|
|
|
Uncovering the marvels of Islamic architecture
 According to BBC News (23 February 2007), researchers in the US have found that complex geometric patterns—including the concept of quasicrystalline geometry propounded by Western mathematicians a couple of decades ago—were used in Islamic architectural monuments built several centuries earlier. The discovery has been reported in the American journal Science. “It is absolutely stunning. They (Muslims) made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn’t figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years,” said Harvard University’s Peter Lu. Lu, who designs physics experiments for the International Space Station, became interested in the subject while travelling in Uzbekistan where he noticed a 16th century Islamic structure with decagonal tiling.
|
|
Since Islam forbids figural imagery, Muslim artists, architects and artisans channelised their imagination and creative energies in other directions. Generally, Islamic art and architecture are characterised by three major motifs: geometric designs, vegetal patterns (fruits, leaves, plants, flowers) and calligraphy
|
 Since Islam forbids figural imagery, Muslim artists, architects and artisans channelised their imagination and creative energies in other directions. Generally, Islamic art and architecture are characterised by three major motifs: geometric designs, vegetal patterns (fruits, leaves, plants, flowers) and calligraphy.
Geometric and floral designs are often combined. In some cases, vegetal patterns are stylized. Geometric patterns are based primarily on the circle, the triangle, the hexagon and the square, and range from the simple to the infinitely complex.
Muslim architects, artists and artisans selectively appropriated elements and features from classical traditions and added their own innovations to them in terms of complexity, elaboration, intricate combinations and abstractness. This creative cross-fertilization produced new forms of decoration and ornamentation in which the themes of unity, infinity, continuity and harmony were prominent. Nowhere else can one find such an extensive, elaborate and complex use of geometric patterns and designs in art and architecture.
A distinctive feature of Islamic art and architecture is arabesque, a geometricized style of decoration characterised by interlacing plant forms and abstract curvilinear motifs. In arabesques, vegetal patterns grow infinitely in all directions according to the laws of geometry. Arabesques were used in monumental architecture, metal work, wood work, pottery, tapestry and in the decoration of manuscripts. In Europe, Renaissance artists, including Leonardo de Vinci, incorporated Arabesques in paintings and in decorative book bindings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The mathematical sciences occupy a prominent place in Islamic intellectual history. Traditionally, the mathematical sciences comprised four major branches or disciplines: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. These disciplines subsumed other mathematical fields such as algebra, trigonometry, mechanics and optics.
The quantum and range of the contribution of Muslims to the mathematical sciences is truly amazing. The Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Sciences (1991) edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Geschichte der Arabischen Schrifttums (1970-1979) compiled by Fuat Sezgin list nearly 1800 printed sources on Islamic mathematical sciences published before 1970.
