The Minaret

Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art SERIES EDITOR: ROBERT HILLENBRAND ADVISORY EDITORS: BERNARD O' KANE AND JONATHAN M. BLOOM This series offers readers easy access to the most up-to-date research across the whole range of Islamic art, representing various parts of the Islamic world, media and approaches. Books in the series are academic monographs of intellectual distinction that mark a significant advance in the field. 'His survey of the surviving towers and his formulation of the problems they raise will surely remain standard for many years to come.' Journal of the American Oriental Society 'The style is remarkably clear and at points exhilarating.' British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies A lavishly illustrated history of the origin and development of the minaret This beautifully illustrated history depicts the origin and development of the most visible element of Islamic architecture: the minaret. The argument is iconoclastic - that the minaret, long understood to have been invented in the early years of Islam as the place from which the muezzin gives the call to prayer, was actually invented some two centuries later to be a universal symbol of the presence of Islam. Originally published in 1989, this new edition has been thoroughly revised, expanded and generously illustrated in colour, substantially broadening both the chronological and geographical scope. Coverage spans from early Islam to the modern world, and from Iran, Egypt, Turkey and India to West and East Africa, the Yemen and Southeast Asia, in a sweeping tour of the minaret's position as the symbol of Islam. Jonathan M. Bloom is Norma Jean Calderwood Professor of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College and Hamad Bin Khalifa Endowed Chair in Islamic Art at Viriginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of numerous books including Arts of the City Victorious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and Egypt (2008) and (with Sheila S. Blair) the three-volume Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture (2009). Published in association with al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait Cover image: iStockphoto. Cover design: Cathy Sprent [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com