The Architecture of Asia Minor and Syria is nearly allied to that of Egypt; yet in both these countries the many existing Byzantine models, and in later times the Occidental element brought in by the Cru sades, made themselves felt. In the eleventh century the Seljuks had extended their sway over a part of Armenia and Asia Minor, and had erected there a great number of edifices. The most important of these are at Iconium (Konieh), the seat of the sultan. The castle itself, now only a ruin, strongly recalls the castles built at that period in more western lands. The great hall has a ceiling rich with color and is vaulted in that peculiar Oriental manner which has been compared to stalactites or , honeycomb, to which it has, in fact, some similarity of appearance; yet the principle of its construction is better understood by considering it as composed of small projecting bracket-formed pendentives placed over one another. In recent times this hall has been demolished. Near the great mosque are two school-buildings, one of which has an interesting marble portal.
Caesarea there is a great mosque the whole of the nearly quadrangular surface of which is vaulted with small cupolas borne upon piers which are united by pointed arches. In Erzeroum -there is a hospital similar to a church with galleries over the side-aisles, except that an open court takes the place of the nave. At the end is the dodecagonal tomb of the founder, which recalls the choir of a Christian church and is covered with a pyramidal roof similar in shape to the domes of the Chris tian churches of Armenia. After the overthrow of the Seljukian kingdom of Iconium by the Mongols the empire of the Osmanli was founded in Asia, and Broussa became its capital.
The Green Mosque at works of Amurath I. (t360-1389) are almost Byzantine. The Green Mosque at Niccea (1373-137S) has in its centre, instead of the open court, a square domed hall, adjoining which are a smaller hall and a portico. Simple pointed arches of alternate light and dark stone, and walls of smooth ashlar showing the Oriental patterns only in the frieze, characterize this building.
A mosque built by Amurath at Chekirgeh, near Broussa, is in plan and elevation a Byzantine church. A cupola covers the central hall, on three sides of which are large alcoves, the largest, on the east side, opposite the entrance. The latter leads through an open arcade covered with five domes, and through an interior small hall, into the cupola-hall. The treatment of the details bespeaks the Byzantine building, but the pointed arches and other parts betray their Mohammedan origin.
The Great Mosque at Broussa, begun by Amurath and finished by his two immediate successors, is like that of Caesarea, where the en trance-space is roofed with small cupolas upon piers, except that in the centre, over a fountain, the space of one cupola is left open. A second
mosque, which likewise bears Amurath's name, also shows much of the Byzantine manner.
Mohammedan Art in art reached its most bril liant development in Spain, and the structures there erected are also those which most clearly mirror the genius of Islam at its purest. The highest culture seems to have prevailed among the Mohammedans of Spain; only through this did it happen that, notwithstanding external misfortunes, notwithstanding the perpetual advance of the Christians upon the Moham medan population, Architecture was able to maintain such splendor and grandeur of plan combined with such artistic detail. A new element had been introduced. The governors of the various districts made themselves independent, and, as the ruler of Seville called in the Moors from Africa to aid him against the Christians, the new-corners almost entirely subju gated Arabian Spain; so that it was under Moorish rule that the subse quent development began.
The series of Moorish buildings still left and known to us commences at Toledo. The Gate of the Sun has an aspiring pointed arch between two round towers; above the arch the walls show a decoration of two storeys of interlacing many-cusped horseshoe arches. The present Church of Santa Maria la Blanca, formerly a synagogue, belongs to the twelfth century. It is a five-aisled basilica with polygonal pillars, above which high-pitched horseshoe arches bear walls decorated with a series of blind cinquefoil arches. The capitals as well as the spandrels between the arches and the cornice of the arcade are decorated with elegant ornaments in stucco.
Mosque of African rulers of Spain often held court in Seville during the twelfth century, and hence we have here a series of splendid works. In 1 172, at the command of Yusuf Abu Jacob, was found ed a mosque remains of which still exist in the later Christian Cathedral. Externally the arrangement is similar to that of the mosque at Cordova— massive flat walls with square buttresses and battlements, pierced with doors, windows, and blind windows. The arch is usually of the cusped pointed form.
The minaret—the so-called "Giralda"—begun in 1195 is now a bell-tower, but the upper portion was rebuilt in the sixteenth cen tury after an earthquake. The original lower portion is square and has a height of 6o metres (197 feet; Pergusson, 1S5 feet); an inclined plane in the thick walls forms a convenient ascent to the platform. The lower portion of the walls is plain, but the upper part is divided into panels filled with decorative ornament. There are two series of these panels, three in each. The ancient superstructure, now replaced by work of the sixteenth cen tury, terminated in four gilded bronze spheres.