Integrating the Medieval Iberian Peninsula and North Africa in Islamic Architectural History

Abstract

How do Islamic art survey texts present the architecture of the Islamic West, and how does this presentation shape the perception of the Maghrib in university classrooms? Examining the Great Mosque of Qayrawān and the Great Mosque of Cordoba as they appear in four representative and widely used art history survey texts, this article argues that a common art historical narrative characterises the art of early medieval North Africa as ultimately derivative of and artistically inferior to the art of early Islamic Iraq, Egypt, and the Iberian Peninsula. The article points to a shared chronological moment, which witnessed the expansion of the Cordoba prayer hall during the reign of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II and several building projects undertaken around the same time by the Aghlabid emirs of Ifrīqiya. Examining these two building programmes in relation to one another leads to different conclusions about these monuments of the Islamic West than are offered in the art history texts, which privilege formalist readings. The article proposes the utility of a pan-Straits approach emphasising specific contexts (historical, political, religious, social, and artistic) within the Islamic West in addressing the problematic issues raised by this narrative. Such an approach, especially if combined with critical studies of the colonial structures that informed early scholarship on the Islamic West, may offer a means for the discipline to re-evaluate the place of the Maghrib in the larger history of Islamic art. It may also provide a means to move beyond problematic inherited discourses of Islamic art history and its canon.

Keywords:

• Islamic architecture
• Qayrawān
• Cordoba
• mosques
• Umayyad
• Aghlabid

Acknowledgements

An early version of this essay was presented as part of a round table session at the Spain North Africa Project (SNAP) Symposium, Catholic University in 2011. My thanks to the SNAP Executive Board and session moderator Andrew Devereux, and to audience participants, especially Maribel Fierro, whose stimulating questions shaped the article. I wish to thank Adam Gaiser, Miriam Ali de Unzaga, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and editorial work, and Melanie Michailidis, Mariam Rosser-Owen, and Lyneise Williams, who read and commented on the draft at various stages. Any errors that remain are my own.

Notes

1 This is by no means a comprehensive selection, but rather a representative one for a common narrative. See also Brend (1991), Delius and Hattstein (2000), and Irwin (1997).

2 Website of Professor Robert Hillenbrand http://www.imes.ed.ac.uk/index-pages/staff_pages/robert_hillenbrand.html

3 The Aghlabids faced rebellions from the Arab jund (army). For example, Ziyādat Allah I had to contend with rebellions led by the Arab chiefs Manṣūr al-Tunbūdhī, who took control of Tunis and occupied Qayrawān in 209/824, as well as ‘Amir b. Nāfi’ (Abun-Nasr 1987, 55–56). In al-Andalus, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān II subdued the seven-year rebellion of the Yemeni chief Abū al-Shammākh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Judhamī by giving him a position in the army (Kennedy 1996, 47).

4 My thanks to Adam Gaiser for sharing, in advance of its publication, his article ‘Slaves and Silver across the Strait of Gibraltar: Politics and Trade between Umayyad Iberia and Kharijite North Africa’.