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What is history?
What is art?
What is Islamic?
“If it exists at all, Islamic art would be one that overpowered and transformed ethnic or geographic
traditions, or else one that created some peculiar kind of symbiosis between local and pan-Islamic modes of
artistic behaviour and expression. In either instance the term “Islamic” would be comparable to those like
“Gothic” or “Baroque” and would suggest a more or less successful cultural moment in the long
history of native traditions. It would be like a special overlay, a deforming or refracting prism which
transformed at times temporarily and imperfectly, at other times permanently, some local energies and
traditions.” -- Oleg Grabar (1973)
The Byzantine Empire
The Sassanian Empire
The Early Islamic World
Some dates
• 622 C.E. Hijrah (beginning of Muslim era)• 632 C.E. Death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)• 633-640 C.E. Conquest of Syria, Palestine & Iraq• 642 C.E. Lower Egypt conquered• 651 C.E. Conquest of Western Iran• 711 C.E. Beginning of Spanish conquest• 731 C.E. Taskent captured, hence completing conquest of
Northeastern Iran
“A theory is a consistent, coherent, complete, critical body of ideas believed to provide clearer, more
comprehensive, or more adequate understanding of some object or objects than less systematic, pre-
theoretical perspectives.”--H. Fisher
“Any given theory emerges in a particular place and time, in response to particular events. It subsequently circulates, and is used and developed by scholars with
particular motivations, working in particular places and times, with particular audiences.”
--A. D’Alleva
Methodology: “a set of procedures or ways of working that characterise an academic discipline.”
“…theory as the process of formulating research questions and methodology as the process of trying to
answer those questions.”
Discourse: “meaningful communication that expresses and shapes cultural ideas and practices.”
--A. D’Alleva
