From the time of Herod through the Crusades, Jerusalem had officially "changed its religion" several times, with Jews, Christians, and Muslims inscribing the story of their faiths on the urban landscape. In this illustrated book, noted Islamist Oleg Grabar offers a rare account of the great role played by early Islam in defining the "look" of Jerusalem that remained largely intact until the twentieth century. From about 640 to 1100, Muslims transformed Christian Jerusalem, mainly the area now known as the Haram al-Sharif, both physically and ideologically to embody their new faith. Grabar examines this process, showing how it led to great architectural achievements, including the Dome of the Rock, still perhaps the most vivid image to impress any visitor to Jerusalem. Offering a major photographic record of the Dome's mosaics in color together with its interiors, this book shows in rich detail how Islam articulated itself architecturally, touching on historical and legendary memories and on themes of both religious harmony and Islamic triumph.

Dominating Jerusalem's landscape today, the Dome of the Rock was commissioned by Abd Al-Malik in 691, and still houses the Rock from which the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have ascended into heaven. Grabar argues that its construction altered the visual equilibrium of Jerusalem by equating its eastern hill, Mt. Moriah, a key landmark in Islam, with its western ones, Golgotha and Mt. Zion, highlighted by Christian monuments. A close look at the Dome's construction and decoration leads to a new explanation of the building as a Late Antique monument of art that could be adapted to several different and at times simultaneous interpretations. Grabar also offers a unique portrait of Jerusalem in the eleventh century under the Fatimid dynasty in Cairo, when the city was at its peak as a peaceful, cosmopolitan center. Through an innovative computer modeling program, Grabar presents fascinating reconstructions of the Haram al-Sharif, taking us down streets and past buildings, of which only remnants exist today.

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Yale University Press/Pelican History of Art

This classic book provides an unsurpassed overview of Islamic art and architecture from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, a time of the formation of a new artistic culture and its first flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. The volume focuses special attention on the development of numerous regional centers of art in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as the western and northeastern provinces of Iran. It traces the cultural and artistic evolution of such centers in the seminal early Islamic period and examines the wealth of different ways of creating a beautiful environment and provides new classifications of architecture and architectural decoration, the art of the object, and the art of the book.

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This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has now been brought up to date in order to take into consideration material that has recently come to light. In a new chapter, Oleg Grabar develops alternate models for the formation of Islamic art, tightens its chronology, and discusses its implications for the contemporary art of the Muslim world.

2nd revised, enlarged edition

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