Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
Damascus Great Mosque, Dome of the
Rock, Jerusalem, Medina, Palestine,
Umayyads
Further reading:
R.W.Hamilton, 
The Structural History of the Aqsa Mosque. A
Record of Archaeological Gleanings from the Repairs of
1938–42,
Government of Palestine, Jerusalem 1949.
arasta
Turkish term for a street or row of shops whose income is
devoted to a charitable endowment or waqf (equivalent to
a European shopping arcade).
Arastas are found in most of the regions of the former
Ottoman Empire and usually form part of a
commercial or religious complex which may include
a han (or khan), a mosque and bath house. Many
arastas were probably made of wood but these have
largely disappeared leaving only those made of more
permanent materials. Arastas are often covered over
with a barrel vault and have a row of shops either
side of a central street, but they can also be open to
the sky. Important examples of arastas include the
Misir Çarsi in Istanbul, the arasta associated with
the Selimiye mosque in Edirne and the arastas at the
Sokollu complex at Lüleburgaz and the Selim I
complex at Payas both designed by Sinan.
See also:
Ottomans
Further reading:
M.Cezar, 
Typical Commercial Buildings of the Ottoman
Classical Period and the Ottoman Construction System,
Istanbul 1983.
arch
Method of vaulting area between two walls, columns or
piers.
Islamic architecture is characterized by arches which
are employed in all types of buildings from houses
to mosques. One of the most common uses is in
arcades where arches span a series of columns or
piers to form a gallery open on one side. Arcades
are used to line mosque courtyards although they
are also used in courtyard houses.
The earliest form of arches employed in Islamic
architecture were the semi-circular round arches
which were characteristic of Roman and Byzantine
architecture. However, fairly soon after the Islamic
conquests a new type of pointed arch began to
develop. Round arches are formed from a
continuous curve which has its centre at a point
directly below the apex and level with the springing
of the arch on either side. Pointed arches are made
by forming each side of the arch from a different
centre point, the greater the distance between the
two points the sharper the point. In the Dome of
the Rock built in 691 the arches supporting the dome
are slightly pointed whilst in the cisterns at Ramla
built in 759 there is a pronounced point. The arches
at Ramla are formed by a separation of the points
by a distance of one-fifth the span of the arch; this
ratio became standard in many early Islamic
buildings.
Another arch form developed during the early
Islamic period is the horseshoe arch. Horseshoe
arches are those where the arch starts to curve
inwards above the level of the capital or impost.
Horseshoe arches were developed in Syria in pre-
Islamic times and have been recorded as early as
the fourth century CE in the Baptistery of Mar
Ya
qub at Nisibin. The earliest Islamic monument
with horseshoe arches is the Great Mosque of
Damascus where the arches of the sanctuary were
of slightly horseshoe form. However, the area
where horseshoe arches developed their
characteristic form was in Spain and North Africa
where they can be seen in the Great Mosque of
Córdoba. In Tunisia the horseshoe arches of the
Great Mosque of Qairawan and the mosque of
Muhammad ibn Khairun have a slightly pointed
form. Probably the most advanced arch form
developed in the early Islamic period is the four-
centre arch. This is a pointed arch form composed
arasta

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of four curved sections each with its own centre
producing an arch with steep curves lower down
and flattened point at the apex. The earliest
occurrence of the four-centred arch is at Samarra
at the Qubbat al-Sulaiybiyya. Another arch form
which makes its first appearance at Samarra is the
cusped arch which is used in the external
decoration of the Qasr al-Ashiq. This arch form
later became one of the favourite decorative arch
forms used throughout the Islamic world from
Spain to India.
Arches were not used in India before Islamic
times where trabeate construction was the main
method of roofing an area. However, arches were
regarded as essential by the first Muslim rulers who
built arched screens in front of trabeate structures
such as the Quwwat al-Islam Mosque in Delhi. Even
the screens of the earliest Indian mosques were not
composed of true arches but were corbelled
structures made to look like arches.