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Journal of World History 8.2 (1997) 321-323



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Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning. By Robert Hillenbrand. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Pp. xxvi + 645. Illustrated. $60 (cloth).

Robert Hillenbrand's Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Mean-ing is simply an excellent book. Wonderfully well written, it evinces scholarship of striking range and depth. Hillenbrand is clearly at home with both the physical and the literary record of a variety of regions and cultures of premodern Islamic society. His account takes readers from the palaces of al-Andalus to the madrasas (religious colleges) of Fes and Marrakech, the abundant mausolea and mosques of Mamluk Egypt, the extraordinary mosques of Ottoman Istanbul, and finally east to the wealth of monuments in Iran and Central Asia. Throughout, Hillenbrand draws on the writings of travelers and scholars, weaving the impressions of these premodern observers into his detailed analysis of the actual structures. Hillenbrand is no less familiar (though seemingly, on occasion, exasperated) with the writings and debates of his modern colleagues. He is even-handed in his treatment of scholarly debates and frequently, after noting proposed solutions to problems of interpretation, is comfortable in insisting on no single point of view.

For historians, the value of this work lies in Hillenbrand's functional approach. As he points out in his introductory comments, his goal was to create a work that would avoid the preoccupation with morphological and stylistic issues found in most other books on Islamic art and architecture. "The deliberate intention has been to highlight the function of the major Islamic building types within the medieval society which produced them" (p. 1). The result is an extended and subtle consideration of both the formal aspects of each building type and the religious and political issues relative to each. Aware of the [End Page 321] risks involved in such an ambitious project, Hillenbrand has limited his discussion to significant examples of six major building types: the mosque, minaret, madrasa, mausoleum, caravanserai, and palace. Each is treated in a separate chapter.

For the nonspecialist, Hillenbrand's architectural analysis is relatively easy to follow (a helpful glossary of Islamic terms is provided at the end of the book). His treatment of the history surrounding each monument, while seldom original, is clearly presented. Although scholars of Islamic history may not be surprised by any of Hillenbrand's conclusions, they ought to find their overall sense of the subject greatly enriched. Only rarely does one find, in works on the history and politics of medieval Islamic society, a thorough integration of literary and physical evidence. As this book shows with regard to several regions and periods, this failing can hardly be attributed to an absence of physical remains.

A brief example of Hillenbrand's approach illustrates his complex, interdisciplinary treatment of his material. In his discussion of three prominent mosques of the Umayyad period—the Great Mosque of Damascus, the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina—he speaks to the challenges facing the first of the imperial Islamic dynasties as it worked to establish its presence within the Near East. Grand urban mosques provided a physical demonstration of authority to both Muslims and the non-Muslim majority populations of the conquered lands. After commenting on the architectural features of each of the three structures, and issues related to their design and construction, Hillenbrand makes the point that "these im-perial foundations establish...the principle that the mosque was potentially more than a place of worship...it could be used as an instrument of policy" (p. 73).

This is a book that should be read by world historians as well, and not simply for the information it provides on a particular "civilization" on the world stage. No less valuable is Hillenbrand's sustained interest in the sources of Islamic architectural forms and the manner in which Muslim planners, builders, and artisans made imaginative use of "borrowed" forms and patterns. Hillenbrand provides, in effect, a case study for the emergence of a particular (and dominant) world culture— that is, a detailed...

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