Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque (Masjid al-Aqsa), whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our signs; for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things). 17:1
It is upon this historical sight in Jerusalem (al-Quds) that the first monument in Islam, the Dome of the Rock Mosque, was constructed. It was located on the same precincts as Masjid al-Aqsa, which was the first qiblah and the third holiest shrine after the ones in Mecca and Medina.
The Dome of the Rock brought together elements of Islam’s past and charted a course for its future. The mosque, which was built by a diverse group of Byzantine and Muslim architects, was the amalgamation of the region’s classical Greek influence and the rising ingenuity and fervor of Islamic art. The Byzantine style from all over the Muslim world facilitated the widest artistic interaction. It made possible the exchange and introduction of goods, as well as the spread of ideas, styles and techniques belonging to diverse crafts. The Muslim world, over the ensuing centuries, maintained this symbiotic relationship with the cultures preceding or surrounding it. Until the 18th century, the Islam world remained the only major civilization that was in physical contact with nearly every other center of civilization and life in Asia, Africa and Europe, with the intensity of the contacts varying from place to place and century to century. Islamic civilization in general and Islamic art in particular played an important role in advocating Islam and Muslim rulers.

Islam and Europe
If Islamic art was able to act as a means of communication for the Muslims throughout history, why has it not been able to continue this task with the West? To answer such a polemic, one has to go back into history.
In the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Muslim centers of Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba were at their apogee, the only intellectual centers in the West were massive bastions, inhabited by semi-barbaric lords who prided themselves on their inability to read. When a few enlightened minds in Europe felt the need to shake off the oppressive mantle of ignorance that weighed down upon them, they referred to the Muslims who were the only erudite masters of their day.
Knowledge in all its branches penetrated into Europe through al-Andalus and Sicily in southern Italy which were all under Muslim jurisdiction. Outside of the Eastern Islamic world and North Africa, the part of Spain occupied by the Muslims was the only place where study was then possible at all. Until the 15th century, it is hard to quote the name of an author whose work consisted of anything but a reformulation of Islamic thought. Roger Bacon, Leonard of Pisa, Arnaud de Villeneuve, Saint Thomas, Albert the Great, Alfonso of Castile and many others were either disciples or copiers of Muslim and Muslim savants. The influence of various Islamic arts in Europe, including innovations in textiles, ceramics, glass, woodwork, and metalwork, is too well known to be recounted here. The same is true of Islamic architecture. One has only to look at a Gothic cathedral or go to Venice to realize the effect Islamic architecture had on Europe even before the Renaissance. Yet the question persists: If there was so much intellectual borrowing and so many artistic exchanges, why then the animosity between Western culture and its Islamic counterpart? What is the reason that Islamic arts failed in creating a cultural and intellectual dialogue between the two civilizations?
During the Middle Ages, Europeans considered the Islamic Empire as a military, cultural and religious threat that endangered not only Europe but also Christendom. Prophet Muhammad (S) was ridiculed in the most deleterious manner. Gerald of Wales wrote in the 12th century that the Prophet’s teachings were focused solely on lust, thus particularly suitable for Orientals who lived in a naturally hot climate. The spread of such ideas, which was transmitted from one generation to the other, was the result of projecting a negative image on an alien culture due to ignorance of and prejudice against that culture, which was a characteristic feature of medieval Europe at the time.
The first face-to-face encounter between Islam and the West on a grand scale was when the Muslim armies crossed into Spain in 711, fought the Goths and conquered the Iberian Peninsula (al-Andalus). The second grand encounter was during the First Crusade, launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II who declared war against Islam. Their “altruisticâ€‌ aim was to save Eastern Christendom from the Muslims, but when the Mamluks defeated the Crusaders in 1291, all Eastern Christians came under Muslim rule. Ironically many converted to Islam because of the persecutions they had faced at the hand of their fellow Catholic Christians.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, a new phase developed in the relations between the two sides as Islam gradually became more accepted in Europe. The religious wars had ended, trade relations increased between the two sides (in particular between the Venetians and the Genoese), translations of the Quran appeared for the first time in the West, and with the coming of the Reformation, the Pope replaced Prophet Muhammad (S) as Anti-Christ in the eyes of many Protestants. At the same time, the military power of the Ottoman Empire forced the West to review its attitude towards the Muslims. Though the animosity did not diminish between the two sides, a degree of admiration – born out of fear as well as respect for the feats of the Ottomans – developed within Europe. The attitude of Europe towards the three great empires of the 16th and 17th centuries – that is, the Ottoman (1281-1924), the Safavid (1501-1732) and the Mughal (1526- 1858) empires – was one based on equality where both sides enjoyed peaceful diplomatic and trade relations.
By the 18th century, however, the three empires showed visible signs of decline thus allowing Europe to lose a great deal of its fear and interim respect towards the Muslims and their civilization. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century marked the rise of Western technological superiority followed by the engulfing wave of colonialism. This superiority brought about the unwavering belief in the supremacy of Western civilization over Islamic civilization. Thus, England took on “the white man’s burdenâ€‌ and France the “mission civilisatriceâ€‌ with the belief that they would confer on the East some of the advantages of their civilization. These included the idea of good government and the superiority of Christianity. It was not long before Western powers directly encroached into the East with their armies, missionaries, civil servants, and mining and trading companies.
Having summarized the relations between Islam and the West from a western point of view, one should understand the same relations from the Muslim position. Because of the superiority of Islamic civilization from the 9th to the 16th centuries, the Muslims generally did not deem it worthwhile to study Europe. In fact, in the eyes of the Muslims all Europeans were lumped together as Franks. Even when the Muslims were relatively close to Europe, such as in al-Andalus, and had contacts with them on different levels, they studied Greek and Roman classical thought but not French or German literature. When the Ottomans occupied countries in the Balkans and Central Europe, they transmitted their architecture and art to them but never carried out an extensive cultural study of their new subjects. This indifference cannot be attributed to ignorance on the part of the Muslims but to the inferiority of Western culture. Muslims simply did not find it useful to study its art and literature.
The scene changed in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Western culture began to be imposed onto the East, especially in countries that came under French rule. In this way, the Islamic world changed places with the West, and instead of being the “producerâ€‌, ended up on the receiving end. From the point of view of Europe, it was the superior culture, and hence did not deem it worthwhile to get to know better the culture of the peoples under its rule. Hence, when Europe first encroached onto Islamic territory after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, it treated the various forms of Islamic art (with the exception of architecture) as indigenous “folk craftâ€‌, for the simple reason that it could not accept an art that did not conform to its own criteria and aesthetics.
Until today, pieces of Iznik and Nishapur ceramics and other masterpieces are part of the collections of the Folk Art Museum in Frankfurt, the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg, the Union Centrale des Arts Dأ©coratifs in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Applied Art in Belgrade.
However, through further exposure to Islamic culture, Islamic art has come to be better appreciated on its own terms and not simply as “folk craftâ€‌. In fact, today, special wings are designated for Islamic art in institutions such as the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.