finish and even in structural ingenuity. Millions of non-Muslims every year visit Islamic monuments in the Middle East, in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent, and in North Africa. And yet what is being done today to develop our own Islamic architecture of the twenty-first century? Practically nothing.”

His Highness the Aga Khan, Sindh, Pakistan, February 6, 1970

Did You Know?

The very first awards of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture were presented in Lahore, Pakistan on October 23, 1980. Lahore is an ancient city at the crossroads of trade routes linking India, Afghanistan, Arabia and the Persian Gulf. The first Mughal emperor arrived in Lahore from Central Asia in 1524 A.D. and made it his base. Lahore eventually became the capital of the Mughal empire when emperor Akbar the Great moved his court from Ahmedabad in 1584 A.D. The Mughals refined the Persian language, literature, miniature paintings and music. They systemized the educational and cultural traditions, and built magnificent monuments in Lahore. One of the well-known monuments of the Mughal era is the Taj Mahal built in the 17th century. The Mughals contributed to the construction of madrasahs (colleges), resulting in a vast expansion of educational institutions, making Lahore one of the major centres of Islamic scholarship. The Indo-Islamic style of architecture continues to be reflected in Lahore today.

– Sajida S. Alivi, “Islam in South Asia,” The Muslim Almanac ed Azim A. Nanji (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1995)