ART AND SCIENCE IN ISLAMIC CULTURES

Themes spread of Islam and cross-cultural interactions cultural flowering

astrolabe

Expansion of Islam

• Muhammad's heir?
  
  
• Sunni and Shi`a
  
  
• Umayyad caliphate, Iberia
  
  
• Abbasid caliphate
  
  
• decline of caliphates c. 945-1200s: amirs, sultanates
  
  

Islamic Cultures

• multicultural interactions: Greek, Persian, Indian
  
  
• intellectual achievements:
  • medicine (Ibn Sina)
  • science (astronomy, optics, math), chess
  • theology (Kalam), law (Sharia), mysticism (Sufi); al-Ghazali
  
  
  
• Islamic Art: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Umayyad; Abbasid; Nishapur
  • geometric art
  • calligraphy
  • vegetal patterns
  
  
  
• art and science: architecture and geometry; astrolabe
  
  

Conclusions

• connecting multiculturalism and cultural flowering
  
  
• comparing cultural artifacts