Fig. 30.Petra, the Storied tomb.(FromProvincia Arabia, by kind permission of Professor Brünnow.)
Fig. 30.Petra, the Storied tomb.(FromProvincia Arabia, by kind permission of Professor Brünnow.)
Fig. 30.Petra, the Storied tomb.
(FromProvincia Arabia, by kind permission of Professor Brünnow.)
The same insistence upon horizontality is to be observed in the façades of Ctesiphon and Ukhaiḍir; but the effect is produced in a different manner. No doubt it is difficult to do justice to the horizontal members in these buildings, owing to the fact that, from the perishable nature of the material, they havesuffered complete destruction, but it can safely be conjectured that they were never of much importance to the general effect. The space left between the decorated zones is too small to admit of the full entablature, attic, and podium which separate the lower order from the first upper order in the Storied tomb, or even of the entablature and podium which are interposed between the upper order and the order of dwarf columns. The multiplication and the breaking of horizontal members in Western Hellenistic monuments are discarded in Mesopotamia, and with them vanishes much of the significance of the façade. The zone decoration becomes a pattern composed of innumerable groups of architraved and arched divisions, set one within the other, so as to cover the whole surface of the wall. Where exigency demands, real doors and windows may be placed in the niches; the zones may correspond to a certain extent with the structural division of the building into stories; but the main intention of the architect is to cover his wall with continuous motives which are not dependent upon the structure and must fit into it as best they can. It is the traditional surface decoration of the ancient East, disguised in the new dress which it had borrowed from Hellenism.
No better example of the oriental practice can be found than in the façade of Ctesiphon. The north wing and the face of the great central arch have fallen, but they are preserved in M. Dieulafoy’s photograph[325](Plate 83). The façade is divided into three zones, but organic connexion between them is lacking. Each zone, in either wing, is subdivided into two horizontal registers. The lower register of the lowest zone consists of wide arches separated by pairs of engaged columns which are carried up to the top of the zone. The width of the intercolumniations bears no relation to the width of the wing; a space remains over at the outer end which is awkwardly filled by two small blind arched niches, placed one above the other. The upper register is occupied by groups of three niches; in each group the central niche is wider than the other two, and each niche is flanked by engaged colonnettes. At the outer end there is no room to complete the pattern, and the outer flanking niche is omitted. The lower zone breaks off abruptly here against a plain pylon-like wall, and at the inner end it is not organically connected with the great archway which forms the centre of the façade. Single engaged columns divide the middle zone into five compartments. They are not placed above the pairs of engaged columns of the lower zone, nor yet in the centre of the lower intercolumniations, but purely in accordance with the dictates of the pattern which covered the middle zone. It, too, is subdivided into two horizontal registers. In the lower register there are five pairs of niches, with three engaged colonnettes between. At the inner end the pair must have been incomplete owing to lack of space; at the outer end theengaged column is omitted for the same reason. In what relation the triple colonnettes stood to the niche arches is not clear. They were not regarded as necessary to the arch, for on the outer side of each pair they are absent, and the same applies to the colonnettes and arches in the upper register of this zone. These groups consist of three niches of equal size, with a pair of colonnettes between the central and the flanking niches. In the third zone the upper of the two registers has almost entirely disappeared; it is obvious, however, that the two registers were not welded together by engaged columns. In the lower register the arched niches, separated by engaged colonnettes, are conceived without any thought of the division of the wall below them, and, from the fragment of the upper register which remains, it would seem that the niches which adorned it were equally independent of the niches of the lower register. Into this confusion breaks the huge central arch, cutting short the pattern at the inner end of the wings just as the pylon wall cuts it short at the outer end. Yet the gigantic size of the façade and the even repetition of the arches in each register gives to the eye a sense of orderly grouping, and draws the whole into an apparent symmetry which an analysis of the details proves to be lacking in reality.
Ukhaiḍir, separated from Ctesiphon by an interval of some 500 years, shows a sensible advance. The north façade of the court is not indeed centralized, nor is it symmetrically placed in the wall of the three-storied block, but the two lower zones are organically connected with one another. The seven blind niches of the lower order correspond with those of the second order. In the second order the breaking up of the zone into registers is still adhered to, but since an archivolt has taken the place of the architrave of Ctesiphon, the principle is not so strongly marked. It works only within the arched niches. That it is substantially the same is, however, apparent from the fact that at Ukhaiḍir, as at Ctesiphon, the lower register consists of groups of two small niches, the upper register of groups of three, the central niche being the largest. The seven large niches of the second order are separated by a cluster of four columns; in the spandrels of the arches there are niches containing windows. The pylon-like wall of Ctesiphon is represented by a battered wall at Ukhaiḍir, but instead of sloping back and forming horizontal ledges, its perpendicular face seems to have been divided at intervals by horizontal bars of masonry. There is no space between the zones for important horizontal mouldings. Dr. Reuther in his reconstruction (Ocheïdir, Plate 25) places a plain masonry balcony along the narrow platform formed by the summit of the second zone. It is, however, conjectural, and in my opinion it lays a stress upon the horizontal divisions between the zones which is contrary to the spirit of the decorative scheme. In the upper zone the plain wall is in far better accord with the classical treatment of wall-surfaces than are the restless nichings of Ctesiphon, and it enhances the value of the rich orders below it. But it is not regarded, like the plain wall of early Hellenistic decoration, asrepresenting space, the upper air;[326]it is rather the gallery wall of ancient Assyrian and early Hellenistic architecture. It is confined by an upper row of arched niches, each one, so far as can be determined in their ruined condition, placed within a rectangular frame of engaged columns and architrave, like the niches upon the outer fortification wall of the palace. And here we have the system that dominates Ctesiphon, the column and architrave framing arched niches. In the upper zone of the Ukhaiḍir façade symmetry has vanished. The long crowning row of niches calls attention to the fact that the decorated lower zones of the façade do not stand in the centre of the wall, and the doorways of the third zone bear no more relation to the arches below them than the perpendicular divisions of the Ctesiphon wall bear relation to one another. Another similarity exists between the two buildings. The arches of the second zone at Ukhaiḍir are decorated not with the mouldings of the classical archivolt, but with the cusp of the great arch at Ctesiphon. So far as I am aware the earliest example of this cuspidated ornament in monumental architecture is at Ctesiphon. It appears in northern Syria in the fifth centuryA.D., when it can be seen both with the cusps pointing inward[327]and with the cusps pointing outward.[328]In the latter form it bears a close resemblance to the broken palmette of late Graeco-Roman ornament,[329]and its origin is probably to be sought in oriental Hellenism, but whether it was developed in the Syrian or in the Mesopotamian regions I cannot determine. It became a common motive in Syrian architecture during the sixth century,[330]where it is used in both forms, but in the Mesopotamian sphere it is almost always inverted, as at Ctesiphon. We have it at Ukhaiḍir, not only in the façade but also on the arches of the mosque doorways and possibly in the lîwân arches in the courts.[331]In exactly the same form it is employed in the early Abbâsid buildings of Sâmarrâ,[332]and there is another notable example of its use over the doorway of the mosque at Ḥarrân, where an outward-pointing cusp is used (Plate 84, Fig. 2). In the mosque at Mayâfârqîn it is found inverted on the elaborate arches which cover the miḥrâb niches, on the relieving arches over the doors of the outer north wall (Plate 84, Fig. 3), and on the blind niches above. This part of the wall belongs to the earlier portion of the building, which is ascribed, in an inscription round the dome, to the Ortokid Alpi (A.D.1152-1176). It is a common feature of Ortokid decoration at Diyârbekr,[333]and in the first half of the thirteenth century it is seldom absentfrom the lintels of Christian churches and Mohammadan mosques in Môṣul and the surrounding districts,[334]nor yet, in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, from the lace-like decoration of the arches in the mosques at Ḥasan Kaif[335](Plate 84, Fig. 1). Other examples in late Mohammadan architecture are too numerous to be mentioned. I select the few which I have quoted because they are little known.
In attempting a reconstruction of the Ukhaiḍir façade (Plate 85) I have sought some guidance from the representation of a Sasanian fortress which is to be seen upon a silver dish, now in the possession of the Kais. Archäol. Kommission of St. Petersburg[336](Plate 86, Fig. 2). It has been assigned to the beginning of the Sasanian period. The façade depicted bears some interesting analogies to that of Ukhaiḍir. It is divided into two stories. In the lower story the lower zone consists of eight arched niches, the arches borne on tall engaged columns without capitals. The archivolts are decorated with three fillets and a small oval motive is placed in the spandrels. Above the arches there is a cornice composed of two simple horizontal mouldings with a band of spirals between them. I surmise that these spirals, which seem to be singularly out of place in a monumental façade, were put in to fill up the space and have no warrant in any actual building. The gateway occupies the centre of this zone. A wide archway, set in a rectangular frame, covers two narrow arched doors. Within the semicircle of the embracing arch there is a shallow calotte decorated with broken concentric rings. The archivolt is outlined by a moulding which is carried up continuously round the rectangular frame. Within this frame a horizontal moulding is laid above the arch. This scheme of archivolt and rectangular frame with a continuous moulding is common in Syria and Mesopotamia.[337]The crowning member of the portal breaks the line of the cornice. It consists of a frieze carved in relief with a human (or divine?) head and bust, and a cornice bearing a row of cusps. The upper zone of the lower story is less easy to describe in terms of architecture. There is a frieze (or dwarf order?) decorated with four groups of six flutings or engaged colonnettes and five groups of four circles, each circle containing a quatrefoil. The cornice is composed of two bands, the first decorated with alternate circles and rhomboids, the second with diagonal brickwork. A projecting hourd is placed at either end of the building, and between the hourds the top of the wall is battlemented. These crenellations form a parapet to the gangway which runs along the base of the second tower-like story. Upon the gangway stand eight figures, seven of whom are blowing trumpets. Behindthem the wall is plain, but the upper part is decorated first with a band of half-florettes, then with a row of arched niches, each niche being set within a rectangular frame, and finally with a band of diagonal brickwork. The summit of the wall is battlemented and a wooden hourd projects from either side. The lower zone of the lower story corresponds very fairly with the lowest zone at Ukhaiḍir. The schematized horizontal bands of the second zone bear little or no relation to real architecture, but the upper story is set back, as at Ukhaiḍir, and the battlemented parapet of the gangway is a very probable solution for the parapet of the Ukhaiḍir gangway. The upper story, with its plain wall and its row of niches is the same in both façades, and the upper battlements may safely be restored at Ukhaiḍir.
At Ctesiphon the capitals and bases (if bases there were) of the columns and colonnettes were moulded in stucco and have disappeared. Bases seem to have been absent from the slender engaged columns on the outer walls of Firûzâbâd and Sarvistân, but at both places the state of the ruins renders an exact determination of such details difficult. The engaged columns seem to rest upon a low plinth. The decoration in those palaces is, however, far more nearly connected with oriental than with occidental tradition. We have not much information as to Sasanian capitals. The columns and double columns of the inner rooms at Sarvistân are covered by rectangular imposts,[338]and de Morgan gives a drawing of a stucco capital from Shirwân.[339]It is scarcely necessary to allude to the famous impost-capitals of Bîsutûn and Iṣfahân, which belong, in all probability, to the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century. They show far greater skill in the handling of the rectangular impost than the capitals at Sarvistân, but whether they are a natural development out of the latter, or borrowed directly from Byzantine art, existing material does not enable us to decide.[340]The latter theory seems to be the more probable, and it is supported by the fact that the evolution of the Mesopotamian capital did not proceed upon the Bîsutûn-Iṣfahân lines. At Ukhaiḍir there is a reversion to the simple impost of Sarvistân, nor did the development there go beyond the elementary impost-capital of rooms 30 and 40. The capitals of the swelling columns on the north façade of the central court may have been more like those of Bîsutûn and Iṣfahân, but unfortunately they are completely ruined. At a later date, in the church of Mâr Ṭahmâsgerd at Kerkûk (eighth or ninth century), the scheme of the Sarvistân halls is repeated, but the pairs of columns are without capitals or bases, and the colonnettes of the niches in the spandrels are similarly treated (Plate 75, Fig. 1). I should be inclined to reconstruct all the columns and engaged columns at Ukhaiḍir and Sarvistân, and possibly at Ctesiphon also, without bases.
On the western side of the Syrian desert the evolution of the capital isdifferent. The engaged capitals at Madâin Ṣâliḥ and Petra show a marked tendency towards the Corinthian. Like the capitals of the Kôm al-Shukâfa oasis[341]and capitals on Pompeiian frescoes of the second style, they have the Corinthian form and the Corinthian rosette upon the abacus, not indeed worked out into a true rosette, but left in the shape of a simple boss. In the second-century façades at Petra, such as the Corinthian tomb and the Khazneh, this tendency reaches full expression. The replacing of the architrave by the archivolt created a structural need which was satisfied by the introduction of the impost-capital, and we find the latter both at Mshattâ[342]and at Muwaqqar,[343]the capitals at Muwaqqar being closely related to the Bîsutûn-Iṣfahân type. With these stone-carved capitals, the brick and plaster capitals of Ukhaiḍir, so far as they are preserved, are little concerned. The further history of the Muwaqqar capitals must be sought, in the realm of Mohammadan art, at Sâmarrâ and in the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn.[344]
New to Mesopotamian architecture are the clustered columns in the middle zone of the Ukhaiḍir façade. No doubt they are not essentially different from the triple supports between the arches of the second zone at Ctesiphon; but at Ukhaiḍir they are given a true architectural meaning, the central pair carries the wall, the flanking columns carry the cusped arches; moreover they are set in different planes, the central pair standing in front of the flanking columns. The effect produced is almost Gothic, a foreshadowing of the clustered piers of Armenian churches.[345]It was a scheme which was not to remain sterile in early Mohammadan art. Clustered piers carried the roof of the great mosque at Sâmarrâ[346]and the arcades of the mosque at Ibn Ṭulûn.
The first great distinction, then, between the second-century façades of Petra and the third-century façade of Ctesiphon is that the mock architecture at Petra is organically coherent, whereas at Ctesiphon it is incoherent, i.e. it is a pattern covering the wall-face rather than a simulation of plastic construction. The second great distinction is the systematic use of the archivolt at Ctesiphon for all the secondary intercolumniations in the wings. It is perhaps not without importance to observe that the same change from architrave to archivolt took place, though at a rather later date, in the stone-building regions of western Asia. In Syria, for example, the arched window almost entirely replaced the rectangular window in the course of the fifth century.[347]In the lower and central zones of Ctesiphon the arches are framed by groups in a rectangle composed of engaged piers and architraves; in the upper zone this system is abandoned. The principle of the arched niche within a rectangular frame appears, as has been seen, as early as Assyrian stelae, but forthe use of the motive in a continuous series upon the façade there is, so far as I am aware, no example earlier than the Tabularium.[348]In the Augustan age it is found upon the Porta Praetoria at Aosta,[349]and thenceforward it governs the decorative scheme of Roman city gateways. Whether it was derived from Hellenistic Alexandria, together with the whole city gateway type, as Schultze surmises;[350]or whether it was evolved out of such wooden superstructures as gave birth to the decoration upon the Etruscan gates at Perugia;[351]or whether it was a specifically Roman (Stadtrömisch) conception, it is impossible to say. Nor does it signify. We know it as Roman, not only in the gateways, but also in the theatres and amphitheatres of the Roman empire, and I cannot doubt that the perfected Roman scheme is at least as directly responsible for Mesopotamian wall-surface decoration as is the western Asiatic development of Hellenistic façades. The gateway at Aosta, the Storied tomb at Petra, may well be taken as representing the immediate progenitors of Ctesiphon.
Five hundred years later, in round figures, comes Ukhaiḍir—five hundred years of architectural growth and of fairly continuous intercourse with the West. The architrave has vanished from the principal orders; it is retained only to form the old rectangular framework for the small niches at the top of the wall. Symmetry and organic cohesion rule over the two lower zones. But in the details of its composition there is nothing at Ukhaiḍir which might not have been foretold from the façade of Ctesiphon.
The lower zone of the north façade forms part of the decorative scheme of the central court as a whole. The central court resembles, as has been observed by Dr. Reuther, a Greek peristyle with engaged columns in place of free standing columns; the southern side is, however, treated as a separate façade, the façade of the lîwân. The principal feature was necessarily the wide arched opening of the lîwân itself. There is nothing new here; we have it at Ctesiphon, combined with Hellenistic wings; we have it at Firûzâbâd, without side doors, and at Sarvistân and at Hatra.
Hatra, though in plan it is no less purely oriental than Ctesiphon, shows direct Western influence far more strongly than the southern Mesopotamian or the Persian palaces. Dr. Herzfeld has compared its triple-arched façade, wherein the central arch surpasses the flanking arches in height and width, with that of the triumphal arch,[352]and the comparison is apt. So far as my knowledge goes, the triple-arched scheme appears for the first time in the Assyro-Persian cultural sphere at Hatra, and it is accompanied there by strongly Hellenized details of decoration, which distinguish it from the older oriental palaces to which it is related in plan. This Hellenized decoration is present in all other Parthian ruins, and it is not surprising that it should be so. TheParthians wrested their empire from a Greek dynasty. The Mesopotamia which they conquered was a part of Asiatic Greece; it was more closely linked to Greek culture than it had ever been linked before, or was ever to be linked again. The Hellenistic triple-arched scheme fitted the lîwân plan admirably, inasmuch as it provided the great opening which was essential to the lîwân hall. But it implied the placing of doors in the two flanking chambers, and this was done for the first time at Hatra. The side doors were an innovation which was not accepted without hesitation. It was not adopted in the façade of Firûzâbâd, where Hellenistic influence is almost entirely lacking. To a great extent the Sasanians stand for a reaction against Hellenism. A fresh wave of orientalism flows back into Mesopotamia with their conquest, and they went far to complete the severance with the West which the Parthians had begun when they overthrew the Seleucids. But the Greek domination, together with the fitful occupation of parts of northern Mesopotamia by Roman armies, left an indelible mark. Moreover, the Sasanian frontiers marched with those of Rome, and the interpenetration of the two civilizations was inevitable. It is felt in the façade of Ctesiphon. Though the triple-arched scheme is not present there, the provision of independent doors to the side chambers was a convenience; it was used at Firûzâbâd in the lîwân group at the back of the posterior façade; it was used at Ctesiphon, and thereafter it was not to disappear. With it the triple-arched façade came into favour. It formed part of the truly oriental façade of Sarvistân; no doubt it existed at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn; it exists at Ukhaiḍir, but it is there completely re-orientalized. The ṭarmah-lîwâns bear a faint resemblance to the Hellenistic motive; in the lîwâns of courtsCandGthe likeness fades; in the south façade of the central court it is gone altogether and the side doors are no more necessary to the scheme than they were at Ctesiphon. In place of the triumphal arch façade we have the lîwân façade which dominates the architecture of Persia and of India. The central hall is raised above the flanking vaults and this raised vault implies a lifting of the central part of the façade. Dr. Reuther conjectures that a rectangular frame was given to the central arch, and since that is the stereotyped form of the lîwân façade of a later date, I have adopted his view. Moreover, some such device must have been used at Hatra. There, too, the vault of the lîwân rises above the flanking vaults, and Dr. Andrae, in his reconstruction of the façade, has given it a rectangular frame (Fig. 31). But at Hatra the arched opening of the lîwân was considerably lower than its vault and need not necessarily have broken the horizontal lines of the façade. It must, however, be borne in mind that something very like the later lîwân façade must have existed at Hatra, as it existed at Ukhaiḍir. Flandin and Coste, in their restorations of Sarvistân (Voyage en Perse, Plate 29), give a true lîwân façade to the principal entrance and to the side lîwân, and indeed their section indicates the vault of the side lîwân as springing so high that the façade must have been raisedto correspond. The lîwân arch has been given in these restorations the same rectangular frame which has been conjectured to have existed at Hatra and at Ukhaiḍir. At Ukhaiḍir, as at Ctesiphon, the wings are decorated by blind arcades, two of which, for the sake of convenience, are broken by doors. The arcades are shallower than those which are carried round the other three sides of the court; the capitals of the columns, as Dr. Reuther has pointed out, must have been different from the other engaged capitals, since the shafts swell outwards towards the top;[353]and the calottes which cover the niches are adorned with Hazârbâf, the interwoven motive common in oriental woodwork.[354]The great arch of the lîwân is carried by pairs of engaged columns set in antis, and this is the arrangement which was usually adopted in the later lîwân façades. We have seen it in the tombs of Madâin Ṣâliḥ and of Petra. On either side there is a narrow arched niche which has the appearance of buttressing the central arch; beyond these follow three arched niches of wider span, the innermost on either side being slightly narrower than the others. The engaged column of the lîwân arch is joined to the quarter-column of the small flanking niche by a straight wall-face, on the same principle as that which is employed in the central supports of the ṭarmah-lîwâns of courtsBandH. The result is in plan a double column, similar to the double columns which carry the arcades of every early Christian church in central Anatolia.[355]I saw one of these double columns in a graveyard at Raqqah, where it is used as a tomb-stone. They are foreshadowed in the Nabataean façade at Si’ in the Ḥaurân.[356]
Fig. 31.Hatra, façade of palace reconstructed.(FromHatra, by kind permission of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft.)
Fig. 31.Hatra, façade of palace reconstructed.(FromHatra, by kind permission of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft.)
Fig. 31.Hatra, façade of palace reconstructed.
(FromHatra, by kind permission of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft.)
The triple-arched façade must have been popular in the early Abbâsid period. It is found in the Bait al-Khalîfah at Sâmarrâ, where it is as pronounced as it was at Hatra. It was present in the two main façades of the audience chambers at Balkuwârâ.[357]But the single arched motive was to playan equally important part in Mohammadan architecture, a part of which an early (perhaps the earliest) indication is to be seen at Ukhaiḍir. On the north wall of the great hall the central feature is the great arch with its shallow calotte. Within this frame is set the smaller arched opening of the door. Here, as Fergusson has observed,[358]is the ‘perfectly satisfactory solution of a problem which has exercised the ingenuity of architects of all ages’. It has always been manifest ‘that to give a large building a door at all in proportion to its dimensions was, to say the least of it, very inconvenient. Men are only six feet high and they do not want portals through which elephants might march. It was left, however, for the Saracenic architects completely to get over the difficulty. They placed their portals—one or three, or five, of moderate dimensions—at the back of a semi-dome. This last feature thus became the porch or portico, and its dimensions became those of the portal, wholly irrespective of the size of the opening. No one, for instance, looking at this gateway (south gate of Akbar’s mosque at Fatehpur Sîkrî) can mistake that it is a doorway, and that only, and no one thinks of the size of the openings that are provided at its base. The semi-dome is the modulus of the design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its magnificence’. The same principle rules over two of the smaller doorways of Ukhaiḍir, the doors at the outer ends of the corridor 5-6.
The arched niche, either blind or pierced with doors or windows, is used at Ukhaiḍir to complete the decoration of the north wall of the great hall. Blind niches with a rectangular frame stand on either side of the central calotte, while above it the three niches are pierced by windows. Here and in all other examples at Ukhaiḍir, the opening, simulated or real, is covered by a shallow calotte. In the central court the single niche at the south-east corner is potentially a doorway; it is covered by a fluted semi-dome (compare the doubtful example at Mshattâ, above, p. 118). In the same manner the niches on the two side walls of room 32 are potentially windows; at Karkh, where they are similarly placed, but in outer walls, they are actually pierced by window openings. The single niche motive is found in room 140, where, however, the niche is unusually shallow. That the form of such niches as those of the great hall and of rooms 31 and 32 is Hellenistic is not open to a moment’s doubt. Out of the countless classical parallels I may cite the aedicula upon the east façade of the basilica at Shaqqah.[359]The archivolt at Shaqqah is carried on colonnettes, the semi-dome is fluted, and the addition of a pediment, in the true Graeco-Roman style of Syria, involves the doubling of the colonnettes. The purely decorative character of the aedicula may well be compared with that of the niches on either side of the central calotte in the great hall. Dr. Reuther draws an apt parallel between the placing of the niches in the great hall and theplacing of the niches in the building on the citadel at ‘Ammân,[360]and he calls attention to the fact that at ‘Ammân the colonnettes have neither capital nor bases and that the archivolts of one of the pairs of niches in room 32 are decorated with a zigzag ornament analogous to that of ‘Ammân. All these points help to prove the Mohammadan origin of the building on the citadel. It is not, however, strictly correct to describe the colonnettes either at ‘Ammân or at Ukhaiḍir as being without capitals. They are all provided with a small impost block. In room 32 a strikingly oriental motive is introduced into the niches on the side walls. The spear-shaped ornament in the centre of each niche was familiar to Assyrian decoration. Whether it had, or had not, its origin in the spear-shaped loopholes of fortified walls,[361]it is used for purely ornamental purposes in Assyrian decorative crenellations at Assur and in Parthian crenellations at Warka.[362]It was common in a similar position during the Achaemenid period,[363]and was carried on into later Mohammadan work, with the difference that the whole niche was given a spear-shaped or trifoliate heading[364](Plate 75, Fig. 1). Nor are the recessed rosettes of the stucco decoration at Ukhaiḍir connected with Hellenistic types; they have affinities with the rosette motives of Assyrian fresco and enamelled brick,[365]but the floret shape of the Assyrian rosette disappears with the perspective treatment. In a cruder form the rosette of Ukhaiḍir is used at Mâr Ṭahmâsgerd. Here it is not recessed but cut deeply into the wall, and its effect is produced solely by the resultant shadow. The crenellated motive of the stucco work in the mosque has its counterpart in the ornamental crenellations of Assyria and Persia, but it is used at Ukhaiḍir with singular freedom. The crenellations are combined so as to form recessed rhomboids; they are even applied to the archivolt in the two doorways of corridors 5 and 6.[366]Save for the rosettes, all the stucco decoration at Ukhaiḍir is of an architectural character—that is to say that it imitates plastic construction such as crenellations, arched and columned openings; or else it is an elaboration of structural details, such as the squinch or the transverse arch. Sometimes it is actually called into being by structural processes, as in the horizontal ridges of the vaults in the mosque and room 31. The motives placed on the summits of the vaults in rooms 31 and 32 are reminiscent of coffering, and I have little doubt that their origin is to be sought in the Hellenistic scheme of ceiling decoration. It is, however, interesting to note that Western forms are more obscured at Ukhaiḍir than in buildings of a later Mohammadan period. The stucco coffers of the vaults at Sâmarrâ stand very close to classical types,[367]whereas the coffers at Ukhaiḍir are employed in a manner foreign to classical conceptions. This must be largely due to the fact that in the great palacesat Sâmarrâ Western artificers were at work, while in the comparatively unimportant desert retreat oriental workmen and oriental ideas had the upper hand, yet I would suggest that the differences between Ukhaiḍir and Sâmarrâ indicate a considerable difference in date. In the ninth century Western influence was stronger in Mesopotamia than it was in the preceding age, when the arts were still held closely in the thrall of Sasanian tradition. Consequently we find at Sâmarrâ capitals inspired by the Corinthian acanthus capital, and among the wall decorations the Hellenistic vine motive plays a conspicuous part.[368]We have yet to learn that the flowing vine, so essential to Coptic decoration and to that of the Hellenistic coast-lands, was a feature of Sasanian architectural ornament. It occurs in monuments of the Umayyad period which were directly under the sway of Hellenistic Syria, such as Mshattâ and the miḥrâb of the Khâṣakî Djâmi’,[369]but except for sporadic examples in Parthian architecture, where the Hellenizing tendencies of the decorations are indisputable,[370]its systematic use on Babylonian soil begins (so far as the evidence goes) at Sâmarrâ in the middle of the ninth century, and there it was the artificers, not the work of their hands, which were imported. I do not deny that in comparison with the Sâmarrâ palaces Ukhaiḍir is a crude product of local workmanship, wherein it is natural to expect a closer adherence to local tradition; but it is important to point out how close that adherence is, and how well it corresponds with recorded examples of Mesopotamian and Persian decoration earlier than the Umayyads, whereas the decoration in the same regions, but at a later period, diverges widely from the older schemes. The divergence is due, in my estimation, to the diffusion of Western influence when the western and the eastern provinces of the khalifate were drawn together under the Abbâsids and all quarters of their empire contributed to their constructions. In the ninth century we find Mesopotamian architecture in Cairo and Coptic decoration in Sâmarrâ. I regard the oriental character of Ukhaiḍir as indicative not only of its isolated position, beyond the direct course of international civilization and arts, but also as typical of the primitive age during which it arose.
Materials for the study of early Mohammadan decoration are still so scanty that the difficulty of assigning exact dates to such as we possess is great. It is enhanced by the fact that the workmen of the first khalifs must have been of non-Arab extraction. The Arab invaders, pouring in out of deserts which were innocent of monumental constructions, had nothing to contribute to architecture or to the arts. So far as we know them in the pre-Mohammadan periodthey had not created an art of their own. Along the trade-routes, the rock-cut tombs of Madâin Ṣâliḥ and of Petra exhibit, without salient divergence, the artistic principles of Hellenized Egypt and Hellenized Syria, while concerning the older Arab civilizations in the southern parts of the peninsula we have as yet no evidence save that of inscriptions. The Mohammadan conquerors employed the workmen of their predecessors, and according to the nature of their own traditions, these workmen might raise a palace with a basilical hall, like Mshattâ, or a palace entirely composed of lîwân groups like Ukhaiḍir; they might cover their walls with Hellenistic fresco, as at Qṣair ‘Amrah, or with ornament derived mainly from the ancient East, as again at Ukhaiḍir. The variations of this period were due to individual idiosyncrasy, or rather to individual training; there is no reason why they should be taken to denote a chronological distinction. A hundred and fifty years later this heterogeneous material had been welded together and the IslâmicWeltkunstwas beginning to take shape. Sâmarrâ, in the eastern part of the Abbâsid dominions, the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn in the western part, re-echo one another; artistic conceptions are not only interchangeable, they are the same; and though, all through the history of the arts of Islâm, local peculiarities, based on local conditions and traditions, continue to differentiate one region from another, it is not the differences but the similarities which are the most striking. They go hand in hand with the singular solidarity of Islâm, with the uninterrupted intercourse between remote parts of the Mohammadan world, with the ceaseless passage of travellers and scholars from the western limits of Europe on the one hand to the eastern limits of Asia on the other. This intercourse was quickened, as the Prophet had intended that it should be, by the institution of the annual pilgrimage. The mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn is not an isolated example of a direct borrowing by one region from another. The gates of al-Mehdiyyeh in Tunis were copied from the gates of Raqqah.[371]It is impossible to explain the curious niching of the walls of the eleventh-century palace of the Menâr, to take another Tunisian example, except by a comparison with the wall-surface decoration of Babylonia and Assyria.[372]I am fully aware that a long period of time had elapsed between the fall of the Mesopotamian empires and the erection of the Menâr, and that it would be vain to attempt to establish a continuous sequence of buildings between them, but I would point out that the Parthians, when they reconstructed the Babylonian palace at Tellôh, reproduced the Babylonian wall decoration so closely that de Sarzec was persuaded that the ruins of their palace belonged to the Chaldaean age.[373]
Turn again to the fortress of the Bani Hammâd and you will find the cuspmotive of Syria and Mesopotamia repeated on its arches;[374]and at the palace of Medînat al-Zahrâ in Spain (end of the tenth century) we have the plaster decorations of the walls of Sâmarrâ carried out in a style which betrays their Coptic and classical parentage,[375]though they are not devoid of characteristic motives, such as the palmette tree and the continuous pattern, which are rooted in oriental tradition.[376]In the same ruins the workers in stone have borrowed alike from Byzantium and from Mesopotamia; some of the continuous geometrical patterns are closely allied to those of Sâmarrâ,[377]while the free use of the crenellated motive may be compared with its use at Ukhaiḍir (Plate 87). The earliest Mesopotamian examples of such patterns as these are Parthian (Plate 86, Fig. 1).
One of the structural features of Ukhaiḍir has a value which is not only structural but also decorative. I allude to the use of masonry tubes between parallel barrel vaults. Obviously it is a scheme which was born of the systematic use of the vault. It is to be found at Hatra, where it appears in some of the tombs.[378]The same system is present at Firûzâbâd, where there was a masonry tube between the barrel vaults of the side chambers of the entrance lîwân and the domed chamber.[379]In later Mohammadan architecture I have found masonry tubes at Khân al-Khernîna above Tekrît.[380]A second device for the lightening of the wall mass between parallel barrel vaults is employed at Ukhaiḍir in the east annex and in the buildings to the north of the palace. It takes the form of a number of narrow tubes. I saw it also in a fourteenth-century khân at the foot of the Djebel Sindjâr (Plate 88, Fig. 1), a khân which is famous for the dragon reliefs on its doorway,[381]and in a mosque of the early fifteenth century at Ḥasan Kaif (Plate 88, Fig. 2). The decorative importance of the first scheme, the large single tube, lies in the effect which its opening produces on the façade. This can be observed in the courts on the ground floor at Ukhaiḍir, as well as in the court on the upper story of the gate-house. The arched openings of the tubes between the arched doors of the lîwân and its side chambers form an essential part of the façade, and they are retained when vault and tube are alike absent. The existence of tube openings in the façades round the central court, the ṣaḥn, of the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn is sufficient to show that the Egyptian mosque was copied from a vaulted prototype (Plate 89, Fig. 1). I do not doubt that it was modelled on the vaulted buildingsof Mesopotamia, though vault and tube are absent from its structure. The great mosque at Sâmarrâ was not vaulted; unfortunately the data are insufficient to determine the scheme of the façades of its ṣaḥn. Nor was the mosque of Abû Dulaf vaulted; it had a flat roof carried on arches, like Ibn Ṭulûn; but the tube openings appear in the form of niches on the façades of the ṣaḥn (Plate 89, Fig. 2). As at Ibn Ṭulûn, they have become purely decorative. I do not know whether there are tubes between the vaults of the Bait al-Khalîfah at Sâmarrâ, but the openings are simulated upon the façade by shallow blind niches. The same system holds good in the ṣaḥn façades of the Azhar at Cairo, a building which has no other connexion with Mesopotamian architecture than this traditional use of a decorative motive, the true significance of which had long been forgotten.
Themosque of Ukhaiḍir has an exceptional interest. It is one of the earliest mosques known to us which retains its original form and decoration, and its plan may be regarded as one of the first examples which we possess of the systematized architectural scheme which, in slightly varying types, ruled the Mohammadan world until the fourteenth century of our era. It was a scheme which was derived from the inaugural sanctuary of the Faith, the Prophet’s house at Medînah.
Recent research has made it abundantly clear that Muḥammad, when he constructed his new dwelling after the flight to Medînah inA.D.622, had no other object in view than the purely domestic. It was not a mosque which he set himself to build, but a living-house, and he laid it out in the fashion which was customary in his day. It may indeed be doubted whether he contemplated the need of a temple of any kind.[382]In the view of the founder of Islâm there were but two sanctuaries in the world, the mosque of the Ka’bah at Mekkah and the mosque of the Aqṣâ at Jerusalem, the former being at that period an open space, bounded only by the buildings of the city, with the house of Abraham in its midst, the latter an area on the edge (aqṣâ= extremity) of the sacred enclosure at Jerusalem, an area actually occupied by the ruins of Justinian’s Church of the Virgin, which had been destroyed by the Persians inA.D.614. For the rest God could be worshipped in every place, and the nomads of Arabia could perform their religious exercises as satisfactorily in the open wilderness as in any other spot. But, as has been well pointed out,[383]even in the Days of Ignorance, the madjlis, the place of assembly—that is to say the courtyard of the Arab house—was itself invested with a kind of sanctity; the meetings held in it were conducted with gravity and order, and it may also have been used for cult purposes. To it the terms ‘madjlis’ and ‘masdjid’ were applied impartially, and it was not until after the advent of the Prophet that the word ‘masdjid’ was narrowed down so as to signify only such places of assembly as were connected with religious observances.[384]These places were not, however, used exclusively for cult purposes. In Muḥammad’s masdjid at Medînah, the court of his house was necessarily the centre of his domestic life; in it he lived and entertained his wives and took counsel with his friends, and, since he was the head of his community, itwas the meeting-place of the Faithful, whether for religious or for secular needs. The homeless among his adherents found a lodging in it, and the wounded were tended there. Nor did the masdjid al-djamâ’ah, the mosque of assembly, lose its secular character until more than a hundred years had passed after the Hidjrah. For the mosque, as Wellhausen has put it (and the phrase cannot be bettered), was the forum of primitive Islâm. When the conquerors founded their camp-cities, the misrs of Mesopotamia and of Egypt, their first step was tomark outthe area of the mosque, to provide, that is to say, a central place of assembly for the people. To it the khalif repaired on his accession and the governor on his appointment, and the discourses which they pronounced on these occasions were political rather than religious.[385]Thither, too, they summoned the people when questions of importance were to be discussed, or weighty tidings to be communicated.[386]
Muḥammad’s house at Medînah, which was to play so influential a part in the architectural history of Islâm, consisted of a courtyard 100 ells square (circa60 metres) enclosed by a wall, the lower part of which was stone and the upper of sun-dried brick. The qiblah, the direction in which the worshippers turned in prayer, was towards Jerusalem, i.e. it lay to the north; there was, however, no niche to mark it, and the word ‘qiblah’ did not carry with it any architectural connotation, but merely the sense of a moral order. That the congregation might be protected from the burning sun, this side of the court was covered by a roof of woven palm-leaves, supported on columns made of palm-trunks. The roof was so low that a man could touch it with his hand. On the east side, two rooms, for the two wives, Saudâ and ‘A’ishah, were placed outside the wall at its southern extremity. In the opposite corner (the south-west) a primitive lodging was provided for the poorest of those who had followed the Prophet in his flight. It was covered by a roof (ṣuffah) similar to that of the qiblah, and those who inhabited it were known as the Aṣḥâb al-Ṣuffah, the people of the portico. There were three doors into the courtyard. That which lay to the south was the principal entrance; a subsidiary door was placed on the west side, and on the east side was the door used by the Prophet. At a subsequent date, owing to quarrels with the Jews, the qiblah was turned away from Jerusalem and placed in the direction of Mekkah. This necessitated the closing of the south door and the opening of a door in the north wall. Moreover, the Aṣḥâb al-Ṣuffah were moved to the north-east angle of the court and their roof was re-erected there.[387]In addressing those who were present, the Prophet was accustomed to lean against the trunk of a palm-tree, but in the year seven or eight of the Hidjrah he caused a wooden minbar to be erected. It consistedof two steps and a seat. On or before it he conducted the prayers.[388]The khalif ‘Umar enlarged the mosque at Medînah, but the new building scarcely exceeded the old in architectural pretension. The wall was of sun-dried brick, the columns of palm-trunks (or according to one account of sun-dried brick also) supporting a palm-leaf roof. It is not clear whether this roof was carried all round the court or was confined to the south side. The court, which in Muḥammad’s day was without any kind of pavement, was given by ‘Umar a floor of pebbles beaten into the ground.[389]Further improvements were carried out by ‘Uthmân, but it was not until the time of the Umayyad khalif Walîd ibn ‘Abd al-Malik (A.D.705-715) that the old simplicity of construction was abandoned. In the yearA.H.87 or 88 he pulled down the mosque and rebuilt it. The workmen whom he employed were Greeks and Copts from Damascus and Egypt.[390]The walls and columns of the new edifice were of cut stone; gold, silver, and mosaic were used to adorn it; the miḥrâb and the maqṣûrah were of teak.[391]The maqṣûrah, the enclosure reserved for the khalif, had already, according to Balâdhuri, been introduced into the mosque by Marwân (A.D.683-685), but his maqṣûrah was of stone. The miḥrâb was a new feature: ‘the first who introduced the novelty of a concave miḥrâb was ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Azîz when he restored the mosque of the Prophet’ (by order of the khalif Walîd).[392]Both maqṣûrah and miḥrâb were borrowed from Christian usage; the maqṣûrah was copied from the Imperial enclosed dais of Byzantine churches, the miḥrâb from the Christian apse—it was ‘min shân al-kanâ’is’, an attribute of churches, and was adopted with some reluctance by Islâm.[393]Concerning the Medînah mosque Professor Becker quotes an exceedingly suggestive anecdote. Walîd, boasting of his construction to a son of the khalif ‘Uthmân, who had been the last before him to restore the mosque, said: ‘How far our building excels yours.’ ‘True,’ replied his interlocutor, ‘we built after the manner of mosques, but you after the manner of Christian churches.’
Elsewhere the development followed similar lines. The Ḥaram of Mekkah stands apart; its arrangement could never be the same as that of ordinary mosques. Yet it is interesting to observe that it was at first innocent of any building except the Ka’bah. The khalif ‘Umar enlarged the area by pulling down adjacent houses, and enclosed it with a wall lower than a man’s stature; ‘Uthmân is said to have been the first to furnish it with riwâqs. Again here,as at Medînah, it was Walîd who first beautified the mosque with marble columns and with mosaic.[394]
The accounts of the foundation of the misrs of Baṣrah, Kûfah, and Fusṭâṭ throw a vivid light upon the requirements, spiritual and architectural, of primitive Islâm. It is recorded that the khalif ‘Umar gave orders to the respective governors of the three places, Abû Mûsâ, Sa’d ibn abi Waqqâs, and ‘Amr ibn al-’Âṣ, that a masdjid al-djamâ’ah should be provided, while each tribe was to have a small mosque for its particular use. At Baṣrah the mosque was marked out (ikhtaṭṭa) but not built, and Balâdhuri is careful to add that the people prayed in it without buildings.[395]It was subsequently enclosed with a fence made of reeds, and this fence Abû Mûsâ replaced by a wall of sun-dried brick and roofed it (presumably the qiblah side) with reeds. Ziyâd ibn Abîhi, Mu’âwiyah’s powerful viceroy, enlarged it considerably. His building was of burnt brick and gypsum mortar, and he roofed it with teak.[396]Five columns (the word used issawâri= masts, the columns were therefore presumably of wood) supported the roof of the qiblah wall; the side walls were of stone, and columns are not mentioned there. The columns were probably of teak like the roof; some of them had four’uqûd= ties, which I take to mean the metal collars which were used to fasten together the different sections of wooden or marble columns. Ziyâd was the first to introduce a maqṣûrah, and he is said to have built a minaret of stone. Al-Hadjdjâdj or his son put in columns made of stone from the mountains of Ahwâz.[397]At Kûfah the mosque was marked out on a high spot before any part of the city had been built. On three sides the ṣaḥn was bounded by a ditch; on the fourth, that which faced towards Mekkah (the front side as it is called by the Arab writers), there was a covering roof (ẓullah) which had neither side nor end walls; it was 200 ells long, and was supported by columns of marble which were taken from churches built by Chosroës. The ceiling was like the ceiling of Greek churches.[398]‘And such’, says Ṭabari, ‘was the mosque (at that time), with the exception of the mosque at Mekkah which they would not imitate.’
The first mosque at Kûfah therefore consisted of a great ṣaḥn surrounded on three sides by a ditch and on the fourth, the qiblah side, by an open colonnade carrying a roof, and the arrangement was exactly the same as that of Muḥammad’s house, except that the qiblah wall and the palm-trunk columns were replaced by marble columns. Balâdhuri gives a tradition that the mosque at Kûfah was built out of part of the materials taken from the palaces of al-Mundhir at Ḥîrah,[399]and Ṭabari says that the castle at Kûfah was of burnt brick taken from Persian buildings at Ḥîrah. Ziyâd rebuilt the mosque. He summoned, accordingto Ṭabari,[400]Persian builders, and expounded to them the plan of the mosque and its extent, and that which he desired regarding the length of its roof, saying that he wished to erect an edifice which should not have its parallel. To which a man, who had been one of the builders of Chosroës, replied that could only be accomplished by using columns from the Jebel Ahwâz which should be carved and polished and filled with lead and iron clamps (safâfîd= skewers). The ceiling should be 30 ells high (circa17 metres!), and it should be roofed. The mosque should also have side and end walls. This scheme was adopted by Ziyâd. Balâdhuri mentions that he placed a maqṣûrah in this mosque also, and that both at Baṣrah and at Kûfah he strewed pebbles on the ṣaḥn to prevent the people from getting dusty.[401]
At Baṣrah and at Kûfah the ṣaḥn was the principal feature of the mosque, as indeed it had been at Medînah; this was not the case at Fusṭâṭ. The first Egyptian mosque was built by ‘Amr ibn al-’Âṣ in the yearA.D.642. It stood in the midst of vineyards and consisted merely of a covered place, 50 x 30 cubits in extent (28·92 x 17·34 metres), enclosed in a brick wall.[402]The people assembled in the open space which surrounded it. The roof, which was very low, must have been supported on columns, though these are not mentioned. The brick walls were unplastered, and the floor was strewn with pebbles. ‘Amr set up within it a wooden minbar, but this was resented by ‘Umar, and it was removed. ‘Is it not enough’, wrote the khalif, ‘that thou shouldst stand while the people sit at thy feet?’ This episode is of the highest significance in the history of the minbar. It is clear that it was regarded at that time as a throne rather than as a pulpit, and as such unsuited to any but the khalif. It was not until the close of the Umayyad period that the minbar lost its secular significance and became a part of the ritual furnishing of the mosque. With this change it is probable that its form changed also, and instead of the two steps and a seat of the Prophet’s minbar, the high pulpit of the modern mosque came into use. That this pulpit was copied from the pulpits of Christian churches is not improbable. The minbar which was set up in the time of ‘Abd al-Azîz ibn Marwân (A.D.685-705) in the mosque of ‘Amr is said to have been taken from a Christian church.[403]Neither was there in ‘Amr’s mosque any miḥrâb to mark the qiblah; it was not until the third enlargement of the mosque inA.D.710 that the qiblah wall was given a miḥrâb. It is further recorded that the orientation adopted by ‘Amr was imperfect, so that the worshippers were obliged to stand askew that they might face truly towards Mekkah while they prayed. The mosque was provided with six doors, two in each wall, with the exception of the qiblah wall, which was left unbroken. The first enlargement of the buildingtook place inA.D.673, on which occasion an open space, or court, was added to the north. In the second enlargement (A.D.698-699) the mosque was entirely rebuilt and the ṣaḥn was included within its walls.
It appears from these accounts that by the middle of the Umayyad period the development from courtyard-house to sanctuary was complete. Its course had been simple and obvious. All the essentials of the stereotyped form were present at Medînah; the differences were differences in size and splendour, not in kind. The domestic court had become the ṣaḥn; the palm-leaf sheltering roofs against the qiblah wall and in one angle of the court had solidified into the riwâqs; the palm-trunk columns had been replaced by columns or piers of brick (possibly by brick columns at Medînah itself as early as the time of ‘Umar), or, where the spoils of Sasanian and Byzantine lay ready to hand, as at Kûfah or Fusṭâṭ, by columns of marble. The qiblah had been given a visible shape in the miḥrâb niche, and by the close of the Umayyad period the minbar had wholly lost its temporal attributes and had taken its place as part of the necessary furniture of the mosque, though it probably still continued to be a movable wooden structure. Such a sanctuary, but reduced to the modest dimensions of a private chapel (if I may be permitted the phrase), is the mosque of Ukhaiḍir. The fact that its orientation is inexact—Mekkah lies to the south-east of Ukhaiḍir, whereas the direction indicated by the miḥrâb is almost due south—would not have been regarded as of much importance. As has been mentioned, ‘Amr’s mosque had the same defect, and in this respect Manṣûr’s mosque at Baghdâd offers a yet more significant parallel. Ṭabari observes that the mosque in the round city was not properly oriented because it was built to fit the qaṣr, whereas at Ruṣâfah the orientation was right, because the mosque was built before the qaṣr.[404]Precisely the same explanation applies to the Ukhaiḍir mosque. The palace builders were accustomed to square their plans to the points of the compass, and a miḥrâb in the south wall was the closest approximation which could be obtained in an edifice which lay north and south. The mosque was so small that there was no difficulty in applying to it the system of vaulting which reigns over the whole palace, but the massive Mesopotamian vault was unsuited to free-standing columns and the roof of the riwâqs has fallen. Outside Ukhaiḍir we have no extant example of a vaulted mosque on this plan. We are specifically told that the roof of the mosque at Baṣrah was first of reeds and then of teak; the nature of the roof of the ẓullah at Kûfah is open to doubt. Its ceiling was like the ceiling of Greek churches, a description which does not exclude the possibility of a vault. That the miḥrâb at Ukhaiḍir received no decoration need cause no surprise. Far from being regarded as having any special sanctity, the miḥrâb is defined as the least holy part of the mosque and the Imâm is earnestly warned not to take up his station within it—doubtless, as Professor Becker observes,in order to emphasize the fact that though the miḥrâb was copied from the Christian apse, it shared none of its attributes.[405]Of the minbar it is improbable that any vestige would be found under the ruin heaps at Ukhaiḍir. It was most likely of wood, and has long been destroyed. Nor is it necessary to suppose that the ṣaḥn contained a water-basin for ablutions. No such feature is mentioned in the account of the early mosques, save that at a later date Maqrîzi records the presence in the mosque of ‘Amr of an ancient well appertaining to the gardens in which the mosque was built.[406]
It will be convenient to carry this survey a little further in order to include the mosques of Sâmarrâ, which are not far removed, either chronologically or geographically, from the mosque of Ukhaiḍir, but in so doing the early Syrian and North African mosques must be taken into account. The plan of the first mosques in Syria was partly determined by the fact that they were erected on the site of Christian churches. They differ, therefore, from the normal construction of the Medînah type. To the khalif ‘Umar is ascribed the first Mohammadan building upon the site which is now occupied by the Aqṣâ, but it seems probable that his edifice was nothing but a makeshift reparation of the ruined church of the Virgin.[407]Probably the Umayyad khalif ‘Abd al-Malik rebuilt the mosque in the yearA.D.691, but inA.D.746 it was destroyed by an earthquake. Manṣûr rebuilt it, and it was again destroyed by earthquake. It was restored by al-Mahdi aboutA.D.780, but the plan was considerably altered. Even the mosque described by Muqaddasi inA.D.985 is materially different from the building which exists to-day. I think it exceedingly doubtful whether the mosque retained at any time after the temporary construction of ‘Umar the plan of Justinian’s church, since the necessary alteration in the orientation must have introduced a wide diversity; but the design of the many-aisled church and the presence of a large quantity of columns and capitals may well have influenced the mosque builders. In any case the position of the Aqṣâ would have led to an abnormal plan, inasmuch as the great court of the ḥaram enclosure, in which it stood, rendered it unnecessary to give a separate court, or ṣaḥn, to the mosque.
The Umayyad mosque at Damascus is also abnormal, but its plan seems to have been far more directly determined than in the Aqṣâ by the building which preceded it on the same site. The nave and aisles of the church of St. John must have dictated the scheme of its arcades, and its distinguishing feature, the wide central aisle running north and south, can only be explained by a similar disposition, either transept or narthex, in the church.[408]It is conceivable that the temple porticoes may have given the impulse to the full development of the riwâqsabout the ṣaḥn, just as the porticoes of such buildings as the Serapeion, the agora, and the gymnasium at Alexandria, or of the stoas and agoras which adorned the Hellenistic cities of the Roman empire, may have had their share in suggesting an extension of the colonnades of the mosque, and indeed in Mesopotamia, where these models were absent, there is no reason for supposing that the riwâqs were carried in the first constructions all round the ṣaḥn. But this extension was in itself a not unnatural growth out of the Medînah plan, and in its further history, the courtyard-mosque with its deep ḥaram and its narrow flanking riwâqs pursued its own line of development, based upon its own needs. In this development no doubt the renowned Umayyad mosque at Damascus played a part. In Syria both the Aqṣâ and the mosque at Ba’albek show the wide central aisle running north and south.[409]It is typical of the Tunisian mosques, but here it is almost always found in conjunction with a wide transept running parallel with the qiblah wall; a dome covers the miḥrâb where the wide aisle and the transept meet, and a second dome stands at the opposite end of the central aisle. This⏊-shaped scheme can be seen at Qairawân, in the Zaitûnah at Tunis, at Tilimsân, and elsewhere. The mosque of Qairawân was founded inA.D.671, but entirely rebuilt, first in 703 and again in 837.[410]The Zaitûnah was founded inA.D.732. The great mosque at Cordova, founded at the end of the eighth century, had the same disposition.[411]The Tilimsân mosques are considerably later in date and are built with piers, with the exception of Sidi al-Ḥalwi, where both piers and columns are used.[412]