{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] [Samarra]}[21st April 1991]

[Redbook9:153-154][19910421:1410h]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] [Samarra]}[21st April 1991]

19910421:1410

[continued]

‘Meanwhile the attempt was made by the Caliph Mutasim (833-42[ce])* to escape from popular pressure and to separate his troops from the populace by constructing a new palace-city some 70 miles (112km) higher up the Tigris at Samarra. A vast congregational mosque was built to contain the Caliph’s household, a great walled enclosure (sahn) with eight bays on the south side and four on each of the other three. The most remarkable feature of this mosque is the minaret which is the oldest surviving example of this feature.*** All that was required was a place from which to make the call to prayer at the five stated hours; and for this the roof would normally have sufficed. Here at Samarra the minaret is a separate structure, a tapering spiral tower** to be ascended by a ramp round the outside, and without decoration; but its height and monumental scale recall the ancient ziggurat [sic] and its purpose must have been to impress. The form was copied at Cairo in the mosque of ibn [sic] Talun;**** but earlier is the tower minaret of the Great Mosque at Qairawan (724-7[ce] or 836[ce])# and this square shape was the usual form in Syria until the 12^th century.’

#*

*{2048U~A~896[ce]}

**[See last previous ts journal entry but one, [Redbook9:153][19910421:1410f]{[Islamic Art –] Visual Arts [continued –] The Ziggurat at Samarra}[21st April 1991]]

***(sic)

****(where ‘the original minaret, derived from Samarra in its corkscrew form, is now represented by a renewal of 1296’

– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3]: 430)

#~2048U~768[ce]

#*– ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Arts 3]: 429

[continued]

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