The Mihrab: From Text to Form

Abstract

Discovering the mechanisms that invested particular forms with meaning and created Islamic systems of signification is of major concern in the study of Islamic architecture. Although we know that these mechanisms exist, and that they produce meanings as complex as those of other cultural traditions, we do not yet know how they operate or even how they were manipulated at specific moments in response to particular aesthetic or practical needs. These mechanisms were most critical at the earliest stage of the Islamic architectural tradition, when forms were often taken over from a variety of contexts but transformed in ways that altered their cultural associations and re-created them as patently Islamic. This creative process is exemplified by that most Islamic—and problematic—architectural feature, the mihrab.