Timurid architecture in Khurasan

Abstract

In recent decades a considerable number of medieval monuments have come to light in Iran and Afghanistan. With the increasing amount of material known it is becoming possible to write regional histories of Iranian architecture, or to study in depth the monuments of one region in a particular period.

Such is the approach here, with the focus on Khurasan in the Timurid period. The historical period is a clearly defined one, being virtually co-extensive with the ninth/fifteenth century, while in this period the medieval province of Khurasan was the hub of the Timurid empire.

The core of the thesis is a catalogue of all known extant monuments built in Khurasan in the reigns of. the successors of TImur. Only one of these monuments has been the subject of a scholarly monograph, while several are hitherto completely unpublished. Information is given in the catalogue on such features as historical background, methods of construction, chronology (if' more than one building period is involved), decoration," epigraphy and function. This is supplemented by line drawings of plans and elevations, where necessary from measurements made in situ, and by several hundred photographs, selected from a cast of thousands.

In the first volume the monuments are placed in their historical and social context, relying not only on evidence from the buildings in the catalogue, but also on information on no longer extant structures which are mentioned in contemporary texts.

While the range of buildings was no greater than it had been in previous centuries,there is a new emphasis within this range. In terms of secular buildings, gardens with their attendant pavilions assume a new importance in the urban development of Herat, the capital city. Secular mausoleums are conspicuously absent from the list, their place being taken by funerary madrasas.. The latter were often combined with khanqahs, in a rapprochement of the ulama. and Sufis unusual in Islam. An unusually wide range of buildings for Sufis, frequently funerary, also characterises the period.

There are still many problems to be solved with regard to construction methods. Although a certain amount of information can be deduced from the monuments themselves, in general the texts yield few clues on this matter. It seems likely that. preliminary plans were drawn on paper, sometimes to quite a high degree of sophistication, frequently based on an underlying geometric rationale. Only one architect of the period, Qavam al-Din ShIrazi, was famous enough to warrant mention in contemporary texts, although the increasing frequency With which craftsmen's signatures are found on buildings bespeaks the growing reputation of architectural crafts.

The technique of vaulting interiors underwent a radical transformation. Particularly important was the development of transverse vaulting with a new system of intersecting ribs which blurred the former clear-cut distinction between cube, zone of transition and dome.

The architecture of the period has a greater variety of types of decoration than was formerly acknowledged, with brick, stone and stucco counterpointing the better-known examples of coloured tilework. The examples of the latter, ,however, are justifiably famous for their range and brilliancy.

The patrons of architecture in this period belonged mostly to well-defined sections of society, including the Sultan and his family, . the elite members of the governmental bureaucracy, the leading ulama. and Sufis of all shades whether, like Abd al-Rahman Jami, themselves patronised by the government, or of a humbler variety. The close links between the Sultans, the ulama and Sufis had concomitant effects on the number and types of religious buildings erected.

Viewed as a whole, the period is seen as one which brought radical and lasting changes to the style of architecture in Iran. Once the mantle of colour in architecture had been assumed, there was no casting it off - especially when later ages had before them the exemplars of the Timurid buildings of Khurasan, arguably the finest examples ever produced of the use of colour in architecture.