Mainly rev. papers from an international symposium held Sept. 17-21, 2004 in Berlin.

Following the tradition and style of the acclaimed Index Islamicus, the editors have created this new Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World. The editors have surveyed and annotated a wide range of books and articles from collected volumes and journals published in all European languages (except Turkish) between 1906 and 2011. This comprehensive bibliography is an indispensable tool for everyone involved in the study of material culture in Muslim societies.

Examine the ancient Islamic world through expertly designed maps and site drawings, bringing history to life.

Discusses subjects such as family life, marriage, law, human rights, and Muslim extremism before turning to regional surveys on manifestations of Islam around the world, including the United States and Canada, Iran, Southeast Asia, Africa, and everywhere

While the impact of the Persian style is undeniably reflected in most aspects of the art and architecture of Islamic Central Asia, this Perso-Central Asian connection was chiefly formed and articulated by the Euro-American movement of collecting and interpreting the art and material culture of the Persian Islamic world in modern times. This had an enormous impact on the formation of scholarship and connoisseurship in Persian art, for instance, with an attempt to define the characteristics of how the Islamic art of Iran and Central Asia should be viewed and displayed at museums, and how these subjects should be researched in academia. This important historical fact, which has attracted scholarly interest only in recent years, should be treated as a serious subject of research, accepting that the abstract image of Persian art was not a pure creation of Persian civilization, but that it can be the manifestation of particular historical times and charismatic individuals. Attention should therefore be given to various factors that resulted in the shaping of “Persian” imagery across the globe, not only in terms of national ideologies, but also within the context of several protagonists, such as scholars, collectors and dealers, as well as of the objects themselves. This volume brings together Islamic Iranian and Central Asian art experts from diverse disciplinary and professional backgrounds, and intends to offer a novel insight into what is collectively known as Persian art.

The three books comprising the Muslim World series provide a rich and balanced view of all aspects of Islamic religion and its varied manifestations through time and around the world, with emphasis on understanding modern Muslim society today. Illustrated Dictionary of the Muslim World contains hundreds of short entries on Islamic concepts, religious practices, historical events and personalities, geographical places, and fact files of nations with large Muslim populations. Islamic Beliefs, Practices, and Cultures begins with 14 chapters introducing the ideas promoted by the religion's founder in the seventh century and tracking their development into new doctrines, schools of thought, and philosophical, literary, and cultural traditions as diverse as recitation of scripture in madrassas in Egypt to gift giving at holiday time in the United States. Among the numerous special features are those examining the meanings of jihad, the persistence of mystical Islam, and stand-up comedy addressing the cultural divides surrounding muslims today. Modern Muslim Societies, with a total of twenty-three chapters, devotes nine to subjects such as family life, marriage, law, human rights, and Muslim extremism before turning to fourteen regional surveys on manifestations of Islam around the world, including the United States and Canada, Iran, Southeast Asia, Africa, and everywhere else Islam has flourished. From the women around Muhammad to pop stars of today, from medieval caliphates to breakthroughs in science and medicine, from love poetry to suicide, no aspect of a rich and diverse story goes unnoticed in the three books of Muslim World. Religion, philosophy, politics, economy, society, law, history, visual arts, architecture, literature -- all sides of Islamic thought and Muslim ways of life receive attention in this uniquely organized presentation for students and interested general readers. - Publisher.

At the foot of Mount Ararat on the crossroads of the eastern and western worlds, medieval Armenians dominated international trading routes that reached from Europe to China and India to Russia. As the first people to convert officially to Christianity, they commissioned and produced some of the most extraordinary religious objects of the Middle Ages. These objects—from sumptuous illuminated manuscripts to handsome carvings, liturgical furnishings, gilded reliquaries, exquisite textiles, and printed books—show the strong persistence of their own cultural identity, as well as the multicultural influences of Armenia’s interactions with Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Muslims, Mongols, Ottomans, and Europeans. This unprecedented volume, written by a team of international scholars and members of the Armenian religious community, contextualizes and celebrates the compelling works of art that define Armenian medieval culture. It features breathtaking photographs of archaeological sites and stunning churches and monasteries that help fill out this unique history. With groundbreaking essays and exquisite illustrations, Armenia illuminates the singular achievements of a great medieval civilization. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}

Anatolia was home to a large number of polities in the medieval period. Given its location at the geographical and chronological juncture between Byzantines and the Ottomans, its story tends to be read through the Seljuk experience. This obscures the multiple experiences and spaces of Anatolia under the Byzantine empire, Turko-Muslim dynasties contemporary to the Seljuks, the Mongol Ilkhanids, and the various beyliks of eastern and western Anatolia. This book looks beyond political structures and towards a reconsideration of the interactions between the rural and the urban; an analysis of the relationships between architecture, culture and power; and an examination of the region's multiple geographies. In order to expand historiographical perspectives it draws on a wide variety of sources (architectural, artistic, documentary and literary), including texts composed in several languages (Arabic, Armenian, Byzantine Greek, Persian and Turkish). Original in its coverage of this period from the perspective of multiple polities, religions and languages, this volume is also the first to truly embrace the cultural complexity that was inherent in the reality of daily life in medieval Anatolia and surrounding regions.

The Land Between Two Seas: Art on the Move in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea 1300-1700 focuses on the strong riverine ties that connect the seas of the Mediterranean system (from the Western Mediterranean through the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov) and their hinterland. Addressing the mediating role of the Balkans between East and West all the way to Poland and Lithuania, as well as this region’s contribution to the larger Mediterranean artistic and cultural melting pot, this innovative volume explores ideas, artworks and stories that moved through these territories linking the cultures of Central Asia with those of western Europe.