Throughout the centuries, the lion has generally been acknowledged as a symbol of power in numerous cultures. It exercises magic and talismanic functions as a sign of the zodiac. The lion as the king of the beasts has long fascinated and challenged man. It plays a large part in the decorative arts and mythologies of many cultures and Islam is no exception. The aim of this thesis is to determine the range of meaning attributed to the lion as a motif in Islamic art, through its use in the decorative arts, miniature painting and textiles. A catalogue of some four hundred and sixty examples of the lion as an iconographic symbol on carpets, ceramics, metalwork, stone, textiles and other media has been drawn up. Within each category pieces have been arranged in chronological sequence and their motifs have been identified. The aim has been to assemble a reasonable sample of works upon which to base an investigation of the role of the lion in Islamic art. The text analyses the themes found in the catalogue. Each motif is placed in its historical context with reference to the antecedents of the decorative design and the likely meaning in an Islamic context, supported where possible by writings of the period. Chapter One addresses briefly the description and illustration of the lion in Muslim scientific texts. Chapter Two analyses the lion-bull combat theme. Chapter Three opens with a discussion of images showing man hunting the lion and concludes with a discussion of the lion in association with other animals. Chapter Four discusses two literary works often illustrated with miniatures depicting lions - namely the Kalila wa Dimna tales and the Shahnama. It closely analyses the texts for descriptions of the lion and what it may symbolise in a given context. Chapter Five embraces a diversity of motifs including the image of the lion as found on Islamic coins, lion-masks, lion and throne imagery, the lion-tree motif in textiles and the lion as a single image. Chapter Six discusses the zodiac and the lion as an astrological symbol. Conclusions are drawn in Chapter Seven. The thesis aims to assess the art-historical evidence for the use of the lion in Islamic art. It endeavours to provide a firm basis from which to study the significance of the lion in medieval Muslim culture. Literary and historical evidence is brought in where appropriate in order to elucidate the meaning of the visual imagery. Much work still remains to be done, but the collecting together of a range of pieces bearing a variety of iconographical interpretations of the lion is a vital step in determining the role of this animal in Islamic art and culture.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio State University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-148). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

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This study involved pre-service elementary educators' attitudes towards curriculum on Islamic religious art. The research question, Will the attitudes of pre-service teachers change towards Islam and Muslims after being exposed to the key components of Islamic religious art: Masjid (mosque) architecture, nonrepresentational designs, and calligraphy, when taught in relation to Islamic culture? Most of the students knew very little about Islamic culture and some were distrustful of anything Muslims produced. The students easily assimilated the material and were able to create their own lesson plans on Islamic religious art and write research papers on varying aspects of the art form. This curriculum utilized the belief that the language of art connects with most people. During the course of this study the reactions of participants went from distrustful to appreciative of Islamic art and culture. Understanding of Islam and its culture could be considered essential in this day and age, specifically in the United States and education is the field which can be pivotal in creating this comprehension. Simultaneous education of students, teachers and parents is necessary to explain this segment of society in an accurate manner. Further research is essential to determine if art specialists, in-service teachers, parents, and administrators of educational institutions would support a curriculum on Islamic religious art for use by mainstream teachers as well as art educators.

Although there are a few general surveys of early Islamic metalwork, and numerous detailed studies of particular objects or object groups, no comprehensive study of the metalworking industry in Iran in early Islamic times has yet been written. This thesis aims to provide that study first by assembling as much as possible of the basic information on metalworking in Iran from the Islamic conquests to the mid 13th century and then by using it to draw some general conclusions about the range and history of Iran's metalworking industries at this time. The primary sources used are the references to metals and metalworking in early Islamic literature and the surviving objects. For technical information and for select vocabularies of the relevant Arabic and Persian terminologies the technical treatises of al-Hamdānī, al-Birūnī, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, and Abū'l-Qāsim al-Kāshānī have been particularly exploited. For the names and functions of particular objects or object groups a range of Arabic non-technical works has been searched. For the gazetteers and general discussions of metal sources Arabic and Persian geographical works have been utilised. The objects catalogued and discussed here include all the published pieces known to the author, together with unpublished objects in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum (including Sirāf excavation material), the Musée du Louvre in Paris (including Susa excavation material), the Museum für Islamische Kunst Berlin-Dahlem, the StaatlicheMuseum in East Berlin, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, the Philadelphia University Museum (including the Rayy excavation material), the Walters Art Gallery, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (including the Nīshāpūr excavation material), and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. All objects have been arranged in groups on the basis of metal, function, and form, and catalogued accordingly, and an overall dating and provenancing for each group has been established through reference to their decoration, including inscriptions where relevant, and archaeological data. Additional use has been made of analyses undertaken by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Musee du Louvre, and the Ashmolean Museum, plus a limited number of other published analyses: all these are included in a single Table.

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Paintings of women as individual subjects were a popular theme in the Mughal court during the mid-seventeenth century, or the Shah Jahan period (ca. 1628-1658). These portraits depict idealized archetypes with subtle differences in facial and bodily features. The same portrait conventions were used for both historical and imaginary women. This thesis has three aims: (1) identify and explain the significance of three elements that visually represent an ideal Mughal woman using a case study from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts called Page from the Nasir al-Din Shah Album: Portrait of a Mughal Woman (ca. 1630-45), (2) combine visual and textual sources to further the study of Mughal women, and (3) reinsert the portraits of Mughal women within a larger scope of female imagery in Indian art to show that Mughal paintings encompass just one part of a much bigger story. Paintings of Mughal women are not only aesthetic works of art—they are historical artifacts.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: p. 135-137. / by Catherine J. Dean. / M.Arch.

No / The complex formation of Islamic geometric Patterns (IGP) is one of the distinctive features in Islamic art and architecture. Many have attempted to reproduce these patterns in digital form, using various pattern generation techniques. Shape grammars are an effective pattern generation method, providing good aesthetic results. In this paper we present a novel approach in generating 3D IGP using an extended shape grammar: Parametrized Shape Grammar (PSG). PSG allows a user to generate both original and novel forms of Islamic geometric motifs (a repeated unit of a pattern). PSG is generalized to generate n-fold Islamic geometric motifs in a 3D environment, practically implemented as a 3D modeling tool within Autodesk Maya. The parametrization within each grammar rule is the key to generating numerous original and novel Islamic geometric motifs.

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