The Characteristics of the Islamic art

 

After the end of the state of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and the beginning of the Umayyad state, the area of the Islamic state expanded and Islamic thought mixed with other ideas such as Christianity and Persian, which affected Islamic culture in general and Islamic art in particular, one of the most important manifestations of this influence was the interest of Muslims in the arts, society, no matter how strong, was with its military preparations and economic capabilities, a society is weak if it lacks artistic activity.

The importance of the arts in life

The vital role of art in human life lies in giving man meaning, inspiration, connotation, psychological and spiritual satisfaction, sensory and emotional coordination, and other elements that life cannot provide to man.

Therefore, the use of art in Islamic architecture - especially in building mosques - adds to it a spiritual state that connects the worshiper to worship in mosques.

On the other hand, art played an important role in establishing Islamic civilization, artistic works are human creativity that passes time and transcends geography.

they carry the cultural characteristics of their  era, their  social trends, and their  political tensions, as they serve as approved and documented records throughout history.

These records are what tell us about the news of our great ancestors who contributed to enriching great civilizations that shaped the human conscience and provided us with a legacy that shows us the characteristics of time and place.

It provided us with a legacy that shows us the characteristics of time and place, artwork preserves the cultural, civilizational, and value heritage of societies and reveals to us their hopes, pains, secrets, and hidden things, the arts are cross-messages of history, geography, and culture.

Creations of the Muslim artist

Despite the attempts of the Muslim artist to imitate the peoples who preceded him, he showed remarkable distinction in his features and characteristics due to the specificity of the Muslim artist.

Therefore, different and multiple types of art appeared due to the differences in Islamic eras and the social and cultural development throughout the various Islamic eras.

Before the peace conquests, Muslims did not have architecture or arts that could be compared to the arts of other nations, the conquests are credited with the flourishing of Islamic arts as a result of Muslims being influenced by the arts of the nations who entered Islam.

After the end of the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, the departure of the capital of the Islamic Caliphate from the Arabian Peninsula, and the integration of Muslims with other peoples, the splendor of the churches caught the Muslims’ attention, so they decided to build mosques that rivaled the splendor of the churches.

The features of the Islamic art

Islamic art was characterized by several features and characteristics that made it an art separate from other arts, which are: 

The hatred of depicting living creatures, going against nature, tending to depict the impossible, transforming the vile into the precious, focusing on anthropomorphism and prominence, and finally diversity and unity.

 The Islamic art in Fatimid Cairo

The city of Cairo is famous for its Islamic artistic heritage in its various styles, including Fatimid art, Umayyad art, Mamluk art, Abbasid and Ayyubid art, so Cairo deserves to be described as an open museum.

The Fatimid state is the beginning of the development of Islamic art and its rebellion over the usual traditions in Islamic art, porcelain graphics with vegetable, animal, and human plastic graphics have spread, and murals with kufic script. 

.       Fatimid arts were also influenced by animal drawings in the Persian-Abbasid arts, including vital, non-rigid scenes of Faris, riding his horse, as the Abbasid drawings moved with their effects from Iraq to Egypt in the Fatimid era, especially in the drawing of faces, so they came with Asian features from the mediator and wide eyes. 

. Fatimids used color technology: red, green, and golden yellow, especially in the manufacture of porcelain with metallic luster, as well as their drawings on the fabric were affected by the artistic paintings of the Coptic icon of hunting and animal scenes. 

Conclusion

It can be said that Islamic art is a product of the diversity of the cultures of nations that entered Islam, which led to its richness and the multiplicity of its models  and its spread from the ocean to the Gulf.

The doctrine also has a great influence on Islamic art, so a list of prohibitions was made for the artist to approach it, such as drawings of living creatures on the grounds that they are an imitation of creation and the use of precious metals such as gold and silver in works of art and decoration. 

Therefore, the Islamic artist resorted to geometric and calligraphic decorations and used a technique to add the shine of precious metals to circumvent the prohibitions placed before him by the clerics of that time period in the era of the Islamic Caliphate due to the different eras.