Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas

Introduction

Introduction In his famous Ihya
Ulum al-Din (Reviving the Sciences of Religion), al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the celebrated Muslim theologian and mystic, cites an intriguing analogy . He says: “As an architect draws (yusawwir) the details of a house in whiteness and then brings it out into existence according to the drawn exemplar (nuskha), so likewise the creator (fatir) of heaven and earth wrote the master copy of the world from beginning to end in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfuz) and then brought it out into existence according to the written exemplar.”1 In many ways, this book is a commentary on, and an exposition of, this statement, an attempt to explore the philosophical and theological contexts that give sense to such an analogy in premodern Islam. In broad terms, the book is concerned with the question of art and religion, creativity and spirituality, with how religious thought and ideas can provide a context for understanding the meanings of human design and acts of making. In specific terms, it is concerned with the cosmological and cosmogonic ideas found in the writings of certain influential Muslim mystics and with their relevance to architecture and spatial organization. The intent, as the title suggests, is to construct a new interpretive context that enables an architectural reading of mystical ideas. By this I mean using a tendency in spatial ordering traceable in buildings, settlements, and landscapes as a tool to frame mystical literature and to organize cosmological ideas into a coherent whole. Within this frame, a complex conjunction of metaphysics, cosmology, and mysticism is constructed and brought to bear on tectonic expressions. Central to this interpretive approach is the notion of spatial sensibility, understood as a particular awareness of space and a predisposition toward spatial organization shaped by a complex, multilayered worldview. As an untheorized and unaestheticized predilection or bias, spatial sensibility mediates between layered cosmological, geographical, and bodily conceptions and deliberate spatial ordering. Throughout the Islamic world a tendency to order spaces according to a cruciform layout is traceable in a sufficient number of examples to suggest ubiquity and consistency across temporal, geographical, and cultural xvii distances. True, the fleshing out of this cryptic order reveals very rich stylistic variations across time and geography, but the order itself remains noticeably consistent. What lies beneath this consistent sense of spatial ordering is the core question this study is attempting to address. Deep beneath local sociopolitical and cultural conditions, I argue, lies a predisposition anchored in a wider religiocosmological conception that manifests itself in a spatial sensibility traceable through modes of spatial ordering. Hinged on the ways in which the cosmos, the geography, and the human body—their structure and interconnectedness—are conceived and described, spatial sensibility is naturally determined by prevailing scientific understanding and technological abilities. Today, our modern spatial sensibility is shaped by the remarkable scientific and technological achievements that have taken place over the past five hundred years. The discovery of the heliocentric system , the invention of perspective, the camera, and the computer, the development of modern physics (quantum and astrophysics) along with space and telecommunication technologies, and, more recently, the emergence of cyberspace , have all led to significant transformations in our spatial sensibility. In the last two decades, many illuminating studies have provided valuable insights into these transformations, meticulously mapping the critical shifts in human perceptions of reality.2 In contrast to the current understanding of a boundless and infinitely expanding universe, premodern Muslims thought of and described the cosmos as being finite, bounded, and with astronomically definable limits. The entirety of the cosmos was graspable by means of geometry, numbers, and the alphabet. It was conceived in the form of concentric circles, at the center of which humans dwelled and at the outer limit stood the all-encompassing divine Throne. Space and time, as we know them, terminated at the divine Throne, which formed the threshold into the divine realms of being. There and beyond, different modalities of space and time prevailed. The Throne, the outer limit of the universe, was also visualized to be “quadrangular” in form but with a sense of spatiality that was distinct from our own. Marking a transitional zone, the Throne was seen to partake in both the physical and metaphysical worlds. Within this geometrically defined and ordered cosmos things were interrelated; they occupied definite positions within an intricate hierarchy. Nothing stood in isolation or ambiguity; everything was carefully positioned. Premodern Islamic sources provide very detailed descriptions of the cosmos, and the Sufis...