When Arab armies of Islam conquered new lands, they began erecting mosques and palaces and commissioning other works of art as expressions of their faith and culture. The religious practice of Islam is based on tenets known as the Five...

While the Islamic period has a fixed starting date, signaled by the emigration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622, the birth of Islamic art is far more difficult to single out. Instead, we can consider...