Boyle J.A. The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods
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POETS
AND PROSE WRITERS
To
the category of didactic prose belongs the Akhldq-i Ndsiri
(" Ethics of Nasir"), so called in honour of the Isma'ili Nasir al-Din
'Abd
al-Rahim of Kuhistan, which was written in 633/1235-36 and is
the first of three famous treatises on ethics. The author, Khwaja Nasir
al-Din
Tusi (597-672/1200-73), was one of Hulegii's most influential
advisers,
an outstanding polymath who composed innumerable scienti-
fic
works
in Arabic and Persian. He was at the same time a moralist of
a very strange kind—"Professor
Levy
remarks
that
the verdict of
history is a most unfavourable one"
1
—who was able to be of service
both to the Assassins and to their Mongol enemies, and to contribute
to the downfall of the last 'Abbasid, an action allegedly prompted by
his Shi'i convictions. It is known
that
the Akhldq-i Ndsiri, and in
particular its introduction, was originally composed in the spirit of
his then masters, the rulers of Alamut, but was later submitted to a
thorough revision under Hulegii, who had put an end to the rule of
the Assassins. Nasir al-Din exonerated himself by claiming
that
he had
written the earlier version under duress as a captive of the Assassins;
in the changed circumstances, he was quite naturally at pains to conceal
his past as far as possible. His writings deal with mathematics, astro-
nomy (a short introduction to the subject in verse is ascribed to him),
cosmology,
mineralogy, geography, history, the science of calendars,
law,
medicine, education and morals, geomancy,
logic,
theology,
poetry, and letter-writing. When the seven hundredth anniversary of
the death of Khwaja Tusi was celebrated at Tehran in 1956, the city
justly
honoured one of
Iran's
greatest geniuses. He converted his
ruth-
less
utilitarianism into an active policy and ended by making a great
contribution to the relief of Persia after the Mongol catastrophe, just
as Shams al-Din Juvaini did somewhat later, though the latter's
motives
were undoubtedly more idealistic.
A
second non-fictional prose includes works concerned with literary
history. The
Chahdr
Maqdla(" Four Treatises
"),
written in
5
50-51/115
5-
57
by Ahmad b. 'Umar b. 'Ali of Samarqand, generally known by
the name Nizami-yi 'Arudi, is a work of fundamental importance for
the study of contemporary and earlier movements in literature. The
reader must bear in mind, however,
that
it was written in the atmo-
sphere of the Ghurid dynasty, and consequently supports their attitudes
and opposes those of their enemies, especially the Ghaznavids. On
Rashid
Vat
vat's
Hadd'iq
al-sihr
("
Magic
Gardens
"),
see above, p. 561;
1
Ibid.
p. 253.
620
PROSE
and
on
'Aufi's
Lubab
al-albdb
("Quintessence
of
Hearts"),
see p.
616.
A
work
on the
subject
of
Persian prosody, versification
and
poetics,
attributed
to
Nasir al-Din Tusi,
is
said
to be no
great masterpiece.
This
subject received
its
finest
treatment
in
al-Mufam
ft
ma'dyir
asffdr
al-Ajam
("An
Explanation
of the
Criteria
of the
Poems
of the
Persians"), written between
614/1217
and
630/1232-33
by
Shams
al-
Din
Muhammad
b.
Qais
of
Ray, first
in
Arabic
and
subsequently
in
Persian
at the
request
of the
scholars
of
Shiraz.
Its
value lies
in the
exactitude
of the
rules which
it
sets down
and to an
equal degree
in
many reliable quotations which
it
contains, often from poets whose
divans have since been lost.
III. HISTORIOGRAPHY
Amongst
the
historical works dating from
the
close
of the
Saljuq
period,
the
following
are
important
for
their content
and
style.
The
Tarikh-i Baihaq ("The History
of
Baihaq")
by
Abu'l-Hasan 'Ali
b.
Zaid
al-Baihaqi, called
Ibn
Funduq
(d.
565/1169-70),
must
be
clearly
distinguished from
the
much earlier Tcfrïkh-i
Baihaqï
(" The History of
Baihaqi")
or
Ta'rïkh-i
Mas'ûdt,
a
history
of
Sultan Mas'ûd
of
Ghazna
by
Abu'1-Fadl
Muhammad Baihaqi
(d.
470/1077-79).
Of
historical
importance
is the
Kitdb
al-tawassul
ila al-tarassul (" An Exploration
of
the Approaches
to
Letter-Writing
"),
an
epistolary collection
by
Bahâ'
al-Din
Muhammad
Mu'ayyad
al-Baghdâdï
(d.
notbefore
588/1192),
which
was
completed
in
578-79/1182-84.
The
Ta'rikb-t Tabaristdn ("History
of
Tabaristân"), was written
in
613/1216
by
Muhammad
b.
Isfandiyâr.
Finally
the
Rabat
al-sudûr
wa
djdt
al-surûr
(" Repose of Hearts
and
Signs
of
Joy", 599/1203),
a
history
of the
Saljuqs
by
Najm al-Din
Abu
Bakr
Muhammad Râvandi,
is "
certainement
un
plagiat
de
Saljuq-
nama-i
Zahiri [Nishapuri] puisqu'il
n'y a
pas
un mot de
plus
et
s'arrête
absolument
à la
même date. Ravendi
a
tout
simplement changé
le
style
de
Zahiri sans rien
y
ajouter".
1
Although
the
Mongol invasion inevitably
had a
most catastrophic
effect
on the
development
of
Persian culture (except
in
those marginal
areas which remained unscathed
or
were
in any
case
not
Iranian),
Persian historiography reached
its
apogee precisely during this
un-
fortunate period; indeed
the
principal historical works
of
the Mongol
period
are
amongst
the
finest ever produced
by any of the
Islamic
1
Nafïsï in a letter dated 12 October 1963.
621
POETS
AND PROSE WRITERS
622
peoples.
The Il-Khans were eager to have their conquests and actions
immortalized and they soon found subjects who were willing to
under-
take this task. As these writers had access to the relevant documents,
especially
those concerning the history of the Mongols and Turks, and
as they had witnessed at first
hand
the events they described, they were
able to provide penetrating and accurate accounts; even though they
were
court
officials,
they did not necessarily indulge in eulogies. The
consolidation
of
the
Mongol
empire
was
the main
factor
in the remarkable
development of Persian historiography during the
thirteenth
and four-
teenth
centuries;
1
other factors were the Crusades and the increase
of
caravan and sea
trade
in
Asia
and the Mediterranean, both of which
served
to tighten the political, economic, and cultural fabric of
Iran
and to broaden the horizon of Persian historians.
The
complex sentence
structure
and wealth of vocabulary which
characterize the styles of these historians can best be seen as a legacy of
the Saljuq period in its decline. Two works in which this kind of
writing
is particularly evident are Nur al-Din Muhammad Nasawi's
N aft hat al-masdur ("Expectorations of the Consumptive") 632-37/
1234-40,
and Hasan Nizami Nishapuri's Taj al-ma'dshir ("Crown of
Glorious
Deeds
"),
which is a bombastic and superficial history of India
covering
the years 587-614
(1191-1217).
To this group also belongs
the Tarjama-ji
Yamini^
Translation
of
Yamini's
Book
")
of
Abu'l-Sharaf
Nasih
Jarbadhaqani
(early seventh/thirteenth century), which owes
its rhetorical style to its Arabic original of
1021.
These works are the
historical counterparts of the purely literary
belles
lettres of the period,
both reflecting a stylistic development
that
continued throughout the
Mongol
period and eventually reached the most distasteful extremes,
destined in their
turn
to have a harmful influence on later Persian
historical prose. Because of their ornamentation—a feature which un-
doubtedly had an aesthetic appeal to contemporary taste—factual works
of
this kind
enter
the sphere of literature.
'Ala'
al-Din 'Ata Malik Juvaini (623-81/1226-83) is a typical repre-
sentative of this style, although he had already begun writing during
the early
part
of the Il-Khanid period. He came of a family which had
transferred its services from the Khwarazm-Shahs to the Mongols.
While
his brother Shams al-Din Muhammad occupied the position of
a
sahib-divan
or finance minister to the Mongol khans, 'Ata Malik was
1
For a
good
synopsis
see M.
Murtadavl,
"
Jami
f
al-Tawarikh",
NDAT,
vol. xm, pt. 1,
pp.
37-57.
Cf. K.
Jahn,
"Study",
PROSE
623
the governor
of
Baghdad
and
indeed
a
very benevolent
one. The
Juvainis were the leaders
of
a group who furthered the Mongol regime,
but none of the family earned any thanks
for
their services; they were
removed
at the
instigation
of
the Mongol nobility, who were hostile
to them,
and
their immense wealth was confiscated. 'Atä Malik
has
been immortalized by his Ta'rikh-i Jahän-Gushä(" History of the World-
Conqueror"), completed
in
658/1260, which
in
three volumes deals
in
turn
with: (a) the history
of
Chingiz-Khän, his ancestors and descend-
ants, from
the
first campaign
to the
death
of the
Great Khan Güyük
Khan
(647/1248); (b)
the
history
of the
Khwärazm-Shähs
and of the
Mongol
viceroys
in
Iran
until 656/1258;
and
(c)
the
entry
of
Hülegü
into
Iran
in
1256-5
8
and the history of the Ismä'ills
or
Assassins (1090-
1258).
The author visited Mongolia and was present
at
the destruction
of
the Assassin stronghold
at
Alamüt, from whose valuable library
he
tried
to
save what
he
could.
On the
basis
of the (no
longer extant)
Sar-Gudhasht-i Sayjidnä (" Incidents in the
Life
of
our Lord", i.e. Hasan-i
Sabbäh, the founder of Ismä
c
ili rule
in
Alamüt),
he
wrote
a
description
of
the
fortunes
of
this curious sect. Juvaini was
a
supporter
of his
masters,
he
neither concealed
nor
tried
to
exonerate them from their
misdeeds.
In
his inquiry into
the
reasons
for the
fall
of
Iran
he
antici-
pated
Ibn
Khaldün. Juvainl's style alternates between
a
greater
and
lesser degree
of
ornamental rhetoric.
Rashid al-Din Fadl
Allah
of
Hamadän (64 5
-817/1247-1318)
is
regarded
as
Persia's greatest historian.
An
exceptionally cultivated
man,
he
was originally
a
physician
and
later became vizier,
a
position
he continued
to
hold until
the
reign
of
Abu Sa'id, when
he was
accused
of
poisoning the latter's father, Öljeitü, and executed. Not even
the insults heaped upon his corpse could satisfy the hatred felt for him;
in 1399 his remains were exhumed and reburied
in a
Jewish cemetery.
His enormous fortune
was
confiscated
and his
library
of
60,000
volumes
dispersed. His letters
1
provide a useful historical source, but his
principal work
is
the JämF
al-tawärikh
("Compendium
of
Histories"),
written
at
the behest of Ghazan. The first
part,
called Ta'rikh-i Ghä^äni
in honour
of
its sponsor, was devoted
to the
history
of the
Mongol
empire
and the
Il-Khäns
up to the
death
of
Ghazan
in
703/1304;
the
second
part
was dedicated
to
Öljeitü
(703-16/1304-16)
and
is
devoted
1
He
also
composed
qasidas in the
Mongol,
Arabic,
Persian
and
Turkish
languages,
cf.
Spuler,
Die
Mongolen
1
',
p. 457, n. 2. [Ed.: It is in
fact
highly
doubtful
whether
Rashid
al-Din
had
more
than
a
smattering
of
Mongol.
SeeDoerfer,
Türkische
und
mongolische
'Elemente
im
Neupersischen,
vol. 1, pp. 44-8.]
POETS AND PROSE WRITERS
to general world history; and the
third,
a geography of the "seven
climes
", probably either was never written or was lost at the dissolution
of
the
author's
library. The
entire
work, written in a comparatively
simple style, is noteworthy for several reasons. The first
part,
which
contains more detailed and comprehensive information
than
any com-
parable works, including those in Chinese and Mongolian, is particu-
larly
valuable. The general history is not confined to the Islamic
countries but looks farther east and west. In his task Rashid al-Din had
the collaboration of specialists on the language or nation in question;
indeed for Mongolia his authority was Ghazan himself. Their con-
tributions may
well
have been considerable, and it has even been
doubted whether Rashid al-Din can really be called the
author
of
Jdmi
c
al-tawdrikh\
however, these doubts have been convincingly dispelled
by
Murtadavi.
1
Rashid al-Din always takes social and economic factors
into consideration. Himself a bureaucrat from the middle class and a
supporter of the centralizing policies of the
Il-Kháns, he opposed the
particularist tendencies of feudalism, and therefore the Mongolian
nomadic aristocracy.
A
work in which bizarre and distorted writing reaches its climax, but
which
is nevertheless a mine of information, is the
Taj^iyat
al-amsdr
wa
ta^Jiyat
al-a
c
sdr (" The Partition of Territories and the Lapse of
Ages
")
by
Sharaf al-Din 'Abdalláh of Shiráz, generally called Vassaf-i
Hadrat,
i.e.
"Court Panegyrist" (663-73
5/
1
264-1334).
It continues the work of
Juvaini, embracing the years 656-723
(1258-1323).
Being a court
official,
Vassáf
had access to the archives and therefore provides a
great deal of factual detail, though unfortunately in a most intimidating
manner.
He himself admits
that
he was concerned primarily with
literary effect, historical events serving merely as a basis. The work is
thus
an exercise in style on a lavish scale. To judge by their lasting
effect,
Vassáf's extreme fondness for Arabic words and his excessively
bombastic, florid, and precious style were amongst the most harmful
influences on Persian prose. On social and economic matters, however,
Vassáf
must be regarded as an excellent authority. In his political
opinions he followed Rashid al-Din, eulogizing the Mongols but
never hesitating to reveal their inhumane and unjust acts.
Alongside
the supporters of the Il-Khans
there
were other historians
who
were outspokenly opposed to them. Apart from the Arab Ibn
al-Athir
(d. 630/1234), particular mention should be made of Muham-
1
L,oc. tit.
624
PROSE
40
625
BCH
mad Nasawi (see above, p. 622) and Minháj al-Din 'Uthmán Jüzjáni
(b.
c.
589/1193,
d. after 664/1265); and there were others of lesser
significance.
Views
similar to Rashid al-Din's were held by another historian,
Hamd
Allah
Mustaufi Qazvini, an advocate of centralization. His
TcCrtkh-i Gualda ("Selected History") begins with the creation of the
world
and
runs
to 730/1329. In about
735/1355
he completed his
immense Zafar-Ndma
1
("Book of Victories"), an imitation of Fir-
dausi's Shdh-Ndma containing about 75,000 lines of ver^e. His third
work
was a cosmography and geography entitled Nu%hat al-qulüb
(" Restoration of Hearts ") written in
740/13
39-40, which is outstanding
for
the accuracy of its dates and other facts.
Works
on the history of India include
Diva'
al-Din Báráni's Ta'rlkh-i
Flrü^-SJhdhi, dealing with events during the years 1265 to 1357; the
TcCrikh-i
'Aid'i of Amir Khusrau (see above, p. 609), a Ta'rtkh-i Vassdf
in miniature; and Jüzjáni's general history entitled Tabaqdt-i Ndsirl
(657-58/1259-60).
In conclusion, it must be stressed
that
this survey covers only a very
small proportion of the vast quantity of prose writing produced during
the period. In selecting works to be discussed, I have given thought
to their stylistic and other aesthetic aspects. Works confined to science,
mathematics and so on, have been omitted entirely.
2
1
Two
further
historical
epics
of the
Mongol
period
are
listed
by
Murtadavl,
Tahqiq,
p.
149
(they
are
completely
worthless);
he
also,
ibid.
p. 323,
quotes
a
doublet
of
Rashid
al-Din
by
Shams
al-Din
Kásháni.
2
For a
general
survey
of
such
works
see
Felix
Tauer,
"Persian
Learned
Literature
from
its
Beginnings
up to the end of the 18th
Century"
in Rypka,
History
of
Iranian
Literature
(Dordrecht,
1968).
[Ed.:
Professor
Rypka's
chapter
was
completed
on 9
November
1963.]
CHAPTER 9
THE
VISUAL
ARTS,
1050-1350
The
period of
Iranian
history covered in this discussion began with the
rise of the Turkish dynasties of the Ghaznavids and of the Great
Saljuqs
and ended with the small
Iranian
or Mongol dynasties which
followed
and contributed to the
fall
of the Il-Khanid empire. The
specific
dates quoted above are only approximations since stylistic and
thematic changes do not necessarily coincide with major historical
events,
but the period as a whole is one in which all provinces
of
Islamic
Iran
and all media of artistic creation underwent considerable changes
and in fact established architectural, formal, iconographic, and aesthetic
standards
which were to remain for many centuries thereafter those of
Islamic
Iranian
art in general. This statement is valid in the sense
that
the
arts
of the
following
centuries can almost always be shown to be in
a definable kind of relationship to forms, ideas, and techniques created
or developed between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries. Yet, if
these filiations with later centuries can indeed be established, it is far
more difficult to define the relationship of this art to
that
of previous
centuries. In fact our documentation on and conceptual framework for
the
arts
of the first four centuries of Islamic
Iranian
art are so limited
and so much tied to the interpretation of a few texts or to purely
acci-
dental finds,
that,
with a few exceptions to be mentioned in due course,
we
will
consider the art
of
Iran
during the centuries
under
consideration
as a new creation.
If
it is perhaps too adventurous to
call
it a renaissance
in the sense
that
it does not seem to be in continuous but in revolu-
tionary relationship to what preceded, it is not too far-fetched to talk
of
an artistic explosion, for, regardless of its complexity in details, the
period which produced the mosque of Isfahan, the minaret of Jam, the
mausoleum of Sanjar in Marv,
that
of Oljeitii in Sultaniyeh, Kashan and
Ray
ceramics, the "Bobrinski" kettle, the Wade cup, the "Demotte"
Shdh-Ndma, and the manuscripts of the Rashidiyya can by any account
be considered as one of the most productive and most brilliant periods
of
Iranian
art.
626
INTRODUCTION
The
period is not an easy one to define properly. First, the disastrous
lack
of proper monographic studies—except in the case of a very few
objects
and buildings
1
—makes any generalization somewhat hazardous.
Secondly,
the periodization of the different artistic entities which can be
defined
is impossible in anything but the most general terms. To
give
but a few examples, one may point out
that
the period of the Great
Saljuqs
(roughly from 1050 to
1150)
is almost totally terra
incognita
in all
but architecture, while the century which
followed
the death of Sanjar
is
tremendously rich in properly dated objects but exhibits an original
architecture only in a few small monuments from areas peripheral to the
Iranian
world, primarily Azarbaijan, and a few cities of Central
Asia.
Other instances are ceramics, in which some of the most remarkable
objects
of the so-called "Saljuq" style were demonstrably manu-
factured after the Mongol conquest; and manuscripts, among which
the greatest masterpiece of the fourteenth century, the "Demotte"
Shah-Nam
a, has never found the artistic and intellectual or social
milieu
in which it was made. Thus it is, at this stage of our research,
still
almost impossible to co-ordinate properly the monuments with the
events of the time; and often in trying to explain the monuments one
misses the human and spiritual context in which they were made and
used. Hence, even though one must be cognizant of the classical
divisions
of
styles
into a Saljuq period (roughly until the
third
or fourth
decade of the
thirteenth
century) and the Il-Khanid one (roughly after
the last decade of the same century), we shall in this chapter avoid these
distinctions on the ground
that
neither the monuments nor the social
and cultural history of
Iran
have as yet been sufficiently explained to
make the time distinctions more
than
convenient labels for museum
identification.
Yet
this lamentable historical vacuum is not the only methodo-
logical
deficiency with which we have to cope. An equally frustrating
problem is posed by what may be called the geographical co-ordinate
of
the arts. It is clear for instance
that
the
third,
fourth, and fifth
decades of the twelfth century witnessed a remarkable building activity
known
primarily through large congregational mosques in the area of
Isfahan,
that
the last decades of the twelfth century and the
thirteenth
1
Among
the few
examples
are D. S.
Rice,
The
Wade
Cup
(Paris,
1955),
to be
consulted
together
with
R.
Ettinghausen,
"The
'Wade'
Cup", Ars
Orientalis,
vol. 11
(1957);
R.
Ettinghausen,
"The
Iconography
of a
Kashan Luster
Plate",
Ars
Oriental's,
vol. iv
(1961);
M.
B.
Smith,
"Material
for a
Corpus
of
Early
Iranian
Islamic
Architecture",
Ars
lslamica,
vols.
11, iv, vi
(1935-9).
627 40-2
THE
VISUAL ARTS
628
century saw major constructions of mausoleums in Azarbaijan,
that
inlaid metalwork was developed to a particularly remarkable degree in
Khurasan in the second half of the twelfth century, and
that
Rashid
al-Din
sponsored a major school of painting in Tabriz in the first two
decades of the fourteenth century. In all four of these instances
there
is
no evidence
that
any other
part
of
Iran
enjoyed the same developments.
Should
any of them then be considered as regional growths to be
explained
by some local needs or purposes
?
Or are they purely
acci-
dentally preserved and should a style or an idea formed in Khurasan
in the middle of the twelfth century be construed as valid for the rest
of
Iran
?
It is of course clear
that
each such definable group of monu-
ments
will
provide different answers to these questions. The Rashidiyya
school
of painting did have a greater importance in the development of
Iranian art after the death of its founder in 1318
than
the architectural
style
of Azarbaijan in the
thirteenth
century. Yet almost no attempt has
yet
been made by archaeologists or historians to separate pan-Iranian
trends
from local ones or to assess the exact character of any one
provincial
development,
1
and to the questions raised almost thirty years
ago
by Professor Minorsky,
2
scholarship has still not provided answers.
These
methodological and intellectual difficulties in any attempt to
discover
the structure—the word is used here in the sense
given
to it by
linguists or ethnographers—around which one can explain the monu-
ments
of
Iranian art and their development makes our task
of
discussing
them in a few pages particularly arduous. To attempt a chronological
description would take us too long and is somewhat meaningless
without at least partial solutions to the questions raised in the preceding
paragraphs. A discussion of techniques separately from each other
would
correspond to traditional methods of treating Islamic art, but
its underlying assumption of separate developments for each major
medium would have to be demonstrated for this particular period and
in any event it would not provide a clear summary of the visually
perceived
world created during these centuries. Our choice, therefore,
has been to avoid any attempt at total coverage but
rather
to select a
more limited number of precise topics through which, it is hoped, one
may
be able to define the major characteristics of the
arts
of the eleventh
to fourteenth centuries and also point to the problems which still need
1
Preliminary
remarks
for the
fourteenth
century
by D.
Wilber,
The
Architecture
of
Islamic
Iran:
The
Ilkhdnid
Period
(Princeton,
1955), pp. 88 ff.
*
V.
Minorsky,
"Geographical
Factors
in
Persian
Art", B.S.OS. vol. ix
(1937-9).
INTRODUCTION
629
to be solved. Three such topics were chosen: the architecture of the
mosque, the objects of the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, the painting of
the fourteenth century. Each of these, as we
will
try to show, serves as
a
focal
point around which most of the major monuments and problems
can be discussed. Much in the
interpretations
which
will
be proposed is
still
hypothetical, but it is our
belief
that
only through working hypo-
theses can the actual significance of an insufficiently studied art properly
emerge.
THE
ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOSQUE
AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
The
central phenomenon of the architecture of
Iran
during these
centuries is the formation of what may be called the classical
Iranian
mosque. Almost its most perfect example is found in the now ruined
masjid-i jum'a of Varamin (fig. i; pis. i, 2), near Tehran. It is a
rectangle, 66 by 43 metres, with a remarkably clear plan. A courtyard
in the centre was lined with an internal
facade;
on either side lies an
axial
wan
(definable as a rectangular vaulted hall
of
which
one side opens
directly to the outside) framed by two or four smaller arched openings.
The
ivans are not of equal size and the centrally planned balance of the
court is overshadowed by the strong longitudinal axis of the wider ivan
on the qibla side (pi. 2) which is
followed
by a superbly majestic dome
rising high above the rest of the building. The area between Ivans is at
the same time quite open for circulation and yet definable through a
series of long vaults carried on square or rectangular supports. A
curious sort of ambiguity remains as to whether these supports are
actually piers imagined as separate entities or walls opened up by wide
arches. There are
three
entrances to the building, each of which is a
shallow
ivan leading into the axial Ivans
of
the court. The main entrance,
on the longitudinal
axis,
is architectonically articulated through a series
of
niches and prefigures the composition of the wan qiblL
The
medium of construction is brick throughout. Its fabric varies
from place to place and
thus
serves at the same time as a mode of
construction and as decoration. The vaults are usually pointed barrel
vaults.
The ivans and the zone of transition to the dome are provided
with
a characteristic architectonic composition known as the
muqarnas.
It consists of a combination—variable in
structure
and extent—of
complete
units
of construction, such as half-domes and vaults, or
segments thereof, used, at least in appearance, either to
give
variety to