Buildings

Now we know that the muslim quality of muslim makings

is related to the 'why' at the heart of the maker,

allowing the widest possible artistic expression, searching for beauty.

But if the range of expression can be so wide and inclusive,

what building forms are to be seen as recognisably Islamic?

Can these forms be seen in the structures towering around the Ka'aba,

or for that matter any building in the muslim world,

including those designed as palaces for business or tourism?

Is there really such a thing as Islamic Architecture?

Well, despite the breadth of possibilities around the globe and across the centuries,

there is an extraordinary similarity of artistic and stylistic expression

that seems to apply to what is thought of as Islamic Architecture,

Yet what is most obviously shared

is no more than the flowering on surfaces of something that springs from deeper roots,

reflecting the very foundations of Islamic understanding,

the nature of duality,

the division of one into number.

But before duality becomes number,

there is a place where humans can function without the math,

but still recognise shape,

and use proportionality to compare and divide the world.

This place is geometry.

And in the human landscape, architecture is geometry writ large,

and muslim building traditions trace back to that primal geometry,

spiritual geometry that can be developed with no more than a couple of pegs and a rope,

just circles and lines.

Architecture allocates and defines a place,

defines a location and the space it occupies,

and the language it uses to do that is geometry,

the language of shape.

Perimeters need to be agreed,

inside and outside, up and down,

and the edges and walls between.

Structural requirements need to be met,

and the interplay of all that solid and space, light and shade,

can show rhythm through repetition.

The proportions that are defined,

the ratios between edges,

can include the irrational, as with the golden ratio,

and all these aspects of architecture

can be geometrically defined.

It is a language through which to see the world,

and recognise order

and harmony and balance.

It is a subtle and complex world,

that springs from a geometry of simplicity,

the circle and straight line

and what comes from them.

Not just squares and hexagons,

triangles and pentagons,

spiritual geometry embraces all those strange spaces between the numbers,

strange yet intrinsic to the way we see the world.

Spiritual geometry is a guide

to natural forms of harmony and balance,

the ideal surroundings for human existence.

From the simplest of beginnings we have a language

that can lead us through multiplicity to infinity,

from the simple to the ever more complex.

It provides a visual language of pattern

that can be applied across the entire surface of a building,

infinitely variable,

tiles tracing patterns through colour.

And the flowering of this visual geometry as surface pattern

is what is most associated with Islamic architecture.

But those patterns spring from a much larger structure,

the building that they cover

and the proportions of the spaces that structure defines.

In the finest architecture,

humans walk through those larger patterns,

living within a constant subtle reminder of their connection to the infinite,

while never losing their connection to the unity from which it all springs.

But clearly not all buildings designed by muslims

will be seen as representing Islamic architecture in the way of the greatest designers

In the great buildings we can see Islamic architecture

as spiritual geometry writ large,

buildings that reflect the beauty of The Creator,

The Maker and The Shaper.