\paperw4260 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \pard\tx720\tx1440\tx2160\tx2880\tx3600\tx4320\tx4896\tx5616\tx6336\tx7056\tx11376\ATXts240\ATXbrdr0 \f1 \fs24 The evolution of Islamic ar
chitecture kept pace with the cultural and social development of the peoples of the East, starting out with modest and simple structures and achieving perfection in works of a grandiose scale. One of the earliest \b \cf1 \ATXht29 mosques\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0
was the ô\b \cf2 \ATXht10804 Haram\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 es Sherif,ö or Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest city. It was built between 669 and 692 on the orders of \b \cf2 \ATXht10301 Caliph\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 \b \cf2 \ATXht10102 Abd\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 \b \cf2 \ATXht10104 al\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 -Malik. His example was followed by the Umayyad Al-Walid, who promoted the construction of the Great Mosque in Damascus and numerous palaces and fortresses in Palestine, Syria, and Jordan, richly adorned with
sculptures and mosaics. The Abbasids were responsible for the marvelous structure of the \b \cf2 \ATXht11311 mosque\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and spiral \b \cf2 \ATXht11309 minaret\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 in Samarra, for the ôal-Malæwiyyaö in Iraq, and for the creation,
in the ninth century, of the great schools of Baghdad. The mosques of Ibn Thulun and Al Aqmar were built in Cairo. The Middle Ages saw the construction of the impenetrable citadel of Aleppo in Syria, while numerous mausoleums were erected at the far edg
e of the Islamic world, in Bukhara and Samarkand. The Safavid era, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries, is rightly seen as the ôRenaissance of the East,ö which took concrete form in the construction of splendid palaces and mosques and in an unc
onventional approach to the design of urban space. In the Mogul empire, the Hindu tradition was blended with the architectural ideas of Islam, creating an absolutely original style.\par
