Muqarnas is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Muqarnas 26 contains articles on a variety of topics that span and transcend the geographic and temporal boundaries that have traditionally defined the history of Islamic art and architecture. Contributors include Robert McChesney, Mattia Guidetti, Marcus Schadl, Christian Gruber, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Doris Abouseif, Olga Bush, Emine Fetvaci, Moya Carey, Bernard O'Kane, Hadi Maktabi, Nadia Erzini and Stephen Vernoit.

Muqarnas is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.In Muqarnas articles are being published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.

Culture is a constant reference in debates surrounding Islam in Europe. Yet the notion of culture is commonly restricted to conceptual frames of multiculturalism where it relates to group identities, collective ways of life and recognition. This volume extends such analysis of culture by approaching it as semiotic practice which conjoins the making of subjects with the configuration of the social. Examining fields such as memory, literature, film, and Islamic art, the studies in this volume explore culture as another element in the assemblage of rationalities governing European Islam. From this perspective, the transformations of European identities can be understood as a matter of cultural practice and politics, which extend the analytical frames of political philosophy, historical legacies, normative orders and social dynamics.

Examines the intellectual and artistic foundations of the Imperial Renaissance in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italy and traces its political realization in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.

This volume of collected essays brings together for the first time the range of Winter’s pioneering studies related to Neo-Assyrian relief sculpture and seals, Phoenician and Syrian ivory and bronze production, and inter-polity connections across the various cultures of first millennium B.C.E. from the Aegean to Iran. Consistent threads are an emphasis on the potential for art historical analysis to yield ‘history’ in the broadest sense; the importance of making the theoretical frame of interpretation explicit; and the necessity of textual evidence being brought to bear upon elements of formal analysis and archaeological context. "These beautifully produced volumes bring together essays written over a 35-year period, creating a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts...No library should be without this impressive collection." J.C. Exum

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.

During the nineteenth century, Cairo witnessed once of its most dramatic periods of transformation. Well on its way to becoming a modern and cosmopolitan city, by the end of the century, a 'medieval' Cairo had somehow come into being. While many Europeans in the nineteenth century viewed Cairo as a fundamentally dual city—physically and psychically split between East/West and modern/medieval—the contributors to the provocative collection demonstrate that, in fact, this process of inscription was the result of restoration practices, museology, and tourism initiated by colonial occupiers. The first edited volume to address nineteenth-century Cairo both in terms of its history and the perception of its achievements, this book will be an essential text for courses in architectural and art history dealing with the Islamic world.

The name of Mahmud the Kurd (probably an itinerant master craftsman working in the second half of the 15th century) has been found on ten small, domestic objects of brass. All are exquisitely worked with intricate arabesques. On one, his signature appears in two forms in Arabic (or Persian), and in transliterated Roman script. Why? For whom was he working, and where? These are the questions which this book tries to answer. The widespread links between Renaissance Europe and Islam, which emerge as part of the trail, may come as a surprise to some readers. The objects listed in this book are not only fascinating in themselves but can be seen as a microcosm of the international exchanges and excursions of the period. Later, in 19th-century Europe, it was even assumed that Mahmud (and others working in the same style) were employed in Venice. This seems improbable following research in the archives, but so far no satisfactory explanation has been offered for Mahmuds double-language signature. Close examination of the objects shows that there are in fact three distinct styles. In the 15th century, against a backdrop of diplomatic intrigue in the face of Ottoman victories, Venice promoted links with their rivals, the Turcoman White Sheep dynasty, whose capital then was at Tabriz. This explains a Persian element in the decorative detail of the first stylistic group. Some of the objects of a second group include a European shield as part of their decoration. Despite renewed papal bans, European trade with Islam continued unabated in the Eastern Mediterranean; Venice was the prime port for this commercial activity, and this accounts for the appearance of this second, Mamluk, group. The admiration in Europe and more particularly in Italy for the high quality of Islamic inlaid work explains the details of a third, western, group. Men like Benvenuto Cellini not only set out to emulate this technique, which they called azzimina, but to prove that they could do better.

This set includes all four volumes of the critically acclaimed History of Central Asia series. The epic plains and arid deserts of Central Asia have witnessed some of the greatest migrations, as well as many of the most transformative developments, in the history of civilization. Christoph Baumer's ambitious four-volume treatment of the region charts the 3000-year drama of Scythians and Sarmatians; Soviets and transcontinental Silk Roads; trade routes and the transmission of ideas across the steppes; and the breathless and brutal conquests of Alexander the Great and Chinghiz Khan. Masterfully interweaving the stories of individuals and peoples, the author's engaging prose is richly augmented throughout by colour photographs taken on his own travels. This set includes The Age of the Steppe Warriors (Volume 1), The Age of the Silk Roads (Volume 2), The Age of Islam and the Mongols (Volume 3) and The Age of Decline and Revival (Volume 4)