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'The Glory of the Sultans' lives on
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Often lost in the Western perception of Islam is an awareness of and respect for its long and rich history as a predominant and positive cultural force across thousands of miles and many, varied societies.
In particular, its devotion to stylish and complex architectural design is thoroughly explored and documented in "The Glory of the Sultans: Islamic Architecture in India," a work of serious academic depth that, through clear text and sublime photography, is also accessible to the average reader.
The period covered by the book ranges from 1100 to 1800 AD, told through a chronological account and the contemporary photos and illustrated floor plans of the structures. The starting date is not an accident: It was in the 12th Century that Islam came to India, leading to the great Mughal Empire. And by the 1800s, Britain had come to dominate the land.
Turkish, Islamic and Persian design principles are some of the styles that blended to create some of the many magnificent structures to be found in India; among the hundreds of building here are the Taj Mahal, the mosque of Shah Hamadan in Srinagar, Kashmir, and the necropolis of the Bahmanids of Bidar.
And while the book focuses on India, there are occasional looks at architecture found on the Indian subcontinent, including the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan.
India was once the center of a big and powerful empire; it remains today the country with a huge Muslim population, second only to Indonesia, able to preserve some structures in forms close to original while others are just this side of ruins.
Artists, professors, architects and others will find this volume an essential work of information; others will delight in the exquisite and elegant book is a work of beauty to be enjoyed for its ornate and colorful contents.
Author Yves Porter is a professor of Iranian studies at the University of Aix-en-Provence, in France; photographer Gérard Degeorges is an architect and professor.
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