VIII.

MAHOMETAN ARCHITECTURE.

The year 622 of our era is a remarkable one in historical annals, being the date of the flight of Mahomet, the Hegira from which all events are computed by followers of his religion. Within a marvellously short period the new faith spread from the confines of Arabia, throughout Asia Minor and Persia and all along the North coast of Africa to Spain, propagated everywhere by the force of the victorious sword, until, scarcely a century later, we find its promoters bearing the crescent against Charlemagne, under the shadow of the Pyrenees.

As a political and theological narrative the history of the rise of the faith of Islam, is a wonderfully interesting one, and to us it is important as it explains the reason for the geographical position of so many buildings, erected in accordance with the requirements of the new religion, and therefore having a great similarity in all countries where it prevailed.

The Kaabah, or “square house,” built by Mahomet at Mecca upon the site of a temple which tradition says was founded by Abraham, appears to have been the earliest Mahometan mosque. Mahomet had already erected a building at Medina, but this seems to have been not so much a house of prayer as a dwelling-place for his family. The Kaabah has less importance as an architectural production than as the centre of the wheel of Mahometanism, the faithful being directed to turn their faces toward it when praying, and to regard it as the ultimate goal of their wanderings.

The original structure was built by foreign workmen, and had no great pretensions, but subsequently it was surrounded by a colonnaded court, and by later additions was very considerably enlarged. Although the Koran decrees that all good Mussulmen should make a pilgrimage to Mecca, it does not uphold the Kaabah as a model to be followed in the erection of other mosques nor give any specific directions of the manner in which they should be built. It was therefore natural when the peace, following their rapid conquests, permitted the Mahometans to turn their thoughts to the erection of religious edifices, suitable for the observances of their worship, that they should borrow inspiration from the surrounding nations.

The style they eventually evolved was drawn from Byzantine, Sassanian, Greek, and Roman sources, and became native by adaptation.

In Turkey, Asia Minor, and Persia we find Mahometan mosques closely resembling Christian and Byzantine churches, many domed edifices being copied from St. Sophia and differing only in point of decoration, while the atrium or courtyard preceding the entrance to Christian buildings furnished the type for the wide colonnaded courts, with porticos roofed with a succession of hemispherical or bulbous domes, which became so common in Arabian buildings.

The mosques of Omar, at Jerusalem, on the site of the temple of Solomon, of Wallid, at Damascus, Al-Azhar, Athar-en-Neby, Ibn Touloun, and Hassan, in Cairo, are notable edifices, in which the columns are either taken or copied from Greek and Roman temples, and in which the pointed arches seem to have been suggested by the hyperbolic arches of certain ancient Sassanian structures, such as the palace of Coroes, the Takt Kesra in the ruins of Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, and the buildings of Firouzabad and Sarbistan, which were mentioned in connection with Persian art.

One of the earliest examples of the use of the pointed arch is in the Nilometer, erected on the Rodah, or Isle of Gardens, at Cairo, by Wallid, in the eighth century.

This is a matter worthy of note, as showing conclusively that the Gothic arch was no invention of the thirteenth century, in Europe, but merely the adoption of a form used five centuries before in Egypt, and probably universally known, if indeed it had ever been lost sight of, since the days of the prosperity of Babylon.

Of the early mosques the most important are those of Omar and Abd-el-Malek at Jerusalem and of Wallid at Damascus. The mosque of Omar was but a simple vaulted chamber, oriented in order to enable the faithful to turn in the direction of Mecca while praying. That of Abd-el-Malek, called the Aksah, adjoins it and is an extensive structure. It is chiefly remarkable for its general resemblance to the basilica in its division into aisles. The columns forming these carry pointed arches, built over connecting beams. It is not improbable that this design was inspired by the order of the church of the Dome of the Rock, adjoining it, built by Constantine, where the columns support circular arches, over a continuous entablature.

Wallid, Caliph of Damascus, erected a mosque on the site of the old church of St. John the Baptist, and employed labour and material in its construction furnished by Justinian, Emperor of Byzance.

The mosques of Cairo resemble each other in a great degree. They have usually a first court, giving access to apartments for the accommodation of strangers, with baths, and stables for their camels, connected with a second and larger quadrangular court, having a fountain in the centre and porticos on three sides. The fourth side, facing the entrance, has a series of aisles roofed in and forming the sanctuary, with recesses in the rear wall, where the prayers are offered. Reading-desks, provided with copies of the Koran, and hanging lamps form the chief furniture.

The minarets, one or more of which are usually erected at the angles of the building, are special features. These tall, graceful towers, from whose summits a crier calls the people to prayers five times daily, serve a purpose similar to that of the belfries and campaniles of Europe. The diameter of most of them is small in proportion to the height, giving them a slender and beautiful aspect, very distinct from another class of towers, of which the Giralda at Seville is the best known, which were conceived in the same spirit of massiveness in which the campanile in the square before St. Mark’s in Venice was built. They are ascended by spiral staircases placed either within or without, and have projecting balconies at various stages.

The building materials employed by the Arabs were chiefly stone of different colours, combined in bands and patterns, and brick covered with stucco. Enamelled tiles and multicoloured marbles were used both externally and internally, while within, carved wood, gilding, painting, and plaster were lavishly employed.

Of the forms of decoration, the chief were elaborate gold inscriptions in Arabic characters, floral and geometric designs in interlaced patterns of the most intricate combinations, coloured with all the profusion suggested by the Oriental love of brilliancy and with the exquisite harmony which we see in Persian and Indian fabrics.

A favourite form of decoration was that formed by a multiplication of minute pendentives, called the honeycomb ornament, the whole surface, as well as the dome above, being covered with an agglomeration of minute niches, the effect of which is frequently compared to that of stalactites. This form of ornament was much used, particularly in the mosques and palaces of Spain.

In Cairo domestic architecture has a distinctive character of its own. The houses have reception-rooms on the ground floor, furnished with the divans, carpets, and lamps usual in Oriental manner of life, while the upper floors, occupied by the women, have projecting balconies of lattice wood-work, which permit them to see without being seen, and form an agreeable and picturesque feature on the exterior.

The richness and the progress of Arabic art at a period when architecture had sunk to the lowest ebb throughout Europe, is due in great measure to the establishment of the learned academies of Damascus, Bagdad, and other principal cities, and to the revival of Classic learning by the translation of the works of Greek authors.

In Spain, where the Moorish and Christian populations were thrown in constant contact with one another, the difference of religious opinion maintained a wide gulf between them, and while the Christians struggled with the difficulties of the Romanesque revival, their opponents attained a brilliant era in art, as a result of their superior industry and civilization.

One of the oldest Arabian buildings in Spain is the great mosque at Cordova. Here, as in the East, we find Corinthian and Composite columns, taken from Roman buildings on the soil, forming integral parts of the new structure, but the Classical principles of building are in no sense adhered to. The entablature is replaced by cinque-foiled arches with voussoirs of alternate stone and brick; a second order of columns is superposed directly upon the capitals of the first, carrying horseshoe arches, and between the two arcades an intermediary series of trefoiled arches is placed, springing from the keystone of the lower arches and divided at the centre by the upper ones.

The general plan of the building consists of the usual series of aisles, of which there are nineteen, with divisional walls. The sanctuary has a vault with intersecting ribs, surmounted by a small dome and enriched by profuse ornament, and is the object of much just admiration for its beauty.

The chapel of Villa Viciosa, a later structure, has a series of arcades similar to those before the sanctuary, differing only in the arrangement of the intermediary arches, which are carried up to the level of the upper arches from a horizontal course, and are cinque-foiled instead of trefoiled, both on the extrados and intrados.

The mosque was begun by Abd-el-Rhaman, in the eighth century, and successively added to during the four centuries following. It covers a very large superficial area, upwards of one hundred and sixty thousand square feet, and surpasses, in this respect, most European buildings. Its chief defects are the want of height, which does not exceed thirty feet, and the monotony of the aisles, which are nearly all precisely alike.

At Toledo there are several Moorish buildings of merit, the principal one of which is the mosque called, at present, the church of “Cristo de la Luz.” It is similar to the sanctuary of Cordova in general aspect, but is a marvel of intricate and minute workmanship. The whole area which it occupies does not exceed four hundred superficial feet, but the proportions are so nicely balanced that it appears much larger. There are four columns carrying horseshoe arches, above which comes a second arcade, and each division is roofed in by a vault of intersecting ribs. These vaults are formed of wood, overlaid with plaster, and have no pretension to scientific construction. Indeed, in none of the Arabian buildings in Spain do we find anything of the kind attempted, the decorative features being always the most prominent.

In the tower of Seville a species of vault was formed by thickening the walls gradually as they rose from the ground until they met; this, however, was nothing more than extensive corbelling, and, consequently, very inferior to Roman and Byzantine methods.

The Alcázar, at Seville, and the Palace of the Alhambra, at Granada, are the richest examples of Moorish architecture, and show in their design and ornament the most fertile expression of the brilliant imagination with which this warm-blooded people imbued all its creations.

The Court of the Lions in the latter, a rectangular enclosure, surrounded by arcades, with projecting domed pavilions at the upper and lower ends, is generally held to be the finest production of the later period of the style.

The same materials are used here as in the other buildings—plaster shaped in the most exquisite forms and coloured brilliantly, tiles ornamented with patterns and devices of the most elaborate character, and wooden ceilings carved and richly painted. All these are handled with such correct taste that their brilliancy never degenerates into gaudiness.

A splendid fountain in the centre of the court, the lower bowl of which is supported upon the backs of lions, explains the name given to this celebrated structure.

The mosque of Cordova is superior, in respect to materials, to the other remaining Moorish buildings in Spain, in which plaster is used to excess. It is vain, however, to look in any of them for any distinct or novel constructional departure. The lintel and arch in Greece and Rome, the dome carried on pendentives in Byzance, were features giving character to each style, but the art of the Mahometan architects differed only in form and colour from its predecessors. The horseshoe arch with one and two centres, that is both round and pointed, was used by them almost exclusively, but it cannot rank as a constructional invention, for the real arch starts only at the level of the centres, and the remaining lower portion is a mere corbelling to obtain a form pleasing to the eye.

Any new method of construction always affected the surrounding parts, and often altered the whole design of a building. It is obvious, therefore, that a mere change in the appearance of an arch such as this, which affects nothing connected with it, cannot be said to have created any new era in the progress of building.

We hear the question frequently asked why a modern and new style is not developed in our times, and the answer architects make is illustrated by just this case, that is, that no new style can be evolved without a new constructive principle. As yet none such has been forthcoming, the only novel method of construction lately introduced being the employment of iron girders and posts, which, from an artistic point of view, can scarcely be considered an improvement upon the use of what are called the natural building materials.