The history of the Umayyad caliphate is often presented as a transitional phase lying somewhere between the charismatic authority of the Rightly Guided caliphs and the fully Islamicized culmination of the caliphate under the Abbasids. In particular the Umayyad period is portrayed in early Islamic sources as one infused with expressions of kingship or mulk; from the sensuous court life to the ceremonial surrounding the office of the caliph. In a sense the Umayyads are seen in terms of their attachment to an Arab jāhilī identity distinct from an Islamic one on the one hand, and their importation of the trappings of royalty from Byzantine and Sasanian sources on the other. This reading also presents Umayyad authority constructs as a combination of two sources; pre-Islamic Arabian kingship, such as that of the Lakhmids and Ghassanids, and constructs of pre-Islamic Meccan tribal authority. For example the governor and later caliph, Muʿawiya b. abi Sufyan (602-680 CE) is described both as a “super-shaykh” and a malik, or king; with his diplomacy and patience lauded as virtues typical of an Arabian tribal leader, all the while accused of being the first caliph to introduce mulk, or kingship into the Islamic caliphate. Unsurprisingly the architecture of the first century of Islam reveals a pattern of syncretism more or less consistent with this narrative. As Islam consolidated its power within the classical world, iconic imagery of authority first manifested within the places where power was often asserted; the mosque and residences of the early Umayyad caliphs and governors, known as the dār al-imāra. This paper will focus upon the latter by examining the early governors’ residences (dār al-imāra) in Islam during the governorship and reign of Muʿawiya as caliph (602-680 CE). The impact of the pre-Islamic configuration of the dār al-nadwa or House of Deputies in relation to the Kaʿba and its sacred enclosure in Mecca will also be considered. Finally, the appearance of the first qubbat al-khadrā’, or dome of the green, particularly in regards to the evidence that casts these domes as heavenly domes, will be examined.

Classical Arabic literature scholarship considered qaṣīda a genre that substantiates the political ruler’s legitimacy and endowed it with a structure that reflects a linear narrative: The poet first encounters ruins that signify time’s dilapidating effects in the naṣīb; then he reaches the ruler who protects him against the destructive fate in the madīḥ. This scholarship thus characterized ruins (aṭlāl), in Stefan Sperl’s words, as objects “sublimated by the everlasting ‘House of Glory’. . . whose ‘builder’ is the sovereign.” I argue, however, that qaṣīdas map empires to locate ruins that refuse sublimation to the ruler’s order. I analyze ruins as a textual trope in the poems of Abū Tammām, al-Buḥturī, and al-Mutanabbī, and situate my observations within material history: Islamic imperial centers such as Damascus and Baghdad incorporated ruins into construction projects, which substantiated rulers’ claim to maintain a just order and claim a lineage that went back to Solomon and Alexander. At various sources including the Qur'ān, tafsīr, and poetry, the term “ʿimāra” means populating, constructing, and civilizing, and shares the same root with “ʿamara,” to fill with life. Mufradāt alfāẓ al-Qur'ān defines ʿimāra as “the antonym of ruins.” Poetry exposes ruins that empire construction (ʿimāra) could not erase. The madīḥ did not necessarily mean that the poet found refuge in a ruler who sublimates ruins, but instead reveal that the empire’s political order that fails to subjugate ruins cannot attain the impeccable craft and symmetry in poetry’s textual order. This alternative framework for the qaṣīda genre reveals a rivalry that attains visibility only via textual analysis informed by material history. The poet becomes like a collector that gathers in his text ruins, otherwise dispersed and unattended in the empire, and subtly challenges the patron/ ruler. Ruins, hitherto unruly traces that symbolized destruction, become the foundations for a verbal construction that—unlike imperial constructions— stands the test of time.

Due to the importance of water within medieval Islamic civilization brought about by the environmental, religio-cultural, and economical situations in which it evolved, the connection between the patronage of hydraulic structures and the ruling Islamic sovereign played an important role in the creation of medieval Islamic caliphal and kingly identity. This was especially evident throughout the history of the Fatimid rulers of North Africa. For instance, Ibn ‘Idhārī informs us that shortly after defeating the Aghlabids and proclaiming himself the ruler of North Africa, al-Mahdī ordered that the names of all those who had built mosques, cisterns, palaces, and aqueducts be effaced and replaced with his own. al-Mahdī’s actions represent a common notion within medieval Islamic kingship where the ruler was obligated to hold the position of the provider and distributor of water to speak for his legitimacy. Therefore, this paper investigates the connection of water with the notion of legitimacy of the ruler in medieval Islamic culture with particular focus on the Fatimids of North Africa. This study surveys the various Fatimid hydraulic works in the public and palatial arenas in North Africa while investigating the use of an imperial vocabulary in their construction and display to symbolically portray kingly legitimacy and authority. Furthermore, this paper will highlight al-Mu’izz’s construction of an aqueduct directing water from the Cherichera mountains for which he stated that if it could be built from glass he would gladly order that so to complete its construction. al-Mu’izz also compared his efforts for this project to those of Hadrian who built an aqueduct which brought water from the Zaghouan mountains to Carthage which still exists today. Therefore, the paper will also analyze the evolving concept of legitimacy and kingship in Fatimid civilization through the provision of water and through the association of the Islamic sovereign to the past rulers of antiquity and their great architectural works.

This paper investigates the complex world of kingship in the early Persian romance Vis and Ramin (w. ca. 1054). The royal figure of the story, King Mobad, appears on the surface to represent a travesty of sovereignty in all its manifest forms: an old man surrounded by younger rivals, cuckolded by his younger brother, rendered impotent by a nurse’s spell, humiliated in battle by his own vassals. Critics of the poem have thus tended to write him off as an uninteresting caricature, a tasteless portrait of bad kingship; but some have suggested that there are dimensions to this figure worth considering. Molé claims that he is a vehicle of satire, mocking the Seljuk sultan Toghril Bey; Meisami asserts that he is part of a didactic allegory, an exemplar of rulers ruled by their own concupiscence. These readings offer a useful corrective to the prior disregard of his character, yet they do not dislodge the general assumption that Mobad is, in the end, a failure—impotent in every sense of the word. But if we look closely at his story, it becomes difficult to determine exactly where his failure lies. It seems omnipresent and nowhere at the same time: every juncture presents no viable alternatives for the king, yet his every move contributes to a seemingly inevitable slide into disaster. This suggests a systemic problem at work, a structure in which the only way a king could avoid Mobad’s fate is to renounce the praxis of kingship itself, thus fulfilling the very failure he set out to avoid. Through this paradox, I explore how Vis and Ramin probes the unstable ideology of kingship as an embodied concatenation of power, masculine desire, and symbolic authority, first by discussing how the many “garden” scenes in the poem appropriate Sasanid iconography and the topography of the panegyric qasidas by the Ghaznavid poets ‘Onsori and Farrokhi to overturn the hierarchy they envision; then by comparing Mobad’s relation to violence against that of Toghril Bey in the poem’s paratext; and finally by reflecting on the act of embodiment as the root source of kingship’s failure to realize its own claims. The paper concludes that Vis and Ramin, in a way similar to the Shahnama, does not stop at holding up a “mirror” by which kings may learn right or wrong behavior; it rather critiques the institution itself, showing how the practice of kingship assures its self-destruction.

At the time of his death in 1259, Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ had ruled the city of Mosul for more than forty years. In the course of his remarkable career he rose from mamluk to sultan, taking over the throne of his master’s progeny and establishing his rule in his own name. Artworks from the period of his reign, probably executed under his patronage, feature various royal representations. As such, this body of work constitutes a most important visual documentation of the royal image as conceived by the patron and his artists. Representations of Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ in illuminated manuscripts such as Kitāb al-aghānī and Kitāb al-diryāq contain visual features that bear royal significance and transmit the message of hierarchy and sovereignty. Other features proclaim divine kingship and present the ruler as the axis mundi, joining heaven and earth. The association of Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ's representation with heaven’s grace, as well as with dynastic continuity, just rule, and salvation and redemption, bestows legitimacy on his ruling status. The core of this paper is the message conveyed by these artworks, and the visual means of its delivery. It examines these images in light of their visual origins from east and west. This examination helps our understanding how the medieval Islamic ruler was presented by visual means, and our picturing the royal iconography of the time.