‘Studying Islamic Architecture: Challenges and Perspectives’, Architectural History, 46, 2003. Reproduced by permission of the author and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain

Abstract

This article examines how the study of medieval Islamic architecture is currently being practised. It explores the multiple implications of the much greater volume of scholarship devoted to Western architecture, which extend from library provision to job opportunities, from richer resources to a greater theoretical sophistication. It discusses the specific problems encountered by those who study Islamic architecture, for example the paucity of documents, the range of languages required, the near-monopoly of this subject (until recently) by Western scholars operating outside their cultural comfort zone, or the unfamiliar privileging of epigraphy and vegetal or geometric ornament rather than sculpture or painting. It highlights the glut of unpublished material available. Finally, it outlines the types of research that most urgently need doing in a context of mass tourism and rampant urban development; and the pleasures and rewards, notably the scope for original work, which the study of Islamic architecture brings in its train.

Keywords

• historiography of Islamic architecture
• teaching models