2022 Calendar: Muqarnas

Arts & Culture

Architecture

Introduction by Jonathan Bloom

November 01, 2021

Dazzling, prismatic and intricately symmetrical, muqarnas is a stunning three-dimensional decoration unique to Islamic architecture.

Made of plaster, brick, glazed tile, wood or stone, muqarnas (moo-KAR-nas) is characterized by sloping tiers of niche-like cells that alternate with brackets and stalactite-like pendants projecting and hanging over those below. Although scholars generally believe that the word in Arabic derives from the Greek koronis and Latin coronis, no Arabic dictionary explains the way it is used in Islamic architecture, suggesting that it is a popular or technical term rather than a literary one. Medieval chroniclers rarely mentioned the term; one exception was the 12th-century-CE Andalusian traveler Ibn Jubayr, who wrote of a minaret he saw in Makkah: “It has carvings in the plaster of elongated form as if they were mihrabs. It is surrounded by qarnasa of exquisite workmanship.” Despite muqarnas’s scant presence in the literary record, it is one of the few architectural forms that became popular in a variety of materials across the Islamic lands from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Muqarnas was used in different ways: It could separate parts of a building, fill corner squinches and pendentives that support domes, and cover the inner surfaces of domes or vaults. While muqarnas appears to be a structural element, muqarnas vaults made of wood, plaster and tile are usually ornamental, attached to load-bearing structures hidden behind them. Stone muqarnas has to be self-supporting due to its great weight, but it is often embellished with dangling, even delicate stone pendants. Plaster and brick muqarnas were often colored with paint or glazed tile. In all cases, muqarnas presents a stunning visual effect as light sparkles over its variegated convex and concave surfaces.

In stone, wood and plaster, muqarnas was popular from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans.

The origins of the muqarnas itself are no clearer than those of the name. The earliest surviving example found to date in situ is the squinch over the corner of a 10th-century-CE monument at Tim, located in southern Uzbekistan. It was in the 11th century that muqarnas spread throughout the lands of Islam, and it seems likely that it radiated from a central location—presumably Baghdad in Iraq, then capital of the Abbasid empire. Iraqi examples of muqarnas vaults from the 11th and 12th centuries are notable for their exteriors that resemble pinecones, with protrusions that mirror the niches inside. In Syria, builders followed Iraqi examples in plaster and translated them into cut stone. In Egypt, builders used brick and particularly stone muqarnas to separate or crown the stories of buildings and to embellish the interiors of vaults over doorways and rooms.

By the 12th century, muqarnas appeared farther west in Algeria, Morocco and al-Andalus (now southern Spain). Initially it was used sparingly, but renovations in 1134 to the Qarawiyyin mosque in Fez, Morocco, introduced a series of extraordinary muqarnas vaults in painted plaster over the bays leading up to the mihrab, or niche indicating the direction of prayer. This prime location shows the high prestige this type of decoration carried. At almost the same time, a muqarnas vault was crafted in the 1140’s over the nave of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, Sicily. This was the royal chapel of the Christian Norman King Roger II, monarch of a realm recently conquered from Muslims and inhabited by a mixed population, and the ceiling is a rare example of muqar-nas in Christian architecture. Its tiers of wooden muqarnas are painted with a variety of figural and non-figural ornament organized around two rows of eight-pointed stars. The western muqarnas tradition culminated in Granada, Spain, with two spectacular plaster vaults added to the Alhambra palace in the mid-14th century: the star-shaped vault over the Hall of the Abencerrajes, and the celestial octagonal muqarnas vault over the Hall of the Two Sisters. Muqarnas vaults also appear in the contemporary Alcázar of Seville, as remodeled by Pedro, king of Castile and Leon, another Christian patron who appreciated the form.

FEZ, MOROCCO: QARAWIYYIN MOSQUE This mosque, founded in the ninth century CE, was repeatedly enlarged and restored, most notably under the Almoravid ruler ‘Ali ibn Yusuf between 1134 and 1143 CE. He ordered a series of splendid plaster muqarnas vaults for the main part of the mosque, but this one covers a funerary chapel behind the mosque’s mihrab, where prayers could be said over the bodies of the deceased without bringing them into the mosque itself. — photo by xavier salmon
**FEZ, MOROCCO: QARAWIYYIN MOSQUE** This mosque, founded in the ninth century CE, was repeatedly enlarged and restored, most notably under the Almoravid ruler ‘Ali ibn Yusuf between 1134 and 1143 CE. He ordered a series of splendid plaster muqarnas vaults for the main part of the mosque, but this one covers a funerary chapel behind the mosque’s mihrab, where prayers could be said over the bodies of the deceased without bringing them into the mosque itself.

BUKHARA, UZBEKISTAN: ABDUL AZIZ KHAN MADRASA In 1651-52 the Shaybanid ruler ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Khan constructed the largest madrasa (theological college) on Bukhara’s Registan square opposite the 15th-century madrasa built by the Timurid prince Ulughbeg. The brightly painted muqarnas semidome at the top of the arched iwan has been restored to reflect the glitter of the original decoration. — photo by jakob fischer / alamy
**BUKHARA, UZBEKISTAN: ABDUL AZIZ KHAN MADRASA** In 1651-52 the Shaybanid ruler ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Khan constructed the largest madrasa (theological college) on Bukhara’s Registan square opposite the 15th-century madrasa built by the Timurid prince Ulughbeg. The brightly painted muqarnas semidome at the top of the arched iwan has been restored to reflect the glitter of the original decoration.

PALERMO, SICILY: CAPPELLA PALATINA In 1132 Roger II, Norman king of Sicily, began building an audience hall and chapel for his palace in Palermo. A painted wooden muqarnas vault, similar to the contemporary plaster vaults in Fez, covered its nave. Decorated with an astounding variety of images of people and animals as well as Arabic inscriptions offering good wishes, the ceiling demonstrates how Christian patrons also appreciated the wonders of muqarnas. — photo by imagebroker / alamy
**PALERMO, SICILY: CAPPELLA PALATINA** In 1132 Roger II, Norman king of Sicily, began building an audience hall and chapel for his palace in Palermo. A painted wooden muqarnas vault, similar to the contemporary plaster vaults in Fez, covered its nave. Decorated with an astounding variety of images of people and animals as well as Arabic inscriptions offering good wishes, the ceiling demonstrates how Christian patrons also appreciated the wonders of muqarnas.

DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY: BAHRAM PASHA MOSQUE Commissioned by Ottoman provincial governor Bahram Pasha, this mosque was completed in 1572–73 according to designs by Sinan, the chief architect to the Ottoman sultans renowned for his mosques in Istanbul and Edirne. The hanging stone pendants over the elaborate portal, themselves decorated with miniature muqarnas, appear to defy gravity. — photo by b. o’kane / alamy
**DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY: BAHRAM PASHA MOSQUE** Commissioned by Ottoman provincial governor Bahram Pasha, this mosque was completed in 1572–73 according to designs by Sinan, the chief architect to the Ottoman sultans renowned for his mosques in Istanbul and Edirne. The hanging stone pendants over the elaborate portal, themselves decorated with miniature muqarnas, appear to defy gravity.

CAIRO, EGYPT: SULTAN HASAN MOSQUE The funerary complex of Sultan Hasan (r. 1356-61 CE) is the largest and most elaborate of those built in Cairo by the Mamluk sultans. The magnificent entrance vestibule is covered by a bicolored stone dome pierced by eight small windows that rests on a ring of stone muqarnas, itself supported by muqarnas pendentives and flanked by muqarnas semidomes. — photo by efesenko / alamy
**CAIRO, EGYPT: SULTAN HASAN MOSQUE** The funerary complex of Sultan Hasan (r. 1356-61 CE) is the largest and most elaborate of those built in Cairo by the Mamluk sultans. The magnificent entrance vestibule is covered by a bicolored stone dome pierced by eight small windows that rests on a ring of stone muqarnas, itself supported by muqarnas pendentives and flanked by muqarnas semidomes.

NEAR SAMARRA, IRAQ: IMAM DUR This muqarnas dome was built in the second half of the 11th century by the local ‘Uqaylid ruler Sharaf al-Dawla Muslim ibn Quraysh, who died in 1085. Although originally attached to a mosque and courtyard, the domed structure was all that survived into modern times, when it was first photographed and studied as one of the earliest examples—and possibly the earliest example—of a freestanding muqarnas dome. In 2014 it was destroyed by ISIS. — photo courtesy yasser tabbaa archive / aga khan
documentation center / mit libraries
**NEAR SAMARRA, IRAQ: IMAM DUR** This muqarnas dome was built in the second half of the 11th century by the local ‘Uqaylid ruler Sharaf al-Dawla Muslim ibn Quraysh, who died in 1085. Although originally attached to a mosque and courtyard, the domed structure was all that survived into modern times, when it was first photographed and studied as one of the earliest examples—and possibly the earliest example—of a freestanding muqarnas dome. In 2014 it was destroyed by ISIS.

DELHI, INDIA: QUTB MINAR Begun in 1199 CE and rising 72 meters over the Quwwat al-Islam mosque, the Qutb Minar was built by Delhi’s first Muslim rulers. They modeled this minaret on earlier examples built of brick in Afghanistan, here translated into the local red sandstone. The exquisitely detailed muqarnas supporting the first of the minaret’s four balconies combines a traditional Islamic form with Indian styles of masonry. — photo by sheila blair and jonathan bloom
**DELHI, INDIA: QUTB MINAR** Begun in 1199 CE and rising 72 meters over the Quwwat al-Islam mosque, the Qutb Minar was built by Delhi’s first Muslim rulers. They modeled this minaret on earlier examples built of brick in Afghanistan, here translated into the local red sandstone. The exquisitely detailed muqarnas supporting the first of the minaret’s four balconies combines a traditional Islamic form with Indian styles of masonry.

TRIPOLI, LEBANON: AMIR TAYNAL MOSQUE Built by the Mamluk governor of Tripoli in 1336 CE, this large and elegant mosque attracted attention for its lavish decoration and unusual architecture. This gateway between the two main areas is constructed using ablaq, or alternating courses of fine black and white masonry that here also includes brown. — photo by dick doughty / *aramcoworld*
**TRIPOLI, LEBANON: AMIR TAYNAL MOSQUE** Built by the Mamluk governor of Tripoli in 1336 CE, this large and elegant mosque attracted attention for its lavish decoration and unusual architecture. This gateway between the two main areas is constructed using ablaq, or alternating courses of fine black and white masonry that here also includes brown.

SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN: SHAH-I-ZINDA Built in the 1370s CE in honor of Seljuk ruler Amir Timur’s niece, this small structure is decorated with an astonishing variety of brilliantly glazed tiles, both flat and three-dimensional, in both dark and light blue and white. Unusually, two inscriptions name the builders. Another, below the muqarnas, declares: “This ceiling, full of muqarnas, and this gilded vault remind one that every design and every craft you see in this world is by the grace of the Creator.” — photo by sheila blair and jonathan bloom
**SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN: SHAH-I-ZINDA** Built in the 1370s CE in honor of Seljuk ruler Amir Timur’s niece, this small structure is decorated with an astonishing variety of brilliantly glazed tiles, both flat and three-dimensional, in both dark and light blue and white. Unusually, two inscriptions name the builders. Another, below the muqarnas, declares: “This ceiling, full of muqarnas, and this gilded vault remind one that every design and every craft you see in this world is by the grace of the Creator.”

TELOUET, MOROCCO: KASBAH Built from 1860 on, the kasbah was the fortress of the powerful Glaoui clan, located at a strategic point on the route from Marrakesh that crossed the High Atlas mountains to the Saharan trade gateway town of Ouarzazate. The patron brought craftsmen from all over Morocco to this remote location to work on the decoration of his palace. — photo by eduardo blanco / alamy
**TELOUET, MOROCCO: KASBAH** Built from 1860 on, the kasbah was the fortress of the powerful Glaoui clan, located at a strategic point on the route from Marrakesh that crossed the High Atlas mountains to the Saharan trade gateway town of Ouarzazate. The patron brought craftsmen from all over Morocco to this remote location to work on the decoration of his palace.

SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN: GUR-I-MIR Built as a madrasa in the late 1300s CE, this complex became the burial site of Amir Timur and many of his male successors. The interior decoration is brilliant to the point of overwhelming, particularly the muqarnas, which was made of pressed and molded paper painted in blue and gold and fastened to the surfaces with small iron nails. Over time, the paper hung in shreds until recent restoration. — photo by starflector / alamy
**SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN: GUR-I-MIR** Built as a madrasa in the late 1300s CE, this complex became the burial site of Amir Timur and many of his male successors. The interior decoration is brilliant to the point of overwhelming, particularly the muqarnas, which was made of pressed and molded paper painted in blue and gold and fastened to the surfaces with small iron nails. Over time, the paper hung in shreds until recent restoration.

GRANADA, SPAIN: ALHAMBRA, HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS This octagonal muqarnas ceiling contains 5,416 plaster elements, many of which bear traces of their original paint, gold and silver decoration. A poem in Arabic by the 14th-century Nasrid court poet Ibn Zamrak inscribed on the walls below translates: “In the cupola such splendor does the chamber acquire that the palace competes with the very firmament.” — photo by azoor travel photo / alamy
**GRANADA, SPAIN: ALHAMBRA, HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS** This octagonal muqarnas ceiling contains 5,416 plaster elements, many of which bear traces of their original paint, gold and silver decoration. A poem in Arabic by the 14th-century Nasrid court poet Ibn Zamrak inscribed on the walls below translates: “In the cupola such splendor does the chamber acquire that the palace competes with the very firmament.”

To the east, Seljuq sultans introduced muqarnas to Anatolia (modern Turkey) from neighboring lands, where portals were crowned with muqarnas hoods, and minarets were built with muqarnas supporting the balconies between stories. Under the Ilkhans and Timurids in the 14th and 15th centuries, builders systematized the muqarnas by creating drawings showing how the individual elements were to be combined. Under the Ottomans (1281 – 1924), muqarnas continued to be used, largely in stone, until the 18th century. In Jam, Afghanistan, builders in 1194 CE used muqarnas to support the balconies of the exquisite brick minaret there. Ghurid builders introduced muqarnas to northern India when they conquered the region in the late 12th century. As a result, the minaret of the Quwwat al-Islam mosque in Delhi, built between 1199 and 1220 CE, uses tiers of muqarnas to support its balconies.

Non-Muslims continued to occasionally incorporate muqarnas decoration, too, in buildings ranging from palaces in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Palermo and Seville to churches in Armenia and 19th-century Orientalist architecture in Europe and the Americas. Contemporary international architects have experimented with new forms and interpretations including I.M. Pei in the Museum of Islamic Art, in Doha, Qatar, and Angelo Candalepas in the mosque in Punchbowl, Australia.

Scholars have long debated whether muqarnas carried symbolic meaning. The form’s range over continents, cultures and centuries makes such interpretation risky, but for an architectural allegory of the celestial vault—the infinity of the heavens—one could hardly find a technique more inspiring to the imagination.

The Hijri Calendar

In 638 CE, six years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s second caliph, ‘Umar, recognized the necessity of a calendar to govern the affairs of Muslims. This was first of all a practical matter. Correspondence with military and civilian officials in the newly conquered lands required dating. Pre-Islamic Arab customs identified years after the occurrence of major events. But Persia used a different calendar from Syria, where the caliphate was later based; Egypt used yet another. Each of these calendars had a different starting point, or epoch. The Sasanids, the ruling dynasty of Persia, used the date of the accession of the last Sasanid monarch, Yazdagird III, June 16, 632 CE. Syria, which until the Muslim conquest was part of the Byzantine Empire, used a form of the Roman “Julian” calendar, with an epoch of October 1, 312 BCE. Egypt used the Coptic calendar, with an epoch of August 29, 284 CE. Although all were solar calendars, and hence geared to the seasons and containing 365 days, each also had a different system for periodically adding days to compensate for the fact that the true length of the solar year is not 365 but 365.2422 days.

In pre-Islamic Arabia various other systems of measuring time had been used. In South Arabia some calendars apparently were lunar, while others were lunisolar, using months based on the phases of the moon but intercalating days outside the lunar cycle to synchronize the calendar with the seasons. On the eve of Islam, the Himyarites appear to have used a calendar based on the Julian form, but with an epoch of 110 BCE. In central Arabia the course of the year was charted by the position of the stars relative to the horizon at sunset or sunrise, dividing the ecliptic into 28 equal parts corresponding to the location of the moon on each successive night of the month. The names of the months in that calendar have continued in the Islamic calendar to this day and would seem to indicate that before Islam some sort of lunisolar calendar was in use, though it is not known to have had an epoch other than memorable local events.

There were two other reasons ‘Umar rejected existing solar calendars. The Qur’an, in Chapter 10, Verse 5, states that time should be reckoned by the moon. Not only that, calendars used by the Persians, Syrians and Egyptians were identified with other religions and cultures. He therefore decided to create a calendar specifically for the Muslim community. It would be lunar, and it would have 12 months, each with 29 or 30 days.

This gives the lunar year 354 days, 11 days fewer than the solar year. ‘Umar chose as the epoch for the new Muslim calendar the Hijra, the emigration of the Prophet Muhammad and 70 Muslims from Makkah to Madinah, where Muslims first attained religious and political autonomy. Hijra thus occurred on 1 Muharram of the year 1 according to the Islamic calendar, which begins the hijri era. (This date corresponds to July 16, 622 CE, on the Gregorian calendar.) Today in the West, it is customary, when writing hijri dates, to use the abbreviation ah, which stands for the Latin anno hegirae, “year of the Hijra.”

Because the Islamic lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the solar, it is therefore not synchronized to the seasons. Its festivals, which fall on the same days of the same lunar months each year, make the round of the seasons every 33 solar years. This 11-day difference between the lunar and the solar year accounts for the difficulty of converting dates from one system to the other.

The Gregorian calendar

The early calendar of the Roman Empire was lunisolar, containing 355 days divided into 12 months beginning on January 1. To keep it more or less in accord with the actual solar year, a month was added every two years. The system for doing so was complex, and cumulative errors gradually misaligned it with the seasons. By 46 BCE, it was some three months out of alignment, and Julius Caesar oversaw its reform. Consulting Greek astronomers in Alexandria, he created a solar calendar that added one day to February every fourth year, effectively compensating for the solar year’s length of 365.2422 days. This Julian calendar was used throughout Europe until 1582 CE.

In the Middle Ages, the Christian liturgical calendar was grafted onto the Julian one, and the computation of lunar festivals like Easter, which falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, challenged some of the best minds in Christendom. The use of the epoch 1 CE dates from the sixth century CE, but did not become common until the 10th.

The Julian year was nonetheless 11 minutes and 14 seconds too long. By the early 16th century, due to the accumulated error, the spring equinox had begun falling on March 11 rather than where it should, on March 21. Copernicus, Christophorus Clavius and the physician Aloysius Lilius provided the calculations, and in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII ordered that Thursday, October 4, 1582, would be followed by Friday, October 15, 1582. Most Christianized kingdoms accepted the new “Gregorian” calendar, but it was not adopted in England and the Americas until the 18th century. Its use today is common worldwide. The Gregorian year is nonetheless 25.96 seconds ahead of the solar year, which by the year 4909 will add up to an extra day.

The late Paul Lunde was a senior research associate with the Civilizations in Contact Project at Cambridge University and author of more than 70 articles for AramcoWorld.

Converting Years and Dates

Online calculators can be found by searching “Gregorian-hijri calendar calculator” or similar terms. The following equations show how the conversion is made mathematically. However, keep in mind that in each case, the result is only the year in which the other calendar’s year begins. For example, 2022 Gregorian begins in 1443 hijri and ends in 1444; correspondingly, 1444 hijri begins in 2022 Gregorian and ends in 2023.

Gregorian year =
[(32 x Hijri year) ÷ 33] + 622

Hijri year =
[(Gregorian year – 622) x 33] ÷ 32

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