The Islamization of Islamic Architecture: Ibn Khaldounian-Based Problematization of the Discourse

(Abeer Allahham)

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Abstract

Islamic cities with remarkable architecture and morphology have always attracted the attention of researchers, architects, and planners. They explored their architecture, copied its forms into the contemporary world and considered the means of protecting and perpetuating their heritage. But what architecture are we talking about here? Which buildings and cities are we admiring: the Alhambra palace in Granada, the Sultan Hassan and Al-Aqmar Mosques in Cairo, and the cities of Samarra and Wasit? These and other similar buildings and cities, which abound in the books of the history of Islamic architecture, is what the Orientalists selected since the late 19th century and described, according to their Western perspective, as Islamic. They constitute the centerpiece of what is known today as "Islamic architecture /cities." However, are these buildings and cities truly the legacy of brilliant Islamic history and the basis for our "Islamic" architectural heritage which is looked at today with nostalgia and longing? This paper attempts to re-read the concept of "Islamic architecture" as established by Orientalists in terms of its definition and content and problematize its “islamization.” It will focus in its methodology on investigating the built environment’s mechanisms of production and linking it to the changes that occurred in the prevailing political system throughout Islamic history. To achieve this, the paper adopts in its methodology an Ibn Khaldounian perspective with the aid of the writings on the Islamic legal politics (Assiyasah Alshariyah) in looking at the political transformations and the cycles of the Islamic dynasties. The paper concludes that the political transformations in the Islamic rule led to the deviation of the mechanisms of built environment production from the Islamic ones derived from Shari’a. Following authoritarian rather than Islamic politics, rulers produced authoritarian, non-Islamic built environments which orientalists described as “Islamic architecture”, a matter that resulted in faking the discourse of “Islamic architecture” as known today. Such built environments are the farthest from the Islamic production mechanisms, or from being “Islamic” as this paper argues. This confirms the necessity to rethink the conceptual discourse of the term. KEYWORDS authoritarian architecture, Islamic architecture, political modes, popular architecture, power
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