Dictionary of islamic architecture

Further reading:
A.Bahnassi, ‘Aleppo’, in 
The Islamic City,
ed. R.B. Serjeant,
Paris 1980. This gives a general overview of the city’s
monuments.
J.Sauvaget, ‘Halab’, E.I.IV, gives a general history of the
city.
Bulletin des Études orientales,
esp. 36, ‘Études sur la ville
d’Alep’, 1984, contains recent research.
Algeria
North African country located between Morocco and
Tunisia.
Algeria can be divided into three main regions, the
Mediterranean coast known as the Tell, the High
Plateaux immediately south of the coast and further
south the Sahara desert. The Tell is dominated by
coastal mountains, although there are three small
sections of coastal plain, one at Algiers, one at Oran
and one at Annaba. The High Plateaux are more arid
with marginal areas for agriculture. The Sahara
desert covers four-fifths of the country and links it
to West Africa.
Algeria did not exist as a political unit until the
Ottoman occupation of the sixteenth century (the
Eleventh-century minaret of the Great Mosque, Aleppo
Algeria

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country did not include the Sahara regions until the
early twentieth century). Before that period it is
difficult to separate the history of this area from the
rest of North Africa. The first Arab invasion of
Algeria occurred in 681 and by the beginning of the
eighth century the Byzantine towns of the coast had
all surrendered. The predominantly Berber
population was converted to Islam relatively quickly
and in the early eighth century took part in the
conquest of Spain. A notable feature of Algeria at
this point was the rapid development of religious
sects the most important of which were the Kharijites
who established independent rule in the area. The
expansion of the Fatimids in the ninth century
attracted Berber support particularly along the coast,
although those of the south remained opposed to
the Fatimid regime. During the eleventh century
Berber groups in the south of the country emerged
as a coherent political and military force known as
the Almoravids. The Almoravids were able to
conquer most of Morocco and Algeria and Spain
before the end of the eleventh century. Internal
disputes meant that the dynasty lasted only fifty
years more before being overthrown by the
Almohads, another Berber group with similar
origins. Like their predecessors the Almohads too
had early successes, but did not last much beyond
the twelfth century. The political history of the region
from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century is quite
confused, with various local dynasties trying to
establish control over the whole area. The Spanish
took advantage of this situation and invaded in 1510.
There was strong local resistance to the Spanish
invasion and the Ottoman Turks were called in as
allies against the Christians. The Turks formally
established their rule in 1587 by appointing a
governor and defining the present borders of the
country. In the early nineteenth century the French
occupied the coastal cities to prevent attacks on their
ships. This temporary occupation gradually
developed into a virtual annexation with French
settlers arriving in the country. The occupation lasted
until 1962 when Algeria was established as an
independent state.
The principal building materials of Algeria are
stone, baked brick and mud brick (toub) with wood
used as a roofing material. In the coastal cities the
quality of the buildings is of a very high standard with
ashlar masonry and ornamental stonework in a style
similar to North Africa and Spain. South of the coast
dressed stonework is very rare and even palatial
buildings such as Qal’at Banu Hammad are built out
of roughly squared stone. Baked brick is found mostly
in coastal cities such as Tlemcen and Nedroma,
although is also used for houses in oasis cities in the
east such as Tamelhat where houses have decorative
brickwork panels. Roofing tiles made of baked clay
are a feature of coastal cities, in particular Tlemcen
which is heavily influenced by neighbouring Morocco.
Mud brick is used in the High Plateaux regions and
in the oasis towns of the desert.
The earliest Islamic architecture which has
survived belongs to the Sanhaja Berber dynasties.
Excavations at Ashir 170 km due south of Algiers
have revealed the remains of a tenth-century palace
built by the Zirid dynasty. The palace is a rectangular
enclosure (72 by 40 m) with a large central courtyard
around which were four separate residences. Across
the courtyard from the entrance there was an arcade
resting on columns behind which was a domed
audience hall. One hundred and fifty kilometres east
is the site of Qal’at Banu Hammad capital of the
Hammadid dynasty. The city is located high up in
the mountains at an altitude of 1,400 m. The city was
founded in 1007 by Hammad the father of the
dynasty and a relation of the Zirids. Excavations at
the site have revealed the Great Mosque and three
palaces. In 1015 Hammad broke his allegiance to the
Fatimids and pledged his support for the Abbasids.
The results of this change of policy can be seen in
the architecture of the city; thus a minaret was added
to the Great Mosque and the palaces are decorated
with carved stone screens reminiscent of
contemporary Abbasid stucco work. To the north of
Qal’at on the coast is the city of Bougie which became
the Hammadid capital from 1060 to 1085, but there
are few standing remains of the Hammadid city with
the exception of a monumental sea gate.
The south of Algeria was a refuge for Ibadis who
rebelled against both the Shi
a orthodoxy of the
Fatimids and the Sunni orthodoxy of the Abbasids
and their local supporters. In the eleventh century the
Ibadis established a capital at the oasis town of Sadrat.
Excavations have revealed a number of houses
decorated with ornate stucco in the Abbasid style.
The rise of the Almoravids in the eleventh century
led to the development of a new mosque form which
can be seen in the Great Mosques of Tlemcen,
Nedroma, Algiers and Tozeur. This new form
preserved the North African tradition of aisles
running perpendicular to the qibla with a dome in
front of the mihrab. The new development was to
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integrate the lateral arcades into the prayer hall of
the mosque and incidentally reduce the size of the
courtyard. Another notable feature is that none of
the mosques was built with minarets although these
were added in later periods.
The breakdown of central political authority after
the twelfth century meant that with occasional notable
exceptions there were few major architectural projects.
In religious architecture this meant the construction
of madrassas instead of congregational mosques and
in secular architecture it meant the construction of
khans/funduqs instead of palaces. A notable
exception to this general pattern is the city of Tlemcen
which formed the centrepiece of a contest between
the Zayyanid and Marinid dynasties. The most
ambitious project of the period was the city of al-
Mansura outside Tlemcen which was built by the
Marinids in 1303 as a base for besieging Tlemcen. After
the failure of the first attempt a new siege city was
built in 1336. At the centre of this city was the Great
Mosque which still survives in its unfinished state.
The mosque forms a large rectangle 85 by 60 m and,
like the Almoravid mosques, the lateral arcades form
an integral part of the prayer hall. The most striking
feature of the building is the minaret, at the base of
which is the main entrance to the mosque. The minaret
is built in a reddish stone decorated with geometric
patterns carved into it.
Ottoman architecture was confined principally to
the coastal cities with the best examples in Algiers
which became the capital at this time. Under French
rule Islamic architecture was rel-egated to a secondary
position, although at the beginning of the twentieth
century they introduced the West African ‘Sudanese
Style’ to cities such as Ardar in the southern Sahara.