ISLAMIC CITIES IN THE CLASSICAL AGE
a symposium sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT (AKPIA@MIT)

 

 

 

 

MAY 6, 2005
2:00 - 6:00

MAY 7, 2005
10:00 - 12:30 & 2:00 - 5:30

MIT room 6-120
(MIT map & directions to room)

Event is free and open to the public

 

 

 

 

"Islamic Cities in the Classical Age," is a symposium organized by Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture at MIT and scheduled for May 6-7 2005.   The symposium will bring together leading historians, archaeologists, art and architectural historians of late Antiquity and Early Islam to assess the current state of our knowledge on the context of urbanism in that transitional period.   The focus will be on the urban development and cultural climate of the nascent Islamic world from the eve of the Islamic conquests through the early Abbasid period (7-10 century).

 

Bios and Abstracts

Poster
 
 

PROGRAM

FRIDAY, MAY 6


2:00

Nasser Rabbat
Introduction

2:15

First Session

Mohammad al-Asad
Moderator

2:30

Irfan Shahid
Georgetown University
The Arab Background, Islamic and Pre-Islamic, of Umayyad Urbanism in Bilad al-Sham

Annabel Wharton
Duke University
Classical Jerusalem and Its Post Classical Apparition

3:30

Break

3:45

Hugh Kennedy
University of St. Andrew
From Shahristan to Medina

Frank Trombley
Cardiff University
Towns and their Territories in Egypt and Syria: An Interregional Comparison

4:45

Discussion

 

SATURDAY, MAY 7

Second Session

10:00

Lara Tohme
Moderator

10:15

Claus-Peter Haase
Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin
Early Islamic Urban Foundations in the Light of Archaeological Evidence
from Madinat al-Far/Hisn Maslama in Northern Syria

Donald Whitcomb
The University of Chicago
Archaeology in "The Places where Men Pray Together"

11:15

Break

11:30

Alan G. Walmsley
University of Copenhagen
Mosques-Money-Memory.
The Placement of Mosques and Their Impact on Towns in Early Islamic Bilad al-Sham

12:00

Discussion

12:30

Lunch

2:00

Third Session

Nasser Rabbat
Moderator

2:15

Stefan Heidemann
Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet, Jena
Shaping an Imperial Metropolis: Al-Raqqa - Al-Rafiqa

Marcus Milwright
The University of Victoria
Industrial Zones and the Urban Space in the Early Abbasid Period:
The Case of Raqqa, Syria

3:15

Break

3:30

Alastair Northedge
Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne)
‘Askar al-Mu‘tasim: An Analysis of the Central City of Samarra

4:00

Discussion

4:30

Break

4:45

General Discussion and Concluding Remarks