The Nasrid builders of the Alhambra - the best-preserved medieval Muslim palatial city - were so exacting that some of their work could not be fully explained until the invention of fractal geometry. Their design principles have been obscured, however, by the loss of all archival material. This book resolves [...]

This book offers an integrated study of the texts and images of illustrated Malay manuscripts on magic and divination from private and public collections in Malaysia, the UK and Indonesia. Containing some of the rare examples of Malay painting, these manuscripts provide direct evidence for the intercultural connections between the [...]

Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant is a collection of scholarly essays addressing a number of aspects of the archaeology and history of settlement in the crusader states established in the Middle East during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, collectively known as the Latin East, and on their influence on the [...]

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire remained the grandest and most powerful of Middle Eastern empires. One hitherto overlooked aspect of the Empire's remarkable cultural legacy was the role of powerful women - often the head of the harem, or wives or mothers of sultans. These [...]

This book examines non-Muslim religious sites, structures and spaces in the Islamic world. It reveals a vibrant portrait of life in the religious sites by illustrating how architecture responds to contextual issues and traditions. Sacred Precinctsexplores urban context; issues of identity; design; construction; transformation and the history of sacred sites and [...]

This timely book tackles ongoing questions about how 'local' perspectives on contemporary art from the Middle East are defined and how these perspectives intersect with global art discourses. Leading figures from the Middle Eastern art world, western art historians, art theorists and museum curators discuss the historical and cultural circumstances [...]

Digital preservation of illustrated Persian manuscripts, forming part of a larger Digital Persian Manuscripts project which aims to put details of 11.000 manuscrpts online together with digitised images of 50. Author : Ursula Sims Williams This digitised manuscripts are available here : https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/persian.html

The official religion of Iran has been Shi'i Islam from the Safavids in the sixteenth century to the present day. Little is known about the material culture produced, especially in Iran, by the narratives and traditions surrounding Shi'ism. The Shi'i world experience has provided a rich artistic tradition encompassing painting, [...]

From Timur's tent in Samarqand to Shah 'Abbas's palace in Isfahan and Humayun's tomb in Delhi, the pavilion has been an integral part of Persianate gardens since its earliest appearance at the Achaemenid garden in Pasargadae in the sixth century BC. Here, Mohammad Gharipour places both the garden and the [...]

At the height of the Mughal Empire's wealth and power, Jahanara Begum, a 17 year old princess, became the head of the imperial harem. Imperial Women in Mughal India shows how this unmarried princess was able to transcend the customary and religious restrictions imposed on her gender, and make an [...]