ARA'BIAN ARCHITECTURE. So inseparable is the connection between architecture and religion, that it may be stated as a general rule that no sooner is a new religion engendered than it finds expression in new architectural forms. Of this we have an interesting instance in the simultaneous rise of 3fohammedanism, and of the style of architecture commonly called Arabian or Moorish, but to which the name of Mohamme dan might far more appropriately be given, seeing that it has everywhere followed the religion of the crescent, and that the Arabians previously had no architecture peculiar to themselves. It is further remarkable that the style of which we speak seems to have arisen, as it were, undesignedly, or, at all events, without any conscious effort on the part of the people amongst whom it first appeared. The followers of the prophet contem plated nothing peculiar in their ecclesiastical structures; and at first their mosques were built by Christian architects from Constantinople. As a natural consequence, they resembled Byzantine churches, modified in the countries of which the Moors successively possessed themselves by the features of the existing churches. Gradually the new and fanciful ornamentation known as arabesque (q.v.) was added to the recognized features of Greek and Roman edifices. The exclusion of animal figures, which their abhorrence
of the very appearance of idolatry necessitated, confined the Mohammedan artists to the imitation of vegetable productions, varied by geometrical patterns and inscriptions, of which the letters were woven into forms which suited them for architectural uses. But the most original feature in their edifices, and that by which they have continued to be marked from all others, is the horse shoe arch. The pointed arch, on the other hand, and the various forms of the trefoil and quatrefoil arches, though there can be little doubt that we are indebted for them to the rich invention of the Moorish architects, have become so entirely Christian as to be no longer associated in our minds with the religion of the prophet. It is said that the pointed arch is to be found in Mohammedan buildings so early as 780 A.D. (Parker's Glossary of Architecture), whereas the earliest examples of its use in Christian architecture belong to the 12th c. Moorish architecture probably reached its highest point of development in the Alhambra, with the characteristics of which the English public have been made familiar by means of the court which bears its name in the palace at Sydenham.