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Although the concept of "Islamic art" has been put into question by some modern art historians as a construct of Western cultural views, [9] [10] [11] the similarities between art produced at widely different times and places in the Muslim world, especially in the Islamic Golden Age, have been sufficient to keep the term in wide use as a useful ...
Islamic art includes a wide variety of media including calligraphy, illustrated manuscripts, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, and glass, and because the Islamic world encompassed people of diverse religious backgrounds, artists and craftsmen were not always Muslim, and came from a wide variety of different backgrounds.
Islamic art began with artists and craftsmen mostly trained in Byzantine styles, and though figurative content was greatly reduced, Byzantine decorative styles remained a great influence on Islamic art, and Byzantine artists continued to be imported for important works for some time, especially for mosaics.
The history of Islam is believed by most historians [1] to have originated with Muhammad's mission in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE, [2] [3] although Muslims regard this time as a return to the original faith passed down by the Abrahamic prophets, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, with the submission (Islām) to the will of God.
This timeline of Islamic history relates the Gregorian and Islamic calendars in the history of Islam. This timeline starts with the lifetime of Muhammad, which is believed by non-Muslims to be when Islam started, [1] though not by Muslims. [2] [3] [4]
The metaphor of a golden age began to be applied in 19th-century literature about Islamic history, in the context of the western aesthetic fashion known as Orientalism.The author of a Handbook for Travelers in Syria and Palestine in 1868 observed that the most beautiful mosques of Damascus were "like Mohammedanism itself, now rapidly decaying" and relics of "the golden age of Islam".
The hypostyle mosque constructed by Muhammad in Medina served as a model for early mosque design throughout the Islamic world. [10] Umayyad religious architecture was the earliest expression of Islamic art on a grand scale [163] and the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus reproduced the hypostyle model at a monumental scale. [164]
The major survivals of Buddhist art begin in the period after the Mauryans, within North India Kushan art, the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara and finally the "classic" period of Gupta art. Additionally, there was the Andhra school which appeared before the Gandhara school and which was based in South India. [ 87 ]