Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
Songhay, West Africa
Further reading:
T.Insol, ‘Looting the antiques of Mali: the story continues
at Gao’, 
Antiquity
67: 628–32, 1993.
——, ‘A preliminary reconnaisance and survey at Gao,
the Republic of Mali’, 
Nyame Akuma
39; 40–3, 1993.
R.Mauny, ‘La Tour et la mosquée de l’Askia Mohammed
à Gao’, 
Notes Africaines
47: 66–7, 1950.
—— ‘Notes archéologiques au sujet de Gao’, 
Bulletin
IFAN
13: 837–52, 1951.
J.Sauvaget, ‘Les Epitaphes royales de Gao’, 
Bulletin IFAN
12: 418–40, 1950.
M.-M. Vire, ‘Notes sur trois epigraphes royales de Gao’,
Bulletin IFAN
20B (3–4): 459–600, 1958.
gardens
Gardens have often been an integral feature of Islamic
architectural design, particularly for palaces.
Several Umayyad palaces seem to have incorporated
gardens as part of their design. At Khirbet al-Mafjar
in the Jordan valley there is a large square pool with
a central pavilion on columns which would have
formed the centrepiece of a garden. At Qasr al-Hayr
West it is likely that the immediate vicinity of the
palace had a garden whilst there was a large walled
garden enclosure to the west of the main building.
The exact function of some of the early Islamic
gardens is not always clear and some may have been
purely for producing vegetables. In Islamic Spain
the garden was an integral part of the palatial design
of Madinat al Zahra and reached its peak in the
gardens of Granada. The development of formal
gardens became an art form in Iran from at least the
fourteenth century as can be seen from their frequent
depiction in miniature paintings of the period. Under
the Timurids gardens became a priority for royal
residences which were often no more than pavilions
in large formal gardens. The Mughals of India
acquired their interest in gardens from the Timurids
and developed the idea of a memorial garden which
would surround a tomb.
From the sixteenth century garden cities became
fashionable throughout the Islamic world with cities
such as Isfahan in Iran or Meknes in Morocco.
Further east in Java and Indonesia gardens were an
essential part of the pre-Islamic Hindu tradition and
continued to be built by the Muslim sultans.