BLINDING ISLAMOPHOBIA

Was it synchronicity or serendipity? Because our flights did not connect up conveniently, we had an overnight stay at Glasgow. Because we arrived early, the stopover was really a day and a night, so, instead of staying out at the airport as we had done on previous occasions when the break was not so long, we decided we would stay in a hotel in the centre of Glasgow. We chose the Premier Inn at the top of Buchanan Street because of its core location. This would allow us to explore the city and enjoy civic life during our break.

What we thought was a new hotel, turned out to be a newly refurbished place that came with all the compromises an existing infrastructure imposes onto new uses. The entry from the taxi drop-off point led us to a set of stairs that had a bag lift off to one side that looked like a poor compromise and a sad apology. Both proved inconvenient; we chose to drag the bags up the flight rather than grapple with gadgetry. We were not amused, because, after this awkward struggle, we discovered that the hotel reception was not even on this level, but two stories up. We had only experienced this unusual inconvenience at a hotel in Fraserborough, where one had to similarly go deep into the hotel and travel to an upper level just to get to the entry area.

We went up in the lift, only to step out and squeeze into a crowded, dimly lit corridor with a queue of people waiting to check in. The reception area was somewhere down the passage and around to the left. When this space was eventually revealed, we saw an arrangement of freestanding computers with a staff member standing beside each one. This was the reception/check-in area that looked like the new version of banking chambers.

After going though the formalities, we had to retrace our path back along the crowded passageway to the lifts. Having successfully negotiated the various obstacles presented to us, we arrived at the appointed floor and the room number. The room was a pleasant, standard space with good views across Glasgow.

We decided we needed a coffee, so retraced our path down in the lift, down the unwelcoming stairs, and out into Sauchiehall Street. It is always a pleasant street to be in, with its spacious busy-ness that generates a pleasant, interesting ambience. The coffee shop was nearby, and crowded, but we found a table. Packed places never bother us; in fact, we prefer this as one knows that the service, and food and drink are good.

After the break, we started the stroll up the street, passing a general store where we remembered we needed some tape to repair the damaged bag: such are airports. The stroll continued as a browse. Looking along Sauchiehall Street, the eye caught the Waterstones sign: the pace quickened. We had been in and enjoyed this store before, so were keen to be there again.

Entering the bookshop reminded one of its complexity sprawling across various levels; eventually we found the art/architecture section. The array of publications was interesting; the perusal started. Various titles were assessed as being interesting enough to jot down for future review, but one publication caught the eye. Was it the title or the striking cover: both? The book was picked up and flicked open. One knew immediately that this was going to be purchased. It was a subject that held a message as clear as that gained from the title of the CD purchased some time ago: Lullabies from the Axis of Evil. The title was Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe. One knew what the subject would be, and what its intent was. The research looked thorough; one’s interest in Islamic art and architecture was stirred. It was an obvious ‘must read.’

The book was carried down to the sales desk and purchased. It was not only a book that looked good; it felt good to hold. The book had been published by Hurst Publishers, London, 2020.#

It was placed into a large paper bag, and we left the store. There was no need to look any more. The stroll down Sauchiehall Street towards our hotel took us past a luggage store. Might we find a new bag? Well, no, but we did get a backpack that was cleverly designed and would be a convenience on our journey.

We strolled on, and assessed the local restaurants to decide where we might eat that night. There was fine curry house nearby. We retreated to our room and took the opportunity to have a rest and browse the new book. It had been some time since such an exciting read had been anticipated in this way. The book was not to disappoint.

Diana Darke was the author. She had studied Arabic and now lived in Damascus, a location that gave her ample opportunities to travel and explore the region with its ancient buildings in some remote places away from the beaten tourist tracks. It was also a regon that has become increasingly subject to the impacts of wars. The thesis was simple: much of what we think of as ‘western’ architecture had its roots in the ‘east.’ It was a situation that western thinking has ignored in favour of stories rooting these ideas in its own genius, or schematically, simplistically, noting that something, some general notion, had come back with the Crusaders, as if this was a mere aside rather than any revelation.

Whatever this might have been, the story was that the west had really been the one that had developed this germ into a flowering of genius. Alas for this bravado: Darke seeks to prove things are otherwise - that our Islamophobia has blinded us to the beginnings of much of our architecture that we consider to be the pinnacle of western brilliance. She proves her thesis methodically, point by point, until it is clear that an awful of of the Gothic world is pure Islamic in its origin. Bannister Fletcher has a lot to answer for, not only by blindly promoting western architecture, but by ignoring its beginnings, by presenting the cliché of the Egypt, Greek, Roman, etc. sequence; even by seemingly reluctantly including only a couple of buildings under the title of the Islamic world, as if this work might be inferior, or an irrelevant aside in history, when it is really much more.

Darke makes it clear that things ‘Gothic’ existed in Islamic architecture hundreds of years before these forms, structures, and decorations appeared in the west; and that the route to Europe was not only via a few, ad hoc Crusaders, but that the ideas arrived by various trade routes, with pilgrimages, and via the work of scholars; and with the arrival of new materials and craftsmen too. Darke reports that, instead of the schisms we see between religions and beliefs in our age, there was a time when people were happily integrated: with Jews, Christians, Arabs all living and working together. It was a period that has proved to be critical in many matters, with Arabic translations of lost ancient Greek texts being the only source for translations into English, opening up critical scholarship that would otherwise never have be known.

Darke exposes the architectural sources with a simple deliberateness. The book is a delight to hold and read. The pages are crisply fine with a pleasant, quality sheen; the text is delicately defined on this paper. If one chose to be critical, it is that there could be more illustrations; and those that have been included in the text, could have been more carefully placed so that there is an easy conjunction for the reader between the understanding and the seeing. Matters get disturbed, disrupted, when the illustration anticipates the text by a couple of pages; or becomes revealed sometimes after the reading that begs for an illustration of the point being made. To have references that seem important presented with no illustration is disappointing, making one reach for a Google Image search just to see what the words are trying to express.

There is also a problem with repetition. There are various matters that get repeated throughout the text, with the notations under the photographs doing likewise, offering nothing new or different; they are just edited extracts taken directly from the text that the photographs illustrate. It is a shame, because a more careful awareness of this repetition and its avoidance would have removed this jarring, seemingly careless hiccup.*

These are really just little annoyances in a publication that surely has to become a ‘must read’ for all architects, just to right the wrong that has been perpetuated over the years. This text might also help us overcome the great gap and distrust that we have been encouraged to promote between our faiths that are becoming more and more extreme in their declarations of division, to the point of hate and anger. Surely we have to do better than this?

The Darke book could help in enlightening our minds and opening up our perceptions. Gosh, even the word tabby as in tabby cat comes from the Arabic. We need to be both more respectful and humble as we discover and acknowledge our origins. This book could act as the germ to start this change, and may even stimulate, rejuvenate our lost interest in decoration in architecture, its values and meaning.

#

HURST PUBLISHING

https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/stealing-from-the-saracens/

Stealing from the Saracens

How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe

Diana Darke

A revealing history of Islamic architectural influence on Europe’s cathedrals, palaces and monuments.

‘Spectator’ Book of the Year 2020, chosen by William Dalrymple.

‘BBC History Magazine’ Best Book of 2020

Shortlisted for the A+C Book Award 2021

*

8 DEC 24

PONDERINGS

The repetitions feel like a recapping, a deliberate revision for students who may not have been paying attention. This reiteration degrades the text, giving it the hint of a text book when it is much better than this. One gets the notion that the book could have been improved, made a little sharper, more exquisite, with some subtle editing.

One is happy to say that no errors were found in this publication. It is something special in these times that are careless of spelling, grammar, and punctuation while concentrating on a misguided idea of ‘expression.’

The book has a slight naivety about it; a rawness that reads as an innocence, with texts referring to futures and pasts in the reading, tempting one to flick forwards and backwards to confirm and understand what is being alluded to, disrupting the concentrated flow of its experience.

The power and beauty of the subject prevails and makes this such an important book in this age of certain uncertainty, brazen in its centredness that is determined to express the self alone, with all of its mental health issues – defining a bland world devoid of decoration; of embellished depth with beginnings; of roots - determined to discover and reveal something of ME in the void, as self- congratulatory praised nothingness that delights in ever-new, bespoke distortions and distractions.