Islam: Art and Architecture, Edited by Markus Hattstein and Peter Delius, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2007. pp623, fully illustrated with colour photographs, plans, line drawings and maps Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of the Architecture and Its Culture, Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2007. pp400, 270 Illus. incl. 200 in colour Among the many books on Islam's cultural heritage that have appeared on the market in recent years, two books on the bookshelf catch the eye: Islam: Art and Architecture and Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of the Architecture and Its Culture. Islam: Art and Architecture is a big book, but not cumbersome. Its cover is particularly striking, with the title and credits fitting comfortably into the spectacular façade of Sheikh Lutfallah's mosque in Isfahan. One cannot resist picking it up and opening it, and then what a feast! The book is a comprehensive study, written by 20 scholars from around the world specialised in the Islamic art of different regions. The book is comprehensive, beautifully illustrated with sharp and well-placed photographs, simplified maps, and ground plans of the various structures. It is an important academic resource and also an eye-opener for the many people who have yet to appreciate the artistic range and cultural development of Islam. Although embodying a way of life, Islam serves as a cohesive force among ethnically and culturally diverse peoples and so its art, understandably, has basic identifying and unifying characteristics, the most salient of which is, perhaps, the penchant for all-over surface decoration. Coloured tiles on the façades of buildings; wooden domes or ambulatory arches; portals of a Friday mosque; carved stucco courtyards, marble and metal decorations on basins and ewers, woven fabrics -- all are distinguished by a high degree of craftsmanship. One of the basic components of Islamic ornament, and the most highly regarded, is calligraphy. Objects from different periods and regions vary in the use of the Arabic script in their overall design; an entire word can give the impression of casual brushstrokes, or a single letter can develop into a decorative knot. In some examples calligraphy can be combined with vegetal scrolls on the same surface, sometimes on different levels and creating an interplay of decorative elements. "Buildings enveloped within a web of coloured decoration are one of the most distinctive features of Islamic art, and throughout centuries, glazed ceramic tiles have been one of the most popular means of achieving such chromatic effects," write authors Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, who draw attention to the brilliant metalwork, especially of Herat, an important centre for this industry. Painters were employed by Muslim patrons like Mehmed, who also recruited numerous writers to work on the copying of Turkish, Persian and Arabic manuscripts at the newly established libraries. "In the centre of this creativity was the production of magnificently illuminated Qoranic manuscripts for the newly established mosque complexes," writes Almud von Gladiss. As for Islamic architecture, whether mosques or tombs, palaces or reception halls like the salon of Sultan Murad III in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul with fountain and wall niches, this book provides a wonderful overview of the art of Islam, where, within the bond of a common religion, many distinctive local, cultural and ethnic features developed quite early. Islam constantly absorbed elements of the cultures it had conquered or converted. Consequently, although Islam: Art and Architecture includes any object or building created specifically in the service of the Muslim faith, because of the geographic spread and long history of Islam, its production has not only been subjected to a wide range of regional and national styles and influences, but variation and change within the periods of its development. To quote Markus Hattstein, "Between Maghreb in the west, parts of China and Southeast Asia in the east, the entire Arab and Persian area, and parts of northern Africa in the south as well as an increasingly strong presence in Europe, Islamic culture is a combination of unity and variety, which keeps it dynamic and alive, giving it a prominent position among the religions and cultures of the world." Islam: Art and Architecture is neither too large nor too small. It is comprehensive and scholarly but not dense -- a top quality publication for the scholar and lay person alike, both a reference book for the former and armchair travel for the latter. THE SECOND BOOK, Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of the Architecture and Its Culture, is a comprehensive work by Islamic art historian Doris Behrens-Abouseif in which she highlights the most important factors in the evolution of urban architecture. Drawing on Arabic chronicles as well as the latest in contemporary scholarship, she provides a complete history of Cairo's justly-famous Mamluk mosques, schools, hospitals and mausolea, and outlines the social and political reasons for Mamluk patronage. Abouseif taught Islamic Art at the American University in Cairo for many years, and it is clear that her unique strength owes not only to diligently researched material but also to an intimate knowledge of the 60 monuments under review. During the two and a half centuries of rule by Mamluk sultans from 1250 to 1517, Cairo acquired some of its most impressive mediaeval architecture which includes the historical monuments that today define the city's architectural heritage. In this scholarly yet engaging presentation, the author provides a wealth of material -- much of which has not been published before. She paints a picture of the Mamluk rulers themselves, their patronage of art and architecture, and their ceremonial rituals. Abouseif colours the environment of Al-Ghuri Palace on Rawda Island, for example, with a description of the lavish celebrations along the Nile shore at the time of this sultan, when the houses as well as the sultan's golden barge were illuminated with lanterns. Fireworks were fired by the accompanying boats and musical bands played. "Cairo of the Mamluks, " writes Behrens- Abouseif in her preface, "is a homage to Sindbad's choice." This is a reference to Husayn Fawzi's book Sindbad Misri, in which the central character travels through Egypt's long history in search of the Egyptian identity and finds it in the Mamluk period. Despite the cruelty, extortion, dirt, smells, epidemics and other dark aspects of mediaeval life, Mamluk Cairo when seen from the distance of history is fascinating. According to Fawzi, it's "a city that offered many pleasures to the common man... people from the most exotic and remote places came there to pursue their careers and earn a living. It was a centre of scholarship, commerce and art, where books and beautiful things were produced. With its recreation venues, a profusion of celebrations, amusements, waterfront festivities, glamorous processions and parades, music and poetry, Cairo was a brilliant and bustling metropolis that maintained its Mamluk identity even after four centuries of Ottoman rule." This publication, which arrives on the market when many of Cairo's historic buildings are being restored, will provide a valuable reference work for scholars and students of the art and architecture of the Islamic world as well as for historians of late mediaeval Islamic history. It provides a comprehensive survey of monuments in the period under review, highlighting the most important buildings (including the mausoleum built by Shagaret Al-Durr in honour of her late husband, the last Ayyubid ruler), the madrasa of Sultan Hassan, and the funerary complex of Al-Ghuri, the last powerful Mamluk sultan). Illustrated with colour photographs and architectural plans, this hefty book, as Behrens-Abouseif writes, focuses on religious architecture because "of its greater social and political significance... and also due to the scarcity of extant secular architecture from this period." By Jill Kamil
