This scholarly work elucidates the symbolism and entire allegorical system of the Islamic painting of the Golden Age between the 14th and 17th centuries.

In terms of elucidating inner meaning and symbolism, the study of medieval Islamic art has lagged almost a full century behind that of medieval Western art. This groundbreaking work suggests how it might at last prove possible to crack the allegorical code of medieval Islamic painting during its Golden Age between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Barry focuses his study around the work of Bihzâd, a painter who flourished in the late fifteenth century in the kingdom of Herat, now in Afghanistan. Bihzâd became the undisputed master of the “Persian miniature” and an almost mythical personality throughout Asian Islam. By carefully deciphering the visual symbols in medieval Islamic figurative art, Barry’s study deliberately takes a bold approach in order to decode the lost iconographic conventions of a civilization. The glorious illustrations, scholarly text, and extracts from Persian poetry, many translated into English for the first time, combine to create an essential new work of reference and a visual delight.

This book discusses the decoration types of Sephardic illuminated Bibles in their broader historical, and social context in an era of cultural transition in Iberia and culture struggle within Spanish Jewry.

This original book untangles fundamental confusions about historical relationships among Islam, representational images, and philosophy. Closely examining some of the most meaningful and best preserved premodern illustrated manuscripts of Islamic cosmographies, Persis Berlekamp refutes the assertion often made by other historians of medieval Islamic art that, while representational images did exist, they did not serve religious purposes. The author focuses on widely disseminated Islamic images of the wonders of creation, ... Show more This original book untangles fundamental confusions about historical relationships among Islam, representational images, and philosophy. Closely examining some of the most meaningful and best preserved premodern illustrated manuscripts of Islamic cosmographies, Persis Berlekamp refutes the assertion often made by other historians of medieval Islamic art that, while representational images did exist, they did not serve religious purposes. The author focuses on widely disseminated Islamic images of the wonders of creation, ranging from angels to human-snatching birds, and argues that these illustrated manuscripts aimed to induce wonder at God's creation, as was their stated purpose. She tracks the various ways that images advanced that purpose in the genre's formative milieu - the century and a half following the Mongol conquest of the Islamic East in 1258. Delving into social history and into philosophical ideas relevant to manuscript and image production, Berlekamp shows that philosophy occupied an established, if controversial, position within Islam. She thereby radically reframes representational images within the history of Islam.

This book focusses on a historical and cultural aspect of medieval Islam: the market inspection (hisba) in the Muslim state and its impact on the development of arts and crafts. It is a pioneer work in Islamic studies in which this aspect is being studied from over-all historical and cultural points of view. The study deals with two main issues: the history of market inspection in medieval Islam where it tries to highlight some additional notes concerning the origin of the institution of market inspection in Islam and also emphasizes its cultural role in the Muslim society. The second issue focuses on the impact of the institution of market inspection on the development of the visual arts and crafts in medieval Islam. Methodologically, the study surveys the references to the crafts in the manuals of hisba and compares them with the information about these crafts as they run in reality.