Islamic Architecture and Institutions in the Late Medieval City

Abstract There are a number of competing and complementary analytic keys to understanding the architecture and institutions of the late medieval Islamic city. My discussion of the socioeconomic place of Islamic architecture within the late medieval city is built around three arguments. The first point is that by the late medieval period, there were a number of crucial institutions, many with recognizable building types, which could be found in most cities in the lands of Islam. Some of these buildings, such as the madrasa, were distinctively Muslim in that they answered to specific needs within Muslim society, in general, and the late medieval period in particular. Others, such as the mausoleum, though found in many societies, formed crucial parts of the late medieval cities of the Islamic world. My second theme is that the study of Islamic architecture and urbanism of the past two decades tells us as much about changes in historiographic focus as it does the special role of architecture within society. Part of this is due to the fact that the field of Islamic urban studies is a relatively new one that has been enriched as well as caught in the search for its own identity. Searches for Iranian, Turkish, and Arab elements not to mention Mediterranean or Asian ones have pushed the field in a number of sometimes conflicting directions that make the study of Islamic architecture and institutions difficult, but as my third point argues, not impossible. My third point is reflected in new and exciting scholarship that focuses on the great urban historians of the medieval period who have left us detailed descriptions of the cities and buildings of the Muslim world.