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PALACE AND MOSQUE{i}
AT UKHAIḌIR

{ii}

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON   EDINBURGH   GLASGOW   NEW YORK
TORONTO   MELBOURNE   BOMBAY
HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PALACE AND MOSQUE
{iii}AT
UKHAIḌIR

A STUDY IN

EARLY MOHAMMADAN ARCHITECTURE

BY
GERTRUDE LOWTHIAN BELL


O X F O R D
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1914

{iv} 

{v} 

TO MY FRIEND

DR. WALTHER ANDRAE

IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF HAPPY AND PROFITABLE

DAYS SPENT IN THE FIRST CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA

WHICH HAS BEEN REVEALED BY HIS

LABOUR AND RECREATED BY

HIS LEARNING

{vi}

{vii}

PREFACE

I have attempted in this book to bring together the materials, so far asthey are known, which bear upon the earliest phases of Mohammadanarchitecture, to consider the circumstances under which it arose and theroots from which it sprang. No development of civilization, or of thearts which serve and adorn civilization, has burst full-fledged from theforehead of the god; and architecture, which is the first and mostpermanent of the arts, reflects with singular fidelity the history ofits creators. Not only does their culture stand revealed in thecrumbling walls which sheltered them and in the monuments raised forperpetual remembrance over their bones, but the links which bound themto that which had gone before are therein confessed, as well as theirown contribution to the achievements of their predecessors, tomechanical skilfulness, to utility, and to beauty. It is the nature andthe extent of this contribution which is of vital importance to thestudent, and it is this which lends to architecture its keenestsignificance. What, then, was the contribution of the first builders ofIslâm?

It must be confessed that the question admits of no very strikingrejoinder. The Mohammadan invaders were essentially nomadic; theirdwelling was the black tent, their grave the desert sands. Theinhabitants of the rare oases of western and central Arabia werecontent, as they are to-day, with a rude architecture of sun-dried brickand palm-trunks, unadorned by any intricate device of the imagination,and unsuited to any but the simplest needs. Even the great nationalshrine at Mekkah, the sacred

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