Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/504

Rh 446 ARCHITECTURE [SARACENIC. countries of Syria, Persia, and Egypt, brought with them any art of their own, or whether they formed their style after their conquests were secured, when they had become great, and had consequently leisure and power to form it by the aid of foreigners. Now, in the Koran no notices are found that would lead us to suppose that any definite FIG. 47. Court of the Mosque of Tooloon, Cairo. From Coste. forms of art were known to the Arabs in early times. We gather also that the minaret, one of the most promi nent and beautiful forms of their architecture, could not have been used in early times, since we are told that the call to prayers was then made from the roofs of the mosques. The earliest example of a mosque in Arabia itself is supposed to have been that at Mecca, 705 A.D. But this was rebuilt in the 15th century, and that of Medina in the 16th, and we have no definite account of the original structures. The earliest of those which still exist are the Mosque of Amrou at Cairo (about G42 A.IX), and that of Damascus (705). Both of these were built of columns, &c., obtained by the destruction of Roman work. In the Mosque of Tooloon at Cairo we find for the first time anything original. It was constructed about 879, and is said to have been designed by a Christian architect. Indeed, numerous passages in the early history of the Saracens seem to show that their architects and art workers generally were foreigners, attracted from Baghdad, Byzan tium, and other places. It was the same throughout their progress in Spain as well as in Egypt ; and however that style was eventually formed, which has given to us the beautiful domes and minarets of Cairo, the Alhambra in Spain, and the houses of Algiers, there can be little doubt but that it was based upon the art of Persia and Byzantium. Ultimately it developed into two very distinct forms, the Arabic of Cairo and the Moorish of Spain. But these still showed themselves, both in general form and in details, to be members of the same great family which we now call Saracenic. The chief structures in this style are the mosques and tombs. The former are very simple in plan, consisting, usually, of a mere open space with colonnades round and with a prayer niche (mehrab] in the side Fio. 48. Exterior view of Kaid Bey Mosque, Cairo. From Coste. towards Mecca. Near this was a pulpit (mimbar), and as this part of the edifice was of course the most frequented,