The Age of Diversity and Disintegration (1000–1100 CE)

Abstract

This chapter describes how Islamic palatial architecture in Western Mediterranean grew more diverse and adventurous as the Umayyad Caliphate in the Iberian Peninsula and the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa disintegrated into a multiplicity of polities. In the former territory of the Fatimids, the Banī Ḥammād, for example, set up smaller independent states, founding new cities like Qalcat Banī Ḥammād and Biǧāya and employing innovations like the muqarnaṣ-decoration in palace design. On the Iberian Peninsula after the fall of Córdoba to civil strife, the tā’ifa-kings first erected separate city-palaces, castles, and estates, but then began building a kind of blended palatial complex called a qaṣaba. Differences in the palatial architecture between former Umayyad and former Fatimid regions may be attributed to diverging conceptions of space and attitudes about rulership. Islamic architecture also influenced the evolution of Gothic style in the Christian world of the Twelfth Century.