This course introduces Islamic palaces, gardens, and court cultures. Through lectures and discussion we will examine medieval Islamic notions of palace and garden, relating the material evidence and art historical interpretation to the picture of the various Islamic court cultures gleaned from readings in social and political history. As we examine the material evidence for palaces and gardens we will also take note of shifts in scholars’ assumptions and interpretations of this material as revealed in the historiography.

Course Readings

One text is available at Wheelock Books:

Other assigned readings and resources for the term paper are available online as .pdf files on ArchNet or on the Reserve Shelf in Baker/Berry

Online Resources: The course syllabus and handouts will be available on Blackboard. Images of buildings, a dictionary of terms specific to Islamic art, and collections of books and articles about Islamic art and architecture are also available online through the ArchNet website (http://www.archnet.org).

Course Requirements

• Intro quiz 10%
• weekly abstract (7) 21%
• Midterm 20%
• Attendance 9%
• participation in class discussions 10%
• Research paper (8-10 pages) 30%

Readings & Class Participation

To prepare for class discussions prepare a 1 page abstract in which you synthesize the readings, explaining the authors’ arguments in your own words and addressing the following points: what evidence do the authors present? Do you find the arguments persuasive? Why or why not? What ramifications might these readings have for our topic in general? Include one or two questions or issues per reading that the material raised for you. We will draw upon your questions and issues during class discussions.

Research Paper

Research Papers are due June 2. Late papers will lose one letter grade per day of tardiness. Please make an appointment to meet with me well before midterm to discuss your interests and possible topics.

All students should plan to work with the Department of Art History Writing Editor Iona McAulay from the beginning of the writing process. (She can be reached at iona.mcaulay@dartmouth.edu, ph. 603-646-0434, office 302 Carpenter Hall). She will not advise on content (please consult with me on such issues), but will work with you on grammar, writing skills, and style appropriate to an art history paper.

Exceptional needs
If you have concerns regarding exceptional needs, please notify me as soon as possible so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

GENERAL SCHEDULE

Week 1: Introduction

Weeks 2-5: Caliphal Palaces

Week 6: Rise of the citadel in the Mediterranean

Week 7: Palace and Court in the Wake of the Mongol Conquests

Weeks 8–10: Palaces of the Gunpowder Empires

SCHEDULE OF READINGS

Note: the Thursday x-hour will be left open except for specific weeks noted below.

Introduction

Week 1

Mon. March 29: Introduction

Wed. March 31: Pre-Islamic influences and the rise of Islam

Lapidus, Ira “Origins...” In A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002), 3-51. (NOTE: quiz on this Friday)

Fri. April 2: Situating the topic: palace & garden

Preziosi, Donald. “Power, Structure, and Architectural Function,” In The Ottoman City and its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, (New Rochelle, 1991), 103-105.

Wescoat, Jim, Jr. "The Islamic Garden: Issues for Landscape Research." In Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre 1 (1986): 10-19. (pdf)

The Umayyad Palaces of Syria

Week 2

Mon. April 5: Intro to the Umayyads

Lapidus, Ira, 67-71 (Umayyad court culture)

Wed. April 7: the Umayyad qusur

Hamilton, Robert “Hisham the Umayyad Statesman,” In Walid and His Friends: An Umayyad Tragedy, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, no. VI ed. Julian Raby (Oxford, 1988) 74-85. (Reserve)

Fri. April 9: Khirbat al-Mafjar

Hillenbrand, Robert. “La dolce vita in early Islamic Syria: the evidence of later Umayyad palaces.” In Art History. 1982. 1-35. (Reserve)

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

Irwin, Robert ed. “Court Culture (7th-8th c.),” In Night & Horses & the Desert, (NY, 2001 ed.), 42-67. (On court poetry during the Umayyad period)

Hamilton, Robert, Walid and His Friends: An Umayyad Tragedy, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, no. VI ed. Julian Raby (Oxford, 1988). (Reserve)

The Palace as City I: Abbasid Palaces
Week 3

Mon. April 12: Abbasid Baghdad

Lapidus, “the Abbasid empire” 56-66.

Jacob Lassner, “The Building of Madinat as-Salam,” and “The Dar al-Khalifa…,” In The Topography of Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages (Detroit,1970), 45-59 and 85-89 (Reserve)

Wed. April 14: NO CLASS

Fri. April 16: NO CLASS

Week 4

Mon. April 19: Abbasid Samarra

Julia Bray, “Samarra in Ninth-Century Arabic Letters,” A medieval Islamic city reconsidered: an interdisciplinary approach to Samarra ed. Chase Robinson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 21-28.(Reserve)

Julie Scott-Meisami, “The Palace Complex as Emblem. Some Samarran Qasidas,” A medieval Islamic city reconsidered: an interdisciplinary approach to Samarra ed. Chase Robinson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 69-79. (Reserve)

Wed. April 21: Samarra

Marcus Milwright, “Fixtures and Fittings. The Role of Decoration in Abbasid Palace Design,” A medieval Islamic city reconsidered: an interdisciplinary approach to Samarra ed. Chase Robinson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), 79-110. (reserve)

Fri. April 23:

Qasim al-Samarrai, “The ‘Abbasid Gardens in Baghdad and Samarra (7th-12th century),” The Authentic Garden: A Symposium on Gardens ed. L. Tjon Sie Fat and E. de Jong (Leiden: Clusius Foundation, 1990), 115-122.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

Soucek, Priscilla “Byzantium and the Islamic East,” Glory of Byzantium: Art and culture of the Middle Byzantine era, AD 843-1261. (NY: MMA, 1997) 402-411. (Reserve)

The Palace as City II: the Cordoban Umayyads

Week 5:

Mon. April 26: Introduction to Islamic Spain

Menocal, Maria R. “A Brief History of a First-Rate Place,” Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Boston: Back Bay Books, 2002), 15-49. (Reserve)

Wed. April 28: Madinat al-Zahra’

al-Maqqari, Ahmad ibn Muhammad, “City and palace of Az-zahra,” In The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain (1964 reprint), 232-240.

Ruggles, D.F. “Madinat al-Zahra’,” In Gardens, Landscape and Vision in the palaces of Islamic Spain. (Univ. Park, 2000) 53-85. (Reserve)

MIDTERM: THURSDAY APRIL 29 12:00-1:00

Friday April 30: Palaces and Gardens of al-Andalus

Dickie, James, “The Islamic Garden in Spain,” In The Islamic Garden, (Washington DC, 1976), 89-105. (Reserve)

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

Glaire D. Anderson, “Identity and the Transplanted Dynasty: the country estates of Umayyad Cordoba,” Chicago Art Journal (2003).

Jerrilyn Dodds, ed., al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain (New York, 1992).

The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Leiden: Brill).

Maria Rosa Menocal et al., ed., The literature of Al-Andalus, Cambridge history of Arabic literature (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000).

Francisco Prado-Vilar, “Circular Visions of Fertility and Punishment: Caliphal Ivory Caskets from al-Andalus,” Muqarnas 14 (1997), 19-41. (pdf)

The rise of the Citadel around the Mediterranean

Week 6:

Mon. May 3:

Lapidus, “The post-Abbasid Middle Eastern state system” 112-32

Ruggles, D.F. “The Alhambra” In Gardens, Landscape and Vision… 163-208. (Reserve)

Wed. May 5: Rise of the Turkic dynasties: Guest Lecture on Ghaznavids and Eastern Seljuks

Scott-Meisami, Julie, “Palaces and paradises: Palace Description in Medieval Persian Poetry,” In Islamic Art and Literature, Grabar and Robinson, eds. 21-54. (Reserve)

Fri. May 7: The Seljuks of Anatolia

Scott Redford, “Thirteenth-century Rum Seljuq Palaces and Palace Imagery,” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993), 219-238. (ArchNet pdf)

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

Scott Redford, “Landscape and the Centralizing State,” and “Rum Seljuk Gardens,” In Landscape and the State in Medieval Anatolia: Seljuk Gardens and Pavilions of Alanya, Turkey (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000) 53-90, 91-114. (Reserve)

The Mobile Court: Palaces in the wake of the Mongol conquest

Week 7 & 8

Fri. May 14:

Lapidus, “Iran: the Mongol, Timurid. . . Empires,” 226-31.

Gonzalez de Clavijo, Ruy, “Chapter XIII: Samarqand,”In Embassy to Tamerlane 1403-1406, transl. Guy Le Strange, (Routledge & Sons, 1928), 237-56. (Reserve)

Mon. May 17:

O’Kane, Bernard. 1993. “From Tents to Pavilions: Royal Mobility and Persian Palace Design.” In Ars Orientalis, Vol. 23. Gulru Necipoglu, ed. (Ann Arbour: Department of History, University of Michigan.) (ArchNet pdf)

Wed. May 19: Timurid Gardens

Golombek, Lisa “The Gardens of Timur: new perspectives,” In Muqarnas 12 (1995), 137-47. (ArchNet pdf)

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

Blair, Sheila. “The Ilkhanid Palace.” In Ars Orientalis. 1993. 239-248.

Donald N. Wilber, “Timurid Gardens: From Tamerlane to Babur,” Persian gardens and garden pavilions (Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle Co., 1962), 53-78.

Maria Eva Subtelny, “Agriculture and the Timurid Chaharbagh: the Evidence from a Medieval Persian Agricultural Manual,” Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires: Theory and Design, Muquarnas Supplement Vol. 7, Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture ed. A. Petruccioli, (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 110-128. (Reserve and on ArchNet)

Palaces of the Gunpowder Empires:
Mughal India, Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkey

Weeks 8 & 9

X-HOUR MEETING Thurs. May 20:

Lapidus, [Introductory paragraph of Chapter 18 on p. 356] and “The Mughal Empire,” p. 368-78.

Lapidus, “Safavid Iran,” 234-241

Fri. May 21:

Lapidus, “The Turkish migrations and the Ottoman Empire,” 248-63.

Mon. May 24:

Necipoglu, Gulru, “Framing the Gaze in Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Palaces.” In Ars Orientalis, Vol. 23 (1993), 303-42 (pdf)

Wed. May 26:

Rehman, Abdul, “Garden Types in Mughal Lahore according to Early-Seventeenth-Century Written and Visual Sources,” In Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires: Theory and Design. Attilio Petruccioli (ed). (Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1997). (Archnet Pdf & Baker Reserve shelf)

X-HOUR MEETING Thur. May 27:

Alemi, Mahvash, “The Royal Gardens of the Safavid Period: Types and Models.” In Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires: Theory and Design. Attilio Petruccioli (ed). (Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1997). (Archnet Pdf & Baker Reserve shelf)

Fri. May 28:

Gulru Necipoglu, “The Suburban Landscape of Sixteenth-Century Istanbul as a Mirror of Classical Ottoman Garden Culture.” In Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires: Theory and Design. Attilio Petruccioli (ed). (Leiden, 1997 ) (Archnet Pdf & Baker Reserve shelf)

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

A Journey to Persia : Jean Chardin's portrait of a seventeenth-century empire

The sultan's seraglio : an intimate portrait of life at the Ottoman court / Ottaviano Bon

The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, transl. and ed. Wheeler M. Thackston, (Oxford UP, 1995).

Hillenbrand, R. “The Safavids,” Islamic Art & Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 1999) 226-254.

Hillenbrand, R. “The Ottomans,” Islamic Art & Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 1999)255-280.

Kleiss, W. “Safavid Palaces,” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993), 269-80. (pdf)

Koch, E. “Mughal Palace gardens from Babur to Shah Jahan (1526-1648)” In Muqarnas 14: 143- 165. (ArchNet pdf)

Pinder-Wilson, R. "Bagh and Chahar Bagh," In The Islamic Garden, (Washington, DC, 1976). (Reserve)