The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, Part 1 |
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Aleppo Amir arabesque Arabic Arabic inscription arches architecture artists Ayyub Baghdad band Barkūk beasts beautiful Beybars Beysary birds blue border bowls bronze Cairene CARVED PANEL centre chased chief Citadel colours Coptic churches Copts court Damascus decoration designs dome doors Edh-Dhahir Egypt Egyptian El-Ashraf El-Makrizy El-Melik En-Nasir Mohammad enamel enclosed Es-Salih examples Fatimy Khalifs fess figures floral fourteenth century frieze Fustat geometrical panels glass lamps gold houses Ibn-Tūlūn inlaid with silver ivory Kaït KAIT BEY Kalaun key-pattern Khalifs Koran Kufy Lagin lattice LATTICE-WORK lord Mamluk Mamluk Sultan marble medallions meshrebiya Mesopotamia metal-work minaret Mohammadan mosaic Mōsil mosque Muslim Naskhy niche ornament palace pattern Persian plaster princes pulpit reign rosettes round Saladin Saracenic art seen Seyf-ed-din side silk South Kensington Museum spandrils stalactites stone style Sultan Hasan Syria thirteenth century throne tiles tomb two-headed eagle wall WEKALA OF KAIT wood Zenky عز لمولانا
Popular passages
Page 218 - The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light.
Page 39 - A band of lawless adventurers, slaves in origin, butchers by choice, turbulent, bloodthirsty, and too often treacherous, these slave kings had a keen appreciation for the arts which would have done credit to the most civilized ruler that ever sat on a constitutional throne.
Page 13 - ... to all appearance barbarians, prone to shed blood, merciless to their enemies, tyrannous to their subjects, yet delighting in the delicate refinements which art could afford them in their home life, lavish in the endowment of pious foundations, magnificent in their mosques and palaces, and fastidious in the smallest details of dress and furniture. Allowing all that must be allowed for the passion of the barbarian for display, we are still far from an explanation how the Turks chanced to be the...
Page 218 - God is the light of the heavens and the earth ; His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is in a glass, the glass is as though it were a glittering star...
Page 37 - O'er my life these silvery locks are shedding an unwonted light, And disclosing many follies youth had hidden out of sight It is seldom that we see a metaphor so well carried out, or so pregnant with meaning as this ; — the contrast between the dark tresses of youth and the white hairs of old age, the sudden awakening from the night of folly and inexperience at the...
Page 39 - Sultans, all Turkish or Circassian slaves, who filled Cairo with the most beautiful and abundant monuments that any city can show. The arts were in Egypt long before the Tartars became her rulers, but they stirred them into new life, and made the Saracenic work of Egypt the centre and headpiece of Mohammedan art.
Page 38 - Nosh1rwan the Good — With wine, which the jovial friars of old Have carefully laid up in store, In readiness there for their feast-days to hold— With liquor, of which if a man were but told, He'd roll away drunk from the door!
Page 27 - He admits, however, that the Sultan was sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects; whilst Makrizi calls him one of the best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans. Yet if we take Bibars as painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, the second of Friar William's comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a Devil in malignity as well as in activity.
Page 60 - Cairo are mausoleums, containing a chamber with the tomb of the founder, and the profusion of domes to be seen, when one looks down upon the city from the battlements of the Citadel, has brought about the not unnatural mistake of thinking that every mosque must have a dome. Most mosques with tombs have domes, but no mosque that was not intended to contain a tomb ever had one in the true sense.
Page 145 - The choir-screen is worth a journey to Egypt to see. It is a massive partition of ebony, divided into three large panels — doorway and two side panels — which are framed in masonry. At each side of the doorway is a square pillar, plastered and painted ; on the left is portrayed the Crucifixion, and over it the sun shirting full ; on the right, the Taking down from the Cross, and over it the sun eclipsed.