4to xi 240 pp; colour frontis. half-title, title, profusely illustrated in colour & b/w plates, plans, cloth in d/w, biblio, mint condition, new, Garnet Publishing, Reading, 1999.

Synopsis

“There is perhaps no better place to observe how a living faith like Islam functions in its architectural setting than in the Great Mosque at Damascus. It is also the most appropriate place to begin a history of Islamic architecture since it was built in 715 and is the oldest congregational mosque in the Muslim world. Despite its antiquity, Richard Yeomans believes that the activity observed in the mosque today bears witness to an extraordinary continuity of worship and social behaviour reaching back nearly 1400 years to the Prophet Muhammad’s own mosque in Medina. Using a broad historical narrative to explain the religious, social and political influences that shape the Islamic architectural form, The Story of Islamic Architecture reveals an architectural splendour that despite its diversity has coherence and continuity.