Islamic Architecture and Arch

Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of styles, influencing the design and construction of both secular and religious buildings in the Islamic societies. Arches characterize buildings from houses to mosques, commonly in arcades lining courtyards. The earliest form of arch was semi -circular, borrowed from Roman and Byzantine sources. However, soon the Muslims began to develop new types of arches with both structural and aesthetic advantages, which attained a level of excellence in Andalusia. The early Islamic architecture was taking from existing styles and patterns of other contemporary styles, improving and varying those, and contributing them to world architecture and to non-Islamic structures in a way that changed the entire European Architecture for centuries. This paper discusses the process of assimilation and synthesis of various forms of architecture and elements in the early Islamic religious buildings, and charts how a more refined Islamic architecture and its elements, a distinct form and rich style fully developed by the Muslims, especially the arch, contributed into the world architecture, being borrowed by the Europeans and used in structures including churches. 

Islamic_Architecture_and_Arch.pdf