This Stunning book includes more than four hundred reproductions of treasures of Islamic art that span the world. With its large format, exquisite photographs and extensive research, this is a thorough introduction toan exceptional artistic tradition. --

Exploring the increasing impact of the Internet on Muslims around the world, this book sheds new light on the nature of contemporary Islamic discourse, identity, and community. The Internet has profoundly shaped how both Muslims and non-Muslims perceive Islam and how Islamic societies and networks are evolving and shifting in the twenty-first century, says Gary Bunt. While Islamic society has deep historical patterns of global exchange, the Internet has transformed how many Muslims practice the duties and rituals of Islam. A place of religious instruction may exist solely in the virtual world, for example, or a community may gather only online. Drawing on more than a decade of online research, Bunt shows how social-networking sites, blogs, and other "cyber-Islamic environments" have exposed Muslims to new influences outside the traditional spheres of Islamic knowledge and authority. Furthermore, the Internet has dramatically influenced forms of Islamic activism and radicalization, including jihad-oriented campaigns by networks such as al-Qaeda. By surveying the broad spectrum of approaches used to present dimensions of Islamic social, spiritual, and political life on the Internet, iMuslims encourages diverse understandings of online Islam and of Islam generally.

Tracing the connections—both visual and philosophical—between new media art and classical Islamic art. In both classical Islamic art and contemporary new media art, one point can unfold to reveal an entire universe. A fourteenth-century dome decorated with geometric complexity and a new media work that shapes a dome from programmed beams of light: both can inspire feelings of immersion and transcendence. In Enfoldment and Infinity, Laura Marks traces the strong similarities, visual and philosophical, between these two kinds of art. Her argument is more than metaphorical; she shows that the “Islamic” quality of modern and new media art is a latent, deeply enfolded, historical inheritance from Islamic art and thought. Marks proposes an aesthetics of unfolding and enfolding in which image, information, and the infinite interact: image is an interface to information, and information (such as computer code or the words of the Qur'an) is an interface to the infinite. After demonstrating historically how Islamic aesthetics traveled into Western art, Marks draws explicit parallels between works of classical Islamic art and new media art, describing texts that burst into image, lines that multiply to form fractal spaces, “nonorganic life” in carpets and algorithms, and other shared concepts and images. Islamic philosophy, she suggests, can offer fruitful ways of understanding contemporary art.

A unique investigation into the aesthetics of colour in Islamic art revealing its deeper symbolic and mystical meanings. The experience of colour in Islamic visual culture has historically been overlooked. In this new approach, Idries Trevathan examines the language of colour in Islamic art and architecture in dialogue with its aesthetic contexts, offering insights into the pre-modern Muslim experience of interpreting colour. The seventeenth-century Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, represents one of the finest examples of colour-use on a grand scale. Here, Trevathan examines the philosophical and mystical traditions that formed the mosque's backdrop. He shows how careful combinations of colour and design proportions in Islamic patterns expresses knowledge beyond that experienced in the corporeal world, offering another language with which to know and experience God. Colour thus becomes a spiritual language, calling for a re-consideration of how we read Islamic aesthetics.

A forceful study of Islamophobia in Europe in an age of populism and pandemic, considering survival strategies for Muslims on the basis of Qur’an, Hadith, and the Islamic theological, legal and spiritual legacy.

This volume deals with the formative period of Islamic art (to c. 950), and the different approaches to studying it. Individual essays deal with architecture, ceramics, coins, textiles, and manuscripts, as well as with such broad questions as the supposed prohibition of images, and the relationships between sacred and secular art. An introductory essay sets each work in context; it is complemented by a bibliography for further reading.

From the Alhmabra to Owen Jones, Islamic Arts from Spain tells the story of the art and design produced in Spain under Islamic rule and examines the long-lasting influence of Islamic Spain on European decorative arts. The book looks first at patronage during the 'Golden Age' of the Umayyad caliphate, from the mid-tenth to the early eleventh century, before discussing the Nasrid dynasty who ruled from Granada in a territory much reduced by the resurgent Christian monarchs of northern Spain. It also explores the phenomenon of the 'Mudejar', Islamic-influenced arts produced for non-Muslim patrons in the Renaissance and the craze for the 'Alhambresque', a style promoted by European designers such as Owen Jones. Addressing the creation, suppression, rediscovery and influence of Islamic art in Spain from the eighth to the twentieth century, the book is lavishly illustrated with objects drawn from the V+A's collections, from exquisite ivory caskets,marble tombstones and capitals to architectural models, jewellery, textiles and ceramics.

This richly illustrated book allows readers to identify the elements and themes of Islamic art forms, and to examine them in works of painting and metalwork, in calligraphy and manuscripts, ceramics, glass, wood, and ivory.

Robert Irwin delves deep into the cultures of the Islamic world to survey the exquisite arts of painting, architecture, porcelain, enamel, manuscript illumination, metalwork, calligraphy, textiles, and more. Including 217 illustrations, 148 in full color, the book covers the earliest foundations of Islam through the brilliant high point of the 17th century.

A group of renowned scholars, collectors, artists, and curators grapple with the challenging notion of defining "Islamic art."