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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 2, Book 5 Chapter 55: Architecture A. The First Three Centuries of Muslim Architecture Arabia, at the rise of Islam, does not appear to have possessed anything worthy of the name of architecture. Only a small proportion of the population was settled and lived in dwellings which were scarcely more than hovels.

Those who lived in mud-brick houses were called ahl al-madar , and the Bedouin, form their tents of camel’s hair cloth, ahl al-wabar . The sanctuary at Mecca, at the time of , merely consisted of a small roofless enclosure, oblong in shape, formed by four walls a little higher than a man, built of rough stones laid dry. Within this enclosure was the sacred well of Zamzam.

When , as a result of the hostility of the unbelieving Meccans, migrated to Medina, he built a house for himself and his family. It consisted of an enclosure about 100 cubits square of mud-bricks, with a portico on the south side made of palm trunks used as columns to support a roof of palm leaves and mud. Against the outer side of the east wall were built small huts (hujarat) for the Prophet’s wives, all opening into the courtyard.

We have the description of these huts, preserved by ibn Sa‘d,[^1] on the authority of a man named ‘Abd Allah ibn Yazid who saw them just before they were demolished by order of al-Walid. “There were four houses of mud-bricks, with apartments partitioned off by palm branches, and five houses made of palm branches plastered with mud and not divided into rooms. Over the doors were curtains of black hair-cloth. Each curtain measured 3 x 3 cubits.

One could reach the roof with the hand.” Such was the house of the leader of the community. The Dome of the Rock of Jerusalem, the oldest existing monument of Muslim architecture, was built by the Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik and completed in 72/691. It was an annular building and consisted of a wooden dome, set on a high drum, pierced by 16 windows and resting on four piers and 12 columns, placed in a circle.

This circle of supports are placed in the centre of a large octagon, averaging about 20.59 m a side, formed by eight walls, each pierced by five windows in their upper half. There was a door on each of the four sides of the octagon. The space between the circle and the octagon being too great to be conveniently spanned by single beams, an intermediate octagon was placed between the two to provide the necessary support for the roof.