The mosque of El Aksa in the sacred enclosure in Jerusalem, and south of the Dome of the Rock, was commenced by Abdalmalik (691), who used up materials taken from the church of St Mary, built by Justinian on Mount Sion, which had been destroyed by Chosroes. There have been so many restorations and rebuildings since, owing to destructive earthquakes and other causes, that it is difficult to give the precise dates of the various portions. The columns of the nave and aisles are extremely stunted in proportion, and their capitals are of a very debased type, copied by inferior artists from Byzantine models. They carry immense wood beams cased, and above them a range of pointed arches, among the earliest examples used throughout a mosque, and probably dating from the rebuilding (774-785). The Crusaders made various additions in the rear, but the great entrance porch is said to have been added by Saladin, after 1187, and was built probably by Christian masons who were allowed to remain in the country.
The numerous minarets at Jerusalem and Damascus in general design follow those of Egypt, but instead of the incised work are generally encased with marble in geometric patterns.
The great mosque at Mecca, from which it was thought at one time the plan of the Egyptian and other mosques was taken, is necessarily different from all others, because the Ka‘ba or Holy Stone, towards which all the niches in all other mosques turn, stood in its centre. The arcades which surround the court were nearly all rebuilt in the 17th century, as the whole mosque was washed away by a torrent in 1626.
The mosque of Kairawan in Tunisia was built in 675. It occupies an area of 427 ft. deep and 225 ft. wide, with a prayer chamber at the Mecca end of 17 aisles and 11 bays deep, more than twice, therefore, that of ‘Amr in Old Cairo. The columns to the prayer chamber, all taken from ancient buildings, are 22 ft. high in the central aisle and 15 ft. in all the others. They carry horse-shoe arches, which, as in the mosque of ‘Amr, are all tied together by wood beams inserted at the springing of the arches.
The mosque of Cordova was built by Abdarrahman (Abd-ar-Rahman) in 786-789 in imitation of the mosque of Kairawan. There were eleven aisles of twenty-one bays, the centre one slightly wider than the other. The materials were taken from earlier buildings, and, as the columns and caps were not considered high enough, above the horse-shoe arches are built a second row of arches which carry the barrel vaults. To this mosque Hakim added twelve more bays in depth at the Mecca end (962), and in 985 Mansur added eight more aisles of thirty-three bays on the east side. Part of the open court on the north side dates from Abdarrahman’s foundation (690) and part from Mansur.
| Fig. 60.—Capital and Springing of Arch, from the Hall of Abencarrages, Alhambra. |
In the mosque of Cordova we find the earliest example of the cusped arch, in the additions made by Hakim in 961; in order to obtain a greater height above the columns, it became necessary to employ the expedient of raising arch above arch in order to obtain the height they required for the ceilings; and as these arches formed purely decorative features, which might otherwise have become monotonous, variety was given by introducing the cusped form of arch and interlacing them one within the other. It is probably this elaborate design which suggested the plaster decorations of the screens above the arches in the court of the Alhambra. Though commenced in 1245, the existing palace of the Alhambra was built in the first half of the 14th century, at a time when the style was fully developed. There are two great courts at right angles to one another, the most important of which was the Court of the Lions, so called from the fountain in the centre, with twelve conventional representations of that animal carrying the basins. This court is surrounded by an arcade with stilted arches carried on slender marble columns with extremely rich decoration above, partly in stucco painted and gilt. The hall of the Abencerrages (35 ft. square) has a polygonal dome covered with arabesque (fig. 60). Two other halls are roofed with lofty stalactite vaults of great intricacy, richly gilded and of remarkable effect (fig. 61), but the employment of stucco instead of stone, as in Egypt, has led to an abuse in the wealth of enrichment, which is only partly redeemed by the plain masonry of the towers and walls enclosing the palace. The Giralda at Seville is the only example of a tower, but it does not seem to have served the purpose of a minaret.
With the exception of the tombs of Zobeide and Ezekiel near Bagdad, and a hospital at Erzerum of the 12th century, built by the Seljukian dynasty, the Mahommedan style in Persia dates from the 13th century, i e. if Ghazan Khan built the mosque at Tabriz in 1294. The plan is that of a Byzantine church with a central dome, aisles and sanctuary. The portal consists of a lofty niche vaulted with semi-domes and stalactite pendentives, similar in many respects to the well-known example of Sultan Hasan in Cairo, built sixty years later. It is built in brick and covered internally and externally with glazed bricks of various colours, wrought into most intricate patterns with interlacing ornament and with Cufic inscriptions. The dazzling and perfect beauty in point of colour is not to be surpassed, but from the architectural point of view it possesses the fatal sin of not showing its construction. The bricks and tiles are only a veneer, and though in certain features (such as the portal and the dome) the construction is at least suggested, the tendency is to trust to decoration alone to produce architectural effects. (But see [Tabriz].)
The great mosque at Isfahan (1585) is a good illustration of the danger attending a too free use of surface decoration. Strip the walls of their tiles, and nothing is left except square box-like forms with pointed arched openings of different form. The interior, however, owing to the variety of its features, and the varied play of light and shade given in the hemispherical vaults of its transepts and niches and the vaulted aisles, constitutes one of the most beautiful monuments of Mahommedan art.
Apart from the great development of Mahommedan architecture in India (see [Indian Architecture]), there remains now to be described only one other phase of the style, that found in Constantinople.