CHAPTER III

MUHAMMEDAN, ALSO CALLED SARACENIC CIVILISATION

The introduction at this point of Muhammedan or Saracenic architecture unfortunately breaks the continuity of the evolution of Early Christian and Byzantine architecture into the Romanesque and thence into the Gothic. Accordingly, some writers reserve this chapter until the end of their book, treating it as an independent interlude.

That method, on the other hand, has the disadvantage of not giving the subject its proper place in the sequence of history; and since an important motive of the present volume is to represent the growth of architecture as the product of changing conditions of civilisation, it seems more in accordance with this aim to let the conditions govern the order in which the architectural phases are presented. So, in the inevitable choice between two evils of arrangement we will select that which, from our point of view, seems to be the least.

For it is true that Muhammedan or Saracenic civilisation represents but an interlude in the progress of Christian civilisation. What, however, would have been the outcome, if Charles Martel, in 732, had not crushed the advance of the Muhammedans into France? They might have fastened upon the latter as they had upon Spain, the north of Africa, Egypt, Syria. From France they might have descended upon Italy, and gradually drawn tighter the circle of their conquest until the Western as well as the Eastern Empire was entirely in their grasp. It needs but a little effort of imagination to realise that on the issue of the battle of Poictiers hung the fortunes of Europe; the survival of European civilisation and possibly the continuance of Christianity.

In fact, what was trembling in the balance was the extension of a new and vigorous power over a social order that, except in the Frankish kingdom, had grown more and more disintegrated and feeble. For in the decline of Rome even her conquerors had been involved; the various other Gothic nations in adapting the decay of her system had been corrupted by it. The only unifying and uplifting force that glimmered amid the general prostration was that of the Church, which might have been engulfed in Islamism if the Franks had not prevailed at Poictiers.

For in the present day we associate Islamism with the unprogressive nations, whereas in the eighth century it was the symbol of progressiveness. Its spiritual ideal was, at least, as high as that of Christianity; while its intellectual and material ideals were superior to those of Europe.

Shall we speak of Saracenic civilisation or Saracenic architecture as some do, or follow the example of others who substitute the term Muhammedan? The former word was probably derived from the Latin _Saraceni_, which was employed by the Romans to designate the Bedouins who roamed a part of the Syro-Arabian desert, and committed depredations on the frontier of the Empire. In the Middle Ages Saracen came to be used as a general term for Moslems, especially those who had penetrated into Spain. This latter use is too narrow, while the general use conveys no meaning.

Muhammedan, on the other hand, implies a follower of Muhammed or Mahomet, and it was the oneness of faith that first united the Arab tribesmen and in time gave a uniformity of ideal to their spread of conquest from the Pillars of Hercules to Northern India. While the character of the civilisation varied throughout this vast empire, being coloured by local and racial characteristics that reacted on the styles of architecture, it was everywhere impregnated with one belief. There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet.

Muhammed was born about 570 in Mecca, in the Arabian peninsula; a place hitherto of little importance, which had a cube-shaped sanctuary, the Kaaba, enshrining a Black Stone. It was the token or fetish of some god of nature; for some kind of nature worship, including the worship of the Sun, Moon, and Earth seems to have been the traditional religion of Arabia. Meanwhile, Judaism had penetrated into the country and Christianity had followed. Each figured in Muhammed’s imagination as a world religion. Both professed one God. One had its prophets; the other, its Messiah, and both its book of inspired revelation.

Accordingly, when the vision of Muhammed embraced the idea of founding at once a new nation and a new religion, he borrowed from both Judaism and Christianity and proclaimed himself the new prophet or Messiah of the one God and made known the New Revelation, which was embodied in the Koran. The faith of Islam, as preached by Muhammed and practised by him and his followers, was essentially one of proselytising by force. “The sword,” he taught, “is the key of Heaven and Hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, avails more than two months of fasting and prayer. Whoso falls in battle his sins are forgiven. At the Day of Judgment his wounds shall be resplendent with vermilion and odoriferous as musk, and the loss of limbs shall be supplied by angels’ wings.”

Muhammed’s self-imposed task of subjugating and uniting Arabia for the Arabians was begun after his flight from Mecca to Medina, the celebrated _Hejira_ (Arab _hijra_) which occurred on the Jewish Day of Atonement, Sept. 30, A.D. 622. The further work of conquering the countries on which the Arab tribes had been dependent, Syria, Abyssinia, Persia, was continued by his followers.

Of great importance in the history of architecture was the conquest of Persia (632-651), for here the Muhammedan influence developed a style that was distinguished by fine structural as well as aesthetic qualities and generally developed a beautiful revival of the various arts of decorative design. And it was Persian Muhammedan that strongly influenced the architecture of India, where Muhammedan conquest was established about A.D. 1000.

Meanwhile, the Arabic Muhammedans had founded a dynasty under the Ommayads with its capital in Damascus and a later one under the Abassids, whose most celebrated caliph was Haroun-el-Raschid of Bagdad, made famous by the “Thousand and One Nights.” Conquest was extended westward, gradually comprising Egypt, the north of Africa, Sicily, and Spain.

In 1453 the Crescent displaced the Cross in Constantinople.

Yet, notwithstanding the divisions of the Muhammedans and the immense distances separating them, a unity not only religious but also intellectual was maintained. The Muhammedans learned rapidly from the peoples they conquered and established for the diffusion of learning a sort of university system of travelling scholarships. Aided by Arabic as the universal language of learning, students journeyed from teacher to teacher, from the Atlantic to Samarcand, gathering hundreds of certificates. The education was designed to turn out theologians and lawyers; but theology included studies in metaphysics and logic, and the canon law required a knowledge of arithmetic, mensuration, and practical astronomy.

Technical education was maintained by gilds who perpetuated the “mysteries” of the craft through a system of apprenticeships. And it is to be noted that there was no distinction made between so-called arts and so-called crafts. The gild-system covered all kinds of constructive work from engineering to the making of a needle, and if the work permitted elements of beauty and decoration these were, as a matter of course, included. Hence the proficiency and inventiveness and exquisite perfection of workmanship displayed by the Muhammedan craftsmen.

But their Koran enjoined a literal obedience to the Mosaic law against “the making of any graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in Heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth.” Accordingly, there were no sculptors or painters in the full sense of the term; only decorators of moulded, engraved, or coloured ornament, the motives of which were confined to conventionalised flower and leaf forms and to geometric designs of practically endless variations of the straight line and curve, in meander, interlace, and fret, into which they often wove texts from the Koran or the sacred name of Allah. It is to these designs by Arab artists, influenced to some extent by Byzantine, that the term _arabesque_ was first applied.

Meanwhile it was the practice of Muhammedanism to absorb as far as possible the traditions of each nation it conquered. Gradually, therefore, the strictness of its orthodoxy was modified. In Persia, for example, the representation of animals was permitted in the arts of design, and the representation of human beings followed.

Similarly, the architectural style of each locality was affected by the previously existing architecture. The examples which remain are chiefly of mosques, tombs, houses, and palaces.

The word mosque comes to us through the French mosquée; the Spanish equivalent is mesquita, while the Arabs call the “place of prostration”--_masjid_. The nucleus of every one is the _mihrab_ or niche in a wall, indicating the _kibleh_ or direction of the Great Mosque at Mecca, with its shrine, the Kaaba. Beside the mihrab was a pulpit, _mimbar_, for preaching, and sometimes in front of it, for the reading of the Koran, stood a _dikka_ or platform raised upon columns. Shelter for the worshippers was provided by arcades, which in the immediate vicinity of the mihrab were often enclosed with lattice work, thus forming a prayer-chamber--_maksura_. The size of the mosque was indefinitely enlarged by the addition of more arcades, surrounding usually an open court, in the centre of which, as in the atrium of the Early Christian basilicas, was a fountain for ritual ablution.

The tomb was usually distinguished by a dome and during the lifetime of its founder served the purpose of a pleasure-house; corresponding somewhat to the Roman nymphæum, and, as in the case of the Taj Mahal, set in the midst of a beautiful system of gardens, water-basins, and terraces.

In his house also the Muhammedan jealously guarded his domestic privacy. He followed the Romans in leaving the exterior of his house plain, while centering all its luxury and comfort around an open interior court. Special quarters were provided for the women and the seclusion of their lives within the harem led to two features which are characteristic of Oriental houses, the balcony and the screen. That the occupants might take the air, balconies were built out from the walls both of the court and the exterior; and screened with lattice work, on the designs of which great skill and beauty were expended.

The palaces represented the extension of the house-plan by the addition of halls of ceremony. Sometimes, as in the case of the Alhambra, they combined the character of a citadel, and were always generously supplied with water, as well for the ablutions enjoined in the Koran, as for purposes of beauty. The Arabs, in fact, readily learned the Roman methods of engineering and hydraulics and in their houses and cities and in the irrigation of land carried the system to a high degree of perfection.

The system by which learning and culture circulated throughout the Muhammedan world was illustrated in the spread of the arts of design. Persia, for example, was a centre of the ceramic art, and wherever the Muhammedan civilisation spread, the art of pottery was revived and took on new and distinctive splendour. Enamel colours of the purest tones and finest translucence were developed and the glazes were distinguished by extraordinary lustre. They were lavished not only on vessels of practical service but also on tiles for the decoration of walls.

With equal originality the Muhammedan artists developed the metal crafts both in the direction of tempering the metal and in its decoration; introducing and carrying to a wonderful pitch of perfection the engraving, encrusting and inlaying of the surfaces with ornamental designs; a process known as damascening, since Damascus was the earliest important centre of the craft.

Further, in weaving they developed a corresponding skill and feeling for design. Rugs and carpets, laid on the floor or spread over doorways, were the chief furnishing of a Muhammedan home, while a small rug was carried by the worshipper or his servant to the Mosque to protect his bare feet while he prayed. These “prayer rugs” were frequently embellished with a representation of a mihrab, enclosed in borders bearing Koran texts, and were of silk of finest weave; that is to say, with an extraordinary number of knots to the square inch. There is a fragment of silk weave in the Altman collection at the Metropolitan Museum, of Indian craftsmanship, each square inch of which embraces 2500 knots.

In a way, however, the very exquisiteness of Muhammedan craftsmanship prepared the way for its decay. It originated in the limitation of motives permitted to the decorator, who in consequence had to satisfy his love of perfection by resort to delicacies and intricacies of design beyond which there was no further possibility of creative invention.