Some people living today assume that the West has always been leading the world. However, in 2004, John M. Hobson noted in The Eastern Origins of Western Civilizations (Cambridge, p. 272; Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de), in the year 900, the Islamic Middle East/North Africa was the cradle of civilization, the most advanced region in the world economically, standing at the centre of the global economy, enjoying considerable economic growth and even per capita income growth.
John M. Hobson mentioned the following reasons: it was a pacified region in which towns sprang up and capitalists engaged in long-distance global trade; Muslim merchants were not only traders but rational capitalist investors who traded, invested and speculated in global capitalist activities for profit-maximising ends; a sufficiently rational set of institutions was created including a clearing system, banks engaged in currency exchange, deposits and lending at interest, a special type of double-entry bookkeeping, partnerships and contract law, all of which presupposed a strong element of trust; scientific thought had developed rapidly after 800; Islam was important in stimulating capitalism on a global scale.
In The Eastern Origins of Western Civilizations (Cambridge, p. 272; Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de), John M. Hobson noted that, back then, a book title such as The Islamic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism would have been appropriate. An author would have demonstrated why only Islam was capable of significant economic progress and why Christian Europe would be mired forever in agrarian stagnation. John M. Hobson mentions the 11th century judge, scientist and historian Said al-Andalusi from Toledo in Spain — followed by Ibn Khaldun in the 14th c. — who, indeed, wrote back then that Europe’s occupation of a cold temperate zone meant that its people were ignorant, lacked scientific curiosity and would remain backward.
All of this can be discovered in the introduction of Luca Mozzati’s richly illustrated book Islamic Art (Prestel, hardcover, 2019, 320 pages, 27,0 x 28,7 cm, 414 color illustrations; Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr). From its birth in the seventh century through modern times, the Islamic religion has inspired outstanding works of art. Luca Mozzati’s survey includes over four hundred reproductions of treasures of Islamic art that span the world: from southern Europe, along the entire Mediterranean basin to sub-Saharan Africa through the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Arranged geographically, the objects include paintings, miniatures, ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, carpets and metal works. Each region is given a thorough introduction that offers historical context and extensive descriptions of its artifacts. Accompanying essays offer guidance in interpreting the many themes that tie these works together, including typology, calligraphy, and religious beliefs. Despite its wide-ranging history and origins, Islamic art is unified by its devotion to faith and beauty.
Luca Mozzati explains that Islam (from Islàm, an Arabic word meaning ‘abandonment’, ‘submission’ to God) is a religion characterised by absolute and uncompromising monotheism, a radical and unitary view of the world, indifferent to the historical, social, cultural and racial particularities of its adherents. Luca Mozzati underlines that Islam disseminated with breathtaking speed and facility throughout a world exhausted by the constant state of belligerence between the Byzantine and Persian empires and the inevitable consequences in terms of economic, social and religious upheaval.
Within decades, Islam managed to invade and conquer Spain and part of Southern Italy; traverse the the Sahara desert and convert populations in black Africa where it overlaid their local cults; and expand to the borders of Asia, encountering Vedic religions and Buddhism. To the north, Islam flooded into Oxiana (today Uzbekistan), venturing farther even than the conquering armies of Alexander the Great, until it ran up against the frontiers of China.
Luca Mazzoti writes that the territory over which Islam held sway had already witnessed the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian civilizations in the West, followed by Greek Orthodoxy. In ancient times, the East had seen the dominance of Persian and Zoroastrian cultures. It was this joint legacy that laid the foundations of Islamic artistic experience. In the domain of culture and art, the Islamic world assimilated the creative energies, technical skills and local customs of the conquered peoples, rejuvenating them with original, novel concepts.
Luca Mozzati underlines that Islam and its language, Arabic, constituted a powerful ‘glue’ that bound together various cultural traditions, composing a surprisingly homogeneous amalgam spanning over a wide range of civilizations. Sharing one and the same perspective, each gradually developed idioms of art and custom which, although stamped with a common Islamic identity, gained an individual character over time. Aided and abetted by vigorous input from indigenous communities, these codes were complemented by contributions from new arrivals and by the constant flux of populations for religious, commercial or even scientific reasons.
In addition to the detailed introduction, Luca Mozzati offers chapters about the basic principles of the interpretation of Islamic art, the forms of Islamic architecture, calligraphy and applied arts. In the history section about Islamic art, he presents the Umayyads, the Abbasids, information about the Mediterranean basin between the 8th and 11th centuries, including the birth of regional identity. He offers chapters about Islamic art in central Asia between the 10th and 12th centuries, the Mediterranean basin between the 11th and 15th centuries, the Seljuqs, the Ilkhanids, the Timurids and the Khanates, the Ottoman Empire, Persia from the Safavids to the Qajar dynastay as well as about the Indian subcontinent. Appendixes inlcude a glossary, a presentation of the principal dynasties and figures of the Islamic world as well as a bibliography for further reading.
Last, but not least, this book is a feast for the eyes with photographs ranging from architecture to painting, from calligraphy to ceramics, from glass to carpets.
Luca Mozzati: Islamic Art. Hardcover, Prestel, 2019, 320 pages, 27,0 x 28,7 cm, 414 color illustrations. Order the book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr.
This is a compact, richly illustrated edition of Luca Mozzati’s book originally published by Mondadori Electa in Milan in 2009.
The Prestel front cover (below) shows the Nasir al-Molk Mosque in Shiraz, Iran. On page 279, you can find details about this mosque built 1876-1887: The assured sculptural style of classical Persian architecture counterpoints with superficial color was debased in the Qajar period by shrinking dimensions and a proliferation of multi-linear decorative motifs dominated by an unmistakable yellowy pink tonality. Clarity of form was submerged in a sense of horror vacui that reflected the culture of the time — ambitious, superficial and profoundly vacuous. The driving force of Islamic culture, which had sublimated the humble materiality of things in light and thus in spirituality was henceforth a thing of the past. Art was forced to gratify neo-feudal courtly desires and a craving for theatrical spectacle on the part of crude and ignorant spokesmen of the dynasty, men of military and tribal origin interested in ostentation more than the meaning of things.
For a better reading, quotations and partial quotations in this book review have not been put between quotation marks.
Book review added April 3, 2023 at 20:00 Swiss time. Detail added on April 4, 2023 at 00:23. Last update at 20:03.
