Stories of long ago.
Festschrift für Michael D. Roaf
Herausgegeben von
Heather Baker, Kai Kaniuth
und Adelheid Otto
Zeichnung: Cornelie Wolff
Preface
Heather D. Baker / Kai Kaniuth / Adelheid Otto
To present this Festschrift as a tribute to Michael Roaf, someone who has often fulminated
openly about the proliferation of the genre, is not something we undertake
lightly. In searching for inspiration for this Preface one turns ‒ where else? ‒ to
Wikipedia. There one reads: “Die Herausgabe von Festschriften ist freilich nicht
unumstritten”.1
Indeed. Even worse: „a Festschrift frequently enough also serves as
a convenient place in which those who are invited to contribute find a permanent resting
place for their otherwise unpublishable or at least difficult-to-publish papers“.2
And that’s without even mentioning the “graveyards of scholarship”! We have done
our best to navigate the pitfalls, knowing full well that whatever we do it will irritate
the honorand but will perhaps thereby afford him some little pleasure. In any case,
it is a testimony to Michael’s breadth of scholarship, and to his incisive critical perspective,
that so many friends, colleagues and students past and present were willing
to risk such an exposure and to offer their contributions to this collection of essays
presented on the occasion of his retirement from the Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie
of Munich University. We hope that the contents reflect in some small way
Michael’s varied interests which have encompassed mathematics (the subject of his
first degree) as well as the archaeology, art, architecture and history of the Ancient
Near East, especially Mesopotamia and Iran, ranging in time from the Ubaid period
through to the Achaemenid. On behalf of all involved, we thank him for enriching
our lives as scholars and we wish him a happy and productive retirement.
This volume could not have been completed without the invaluable assistance
of F. Grops, K. Zartner, M. Neumann and F. Sachs, who took care of preparing the
text for printing. We thank M. Dietrich for accepting the volume for the series Alter
Orient und Altes Testament and K. Metzler for his assistance in the editing process.
1	 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festschrift, accessed 9 April 2012.
2	 The neuroscientist Endel Tulving, as cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festschrift, accessed
9 April 2012.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Preface....................................................................................................................vii
Inhaltsverzeichnis...................................................................................................ix
Schriftenverzeichnis von Michael D. Roaf............................................................xiii
Alexander Ahrens
“From a Country Far, Far Away…”. Remarks on the Middle Bronze Age
Scarabs from Tomb Ass. 12949 at Qal‘at Šerqat / Assur.......................................1
Warwick Ball
The End of Tepe Nūshījān......................................................................................11
Peter V. Bartl
The ‘Assyrian Venus’ on the Bas-Reliefs of Aššurnasirpal II –
an ‘Indecent Posture’ or ‘Assyrian Purity of Taste and Feeling’?.........................25
Felix Blocher
Zum Zweck der Bastion Warad-Sins in Ur............................................................45
Petr Charvát
Fortitudo, justitia, prudentia, temperantia:
The Sign NITA/UŠ in Proto-Cuneiform Writing..................................................57
Reinhard Dittmann
Multiple Sealed Hollow Balls. A fresh look at the Uruk System
almost Thirty Years later........................................................................................69
Berthold Einwag und Adelheid Otto
Die Torlöwen an Tempel 1 von Tall Bazi und ihre Stellung in der Reihe
steinerner Löwenorthostaten..................................................................................91
Frederick Mario Fales
The Eighth-Century Governors of Kalhu: a Reappraisal in Context....................117
Christoph Fink
Gewichte oder bloße Kiesel?
Untersuchungen zu Eisenoxidgesteinen aus Tall Bazi, Syrien..............................141
x Inhaltsverzeichnis
Kristina A. Franke
Die zoomorphen Darstellungen auf den Stelen von Hakkâri –
ein Deutungsversuch .............................................................................................161
Martin Gruber
KA2 GIBIL – ein altbabylonischer Hausteilungsplan?..........................................177
Ursula Hellwag
Die Symbole auf den Siegeln des urartäischen Königs Rusa,
Sohn des Argišti eine urartäische Bilderschrift?...................................................207
Michael Herles
Zur Darstellung der Wildschweinjagd im Alten Orient.........................................219
Georgina Herrmann
Some Phoenician Furniture Pieces ........................................................................241
Marion-Isabell Hoffmann
„… I wished several times that the Sasanians had never been born.“
Großbritannien und die Entdeckung der sasanidischen Architektur
von 1800 bis 1914....................................................................................................249
Kai Kaniuth
Another Scot in the East. Robert Wilson on his Way to Persepolis......................263
Stephan Kroll
On the Road(s) to Nowhere: A Re-Analysis of the Hasanlu
“Tripartite Road System” in Light of the Excavated Evidence..............................277
Anna Kurmangaliev
Darstellung des Sonnenuntergangs........................................................................285
Marc Lebeau
Dating the Destructions of Ebla, Mari and Nagar from Radiocarbon
with References to Egypt, Combined with Stratigraphy and Historical Data.......301
Steven Lundström
The Hunt is on Again! Tiglath-pileser I’s and Aššur-bel-kala’s
nāḫirū-Sculptures in Assur....................................................................................323
John MacGinnis
On the Road to the Rent Farm: Outsourcing the Working of Bow-Land
in the Reign of Darius I..........................................................................................339
xiInhaltsverzeichnis
Jared L. Miller
The Location of Niḫriya and its Disassociation from Naʾiri.................................349
Barbara Muhle und Jürgen Schreiber
Ein römisches Schwert aus dem Gräberfeld von ‘Umm al-Mā’, Qatar.................373
Mirko Novák
The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic
City Planning..........................................................................................................385
Astrid Nunn
Wider das Vergessen. Ausbesserungen an Objekten in Mesopotamien................405
Birgül Ögüt
Eine Sturmgott-Stele aus Aydınkaya / Gaziantep..................................................425
Christian K. Piller
Neue Erkenntnisse zur Verbreitung der Kura-Araxes-Kultur in
Nord- und Zentraliran.............................................................................................441
Daniel T. Potts
A ‘Scythian’ Pick from Vaske (Gilan) and the Identity of
the XVIIth Delegation at Persepolis.......................................................................459
Karen Radner
After Eltekeh: Royal Hostages from Egypt at the Assyrian Court .......................471
Shahrokh Razmjou
Left Unfinished: The ‘Unfinished Gate’ of Persepolis as Key Evidence
for Architectural and Construction Procedure at Persepolis.................................481
Robert Rollinger und Josef Wiesehöfer
Kaiser Valerian und Ilu-bi’di von Hamat. Über das Schicksal
besiegter Feinde, persische Grausamkeit und die Persistenz
altorientalischer Traditionen...................................................................................497
Elisa Roßberger
Just a White Elephant? Eine goldbeschlagene Stoßzahnflasche
aus der Königsgruft von Qaṭna..............................................................................517
Frances Sachs
Die Gefäßzeichen aus der Weststadt von Tall Bazi (Syrien).................................543
xii Inhaltsverzeichnis
Walther Sallaberger und Katharina Schmidt
Insignien des Königs oder Insignien des Gottes? Ein neuer Blick auf
die kultische Königskrönung beim babylonischen Neujahrsfest...........................567
Andreas Schachner
Assyriens Herrschaft im Norden –
Eine Stele aus İdil im südöstlichen Tur Abdin.......................................................595
Ursula Seidl
Ein reliefierter Bronzebecher aus West-Iran..........................................................615
Alexander Sollee
Zur Verteilung und Verbreitung der Lochbodengefäße im
syro-mesopotamischen Kulturraum.......................................................................625
Katja Sternitzke
Spatel, Sonde und Skalpell.
Medizinische Instrumente im Archäologischen Befund.......................................649
David Stronach
The Territorial Limits of Ancient Media: an Architectural Perspective ..............667
Dirk Wicke
Eisenzeitliche Quarzkeramikobjekte aus Nordsyrien –
nicht nur zum Stempeln und Rollen ......................................................................685
Paul Zimansky
Imagining Haldi......................................................................................................713
Index	.......................................................................................................................725
The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of
Early Islamic City Planning
Mirko Novák
Preface
Early Islamic material culture was strongly influenced by the art and architecture
of the Ancient civilisations; many elements were adapted, as is visible in iconography,
style and typology. Modern scholars often focus on the role of Byzantine
and Sāsānian traditions (Ettinghausen 1972; Grabar 1977, 277–279 passim; SourdelThomine
/ Spuler 1990, 84–88; Schippmann 1993: 131–132; Bier 1993). It is also
well known that these Late Antique civilisations emerged from a long process of
adaptation and transformation of the preceding cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia
and Iran on the one hand as well as those of Greece and the Roman Empire on the
other (Knauth / Nadjmabadi 1975; Fauth 1979; Frye 1983; Ahn 1992; Rashad 1996).
Considering these influences, it is surprising that relatively few studies have tried to
analyse the Ancient Mesopotamian and Iranian influences in Early Islamic art and
architecture.1
Since even the material basis of Islamic culture in Ancient Mesopotamian civilisation
is often neglected it is no surprise that also its intellectual, ideological
and political roots in pre-Hellenistic societies have been nearly completely ignored.
Almost no connection is sought between political concepts of Ancient Near Eastern
and Islamic states, and no attempt has been undertaken to compare the similar ways
in which ideological messages were presented in art and architecture.
To cite two examples: The themes of the “royal hunt” and the “garden scene” in art
and literature are well attested as far back as the Early Sumerian Period (2nd half of
the 4th Millennium BC). They expressed two of the main duties of the king by stressing
the pastoral and the agricultural roots of this civilisation. The creation of huge
gardens with botanical sections, landscape parks and hunting areas, the “artificial paradise”,
by Mesopotamian rulers stood in a close relation to these ideological concepts
1	 The lack of comparative studies in the transmission of elements of material culture may
be mainly a result of the strict distinction between (ancient) Near Eastern and Islamic
Archaeology in modern universities. Another reason is surely the Islamic claim that the
Muslim community has created a completely new society and civilisation without influence
from older cultures – a claim, which has been accepted by many modern scholars.
386 Mirko Novák
(Novák 2002). The hunting and garden scenes as topics in visual art as well as the
architecture of the paradise gardens were both adapted by nearly all Near Eastern
civilisations until modern times; nevertheless, their semiotic messages throughout
the periods were never considered to be coherent features in a continuing tradition
(Elsen-Novák / Novák 2005).
The second example is the physical layout of the Madīnat as-Salām in Baġdād. It
has been often stressed that it was a copy of many Sāsānian cities like Veh-Ardaḫšīr
or Ardaḫšīr-Ḫurre (Creswell 1989; Meinecke 1996b, 144f.; Wirth 1997). The ideological
concept of the “circular city” as a symbol of Islamic power and the axis mundi
is generally accepted (Grabar 1977, 75). It should be reasonable to discuss if not only
the idea of a circular city but also its ideological background, and the concept of city
planning as expression of ideology, go back to Ancient Near Eastern times. Programmatic
city planning was, after all, well developed by the time of the Assyrian Empire.
In the following paper, which is dedicated to Michael Roaf, a scholar of impressively
broad interests and competences, I will focus on Early Islamic city planning
which helps to demonstrate how the political concepts changed in the first two Islamic
centuries and how this change was expressed in the material culture. Since many
of the ideas and elements were the result of a long development beginning with the
Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires, I will start with a brief overview of the
Mesopotamian and the later Persian kingship ideologies and city planning principles.
Following that, the change of the Caliphate ideology as reflected in some special
architectonic features will be sketched.
Prelude: Ideological city planning in ancient Mesopotamia
Kingship ideologies in the ancient Near East
The predominant principle of Babylonian kingship ideology from the end of the 3rd
millennium BC onwards was the “able ruler” (Edzard 1972–75, Lambert 1974, Röllig
1981, Maul 1995, Maul 1999, Cancik-Kirschbaum 1995, Franke 1995, Selz 1998 and
Pongratz-Leisten 1994). This signifies that the king, in theory, was qualified primarily
by his particular capabilities, his personal charisma, more than by genealogy, to
fulfil his God-given mandate to rule. Of course, ideology and reality were generally
distinctive. Babylonian kingship was never based on a real “meritocracy”.
The king’s two pre-eminent duties were, first, to ensure a successful harvest –
mostly by taking care of the important irrigation channels – and, second, to protect
the herds of domesticated animals against wild beasts and enemies. As a result, the
archetype of the “royal gardener and hunter” was developed in literature and art
(Fauth 1979; Galter 1989). Furthermore, the king was responsible for building activities,
especially of “public” buildings such as temples, palaces and defensive walls as
well as the renovation of cities themselves (Lackenbacher 1982). He had to guarantee
the social order as well as the security of the community against foreign enemies.
387The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
Most of the duties of the Assyrian king were comparable to those of his Babylonian
counterpart. The traditional archetype of the “royal gardener and hunter”, for example,
was adapted in literature and art. Based on his role as iššiakkum “governor” and sangu
“high priest” of the god Aššur, the ruler of Assyria became a kind of “priest-king” of an
extended empire. He supervised the property of the national god, who was considered
the “true king” of the city and the nation. Furthermore, he was the interlocutor between
humans and gods. In contrast to the Babylonian ruler, he unified the spiritual and secular
power. In addition, the god Aššur obliged him to wage war against all enemies of
the god, city and state of Aššur, causing war to become an instrument of legitimation.
The Iranian concept of kingship as held by the Achaemenids, Parthians and
Sāsānians show some striking similarities to the Assyrian one (Knauth / Nadjmabadi
1975; Fauth 1979; Ahn 1992; Wiesehöfer 1993). It was focused on the figure of the “charismatic
king” as the earthly representative of the main god Ahuramazdā / Ohrmuzd,
and the archetype of the “royal gardener and hunter” was adapted in visual art and
literature.
In spite of the many differences in the various kingship ideologies of Mesopotamia,
some striking similarities can be seen. A few aspects may have passed from
dynasty to dynasty as a symbolic act of tradition and continuity; others were taken
over unconsciously, and prove thereby their vivid and fundamental reality in
Mesopotamian or Near Eastern consciousness. The idea of the “royal gardener and
hunter”, for example, ultimately refers to the agricultural and pastoral origins of Mesopotamian
society. Even if its adaptation by Iranian and – later – by Islamic leaders
was a conscious procedure as part of their ideological programmes, the mythological
and historical background was surely no longer understood. The “charisma” of the
ruler, emphasising his special relationship to the god, is one of the most persistent
features of Near Eastern kingship ideologies up until modern times.
The semiotic programme of royal cities in the ancient Near East
One of the means of expressing the legitimacy of the king was the renovation and
re-creation of the major cities of his kingdom or parts of them. In special periods the
foundation of new capitals or residential cities was used as an act of demonstration
of power.
Seen from semiotic methodology, “culture” is a kind of communication, and each
phenomenon of it – including art and architecture – is a “system of signs” which is
intended to transmit a message. This means that ideology – as a political message –
could also have been expressed throughout the shape and the structure of a new founded
city. The sender of the message is the ruling political system and the architect is
the medium that creates the “language”. The receivers of the message are, on the one
hand, the gods (or the one God in the case of Christianity or Islam), before whom the
king had to justify himself, and, on the other hand, the human dependants who would
thereby recognise the legitimate reign of the king. A psychological means of transmission
is to be seen here: through the common perception of the urban milieu in
388 Mirko Novák
daily life, the inhabitants or visitors of a city reflect the design of its structure. Special
axes, presented by the alignment of the streets, and important buildings symbolise
the cosmological order. Significant urban elements are either emphasised or hidden,
due to the underlying concept and ideological programme.
In the Ancient Near East several layouts of cities were created based on special
ideological concepts. In addition to those with irregular shapes, settlements with
rectangular or circular forms were constructed. The literary sources suggest that
appropriate city forms were chosen according to pre-existing images concerning the
spatial structure of the universe. This was the case in all societies that defined their
capitals as an axis mundi. In pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia rectangular shapes were
preferred, in Iran at least in some cases circular ones. The model of rectangular citylayouts
was the image of the kibrāt erbettim “four corners of the world” (Maul 1997,
124) whereas the ones of the circular cities were the “Kašvar-circle” (Brentjes 1981)
and the Mandala.
The Assyrian kings in the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods were very active in
shifting the political centre – the “horizontal axis” (Maul 1997) of the empire into
newly founded capitals. Meanwhile, the city of Aššur, the old core of the empire, with
the main temple of the national god Aššur remained the cultic centre – the “vertical
axis”.
The Assyrian residential city, the āl šarrūti “city of kingship”, had a rectangular
shape and was surrounded by huge artificial “paradise-gardens” with the idea of
representing all the zoological and botanical species in the universe. A citadel at its
periphery, where the royal palaces as well as the main temples were situated, dominated
the city. The distance between the dwelling quarters of the common people in
the lower town and the public buildings above stressed the nearly supernatural position
of the king. He, as the main priest and representative of the god Aššur and the šar
kibrāt erbettim “king of the four quarters (of the world)”, lived in his ekallu “palace”
high above the city itself, close to the bītū‚ “houses” of the gods. The palace was the
šubat šarrūti “seat of kingship” built ana tabrāt kiššat nišī “for the astonishment of
all peoples” (Winter 1993). The public buildings were visible from outside as well
as inside the city, so that everybody could appreciate the political and ideological
message: the palace dominated the city on one side, representing the king’s power
over the citizens; on the other side it overlooked the “paradise” gardens, reflecting
the king’s right to the entire universe. The city was a symbol of the charismatic king,
the creator of the city and of the artificial paradise gardens. It was the horizontal axis
and the seat of terrestrial political power.
In Babylonia the concept of founding a residential city was not a predominant preoccupation
of the king – with the exception of Agade built in the late 3rd Millennium and
Dūr-Kurigalzu built in the middle of the 2nd. Instead, Babylon as the “vertical and
horizontal axis” (Maul 1997) of the world, the “bond of lands” (George 1997), was
inherited by the Late Babylonian kings as a way to represent the God-given world
order (Novák 1999, 388–391).
389The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
Babylon in its Late Babylonian structure (6th century BC) demonstrated a synthesis
between traditional Babylonian and adopted Assyrian building principles. In
accordance with the Babylonian concept of the “temple city”, the main temple of the
city-god Marduk lay at the centre of the capital. The main axis of the street system
connected the gates with the central temple, which was thus located at the main
junction. The shape of the city was rectangular, and, as the axis mundi, symbolised
the world with its “four corners”. The “navel of the world” on its vertical and horizontal
axis – the temple of the city and national god Marduk – dominated the city
and therefore the whole universe. Each inhabitant or visitor to Babylon could see this
architectural agenda from either the outside or the
inside. The temple Esangil and the ziggurrat Etemenanki
were visible from all main streets of the
city and served in daily life as the most important
points of orientation within the city. The Assyrian
influence led to the creation of a “paradise garden”
– the so-called “Hanging Gardens” (Bichler /
Rollinger 2002) – and to an artificial citadel on the
periphery, where the palaces were situated. This
citadel gave the city for the first time in Babylonia
a bipolar structure with two prominent landmarks.
This symbolised the Babylonian ideology of twin
powers: god and king.
During the Parthian period the principle of the
“circular city” with a central palace or temple was
created and spread over Iran and Mesopotamia.
The Sāsānians adopted it and surrounded their
cities with huge extramural “paradise gardens” in
the Assyrian and Achaemenid tradition (Fig. 1).
Four streets connecting four gates, with the public
buildings in the centre, created four equal segments,
the four quarters of the world. The palace
at the centre emphasised the position of the charismatic
king.
The Iranian dynasties, then, stood in the tradition of Mesopotamian empires with
the “charismatic ruler” in the kingship ideology and also in the programmatic creation
of new cities in order to express a political concept.
The artificial Paradise
An urban and architectural element of visualisation of kingship ideology was the royal
garden, the “artificial paradise” (Novák 2002). The Assyrian kings were the first to
create huge “universal gardens” that consisted of botanical areas, landscape parks
and “zoos” (Wisemann 1983). Those tripartite gardens lay outside the cities close
Fig. 1: The Sāsānian residential
city of Ardaḫšīr-Ḫurre, built by
king Ardaḫšīr I. (211–240 AD)
in the Fars region (drawing by
Gabi Elsen-Novák)
390 Mirko Novák
to the palaces so that visual contact was possible (Novák 1997: 186–188). Plants and
animals from all known countries were kept inside to illustrate the world dominance
of the Assyrian king and the fertility of the lands he ruled. This was a reflection of the
cities themselves, which were populated by people of all conquered countries. The
“paradise gardens” formed the scenery of the ceremonial royal hunt of wild animals.
Inside the gardens small palaces, the so-called bītānu, were erected “for the leisure of
the majesty”. Open-columned halls in the tradition of the Syrian ḫilāni formed their
entrances. As the inscriptions reveal, wall paintings or orthostat reliefs decorated
them inside. The gardens served to symbolise aspects of the “royal gardener and hunter”:
the botanical section stressed the function as gardener, the hunting areas the one
of the protector of the herds and killer of the wild beasts. The universal character of
the paradises emphasised the claim of the Assyrian king to rule the whole world – to
be the šar kibrāt erbettim “king of the four quarters of the world”.
Fig. 2: The paradise garden and the apadana palaces in Pasargadae, the residential
city of the Achaemenid king Cyros II. (559–530 BC); (from Kawami 1992, 89, Fig. 31)
The kings of the Achaemenid dynasty followed the Assyrian example. Huge paradises,
now named with that Persian-Avestic term paeridaēza “enclosure”, surrounded
the palaces in Pasargadae (Fig. 2), the first capital (Stronach 1990; Kawami 1992;
Tuplin 1996: 88 passim). As known from literary sources, both botanical gardens and
landscape parks with wild animals were part of it (Fauth 1979: 3; Tuplin 1996: 92).
391The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
The botanical section was formed as the symmetrical čahar bagh “four gardens”,
divided into four equal quarters. The developed system of the covered qanawāt supplied
the gardens with water.
With the “artificial paradise” also the ideological concept of the “royal gardener
and hunter” was adapted by the Achaemenid rulers (Fauth 1979). This concept of
ideal kingship fitted very well with the Iranian one (Ahn 1992; Knauth / Nadjmabadi
1975).
The principle of the čahar bagh, which symbolised the four quarters of the world,
was taken over by the Parthians and Sāsānians and, finally, by the ‘Abbāsids. Well
known examples of Sāsānian paradise gardens are Tāq-i Bustān, Bisotūn (Kleiss
1996: 110–113) and Qaṣr-i Šīrīn (Fig. 3; Stronach 1990: 177; Novák 1996: 359). Even
the famous Tāq-i Kisrā in Ktesiphon was located inside a huge garden area. In visual
art, a lot of scenes taking place in the royal gardens were produced, all of them showing
the Assyrian tradition.
Throughout the periods from the Assyrian kingdom until the early ‘Abbāsid Caliphate
“artificial paradises” were part of programmatic city building activities in
the Near East. The paradise gardens are one of the best examples of an architectonic
element showing a tradition carried from Ancient Near East to Islamic times not only
as a physical but also as an ideological feature.
Fig. 3: The Sāsānian garden palace Imaret-i Ḫosrau near Qaṣr-i Šīrīn,
built by king Ḫosrau II (590–628 AD) in the centre of a “paradise garden”
(from Kleiss 1989, Fig. 31b)
392 Mirko Novák
The Development of Caliphate Ideology
In the time of the immediate followers (Ḫalīfatu “Caliph”) of the prophet Muhammad,
the idea of the “caliphate” was developed (Hartmann 1987, 100–104 passim). It was
based on the concept that the best Muslim of the umma “community” should be its
imām (religious) “leader”. A true “kingship” on the dynastic principle should be avoided.
The caliph should be a male and healthy member of the tribe of the Quraiš. The
choice of a new caliph should follow the examples of procedure at the declaration of
the first three caliphs: Abū Bakr was proclaimed spontaneously by the leading members
of the community, ‘Umar was appointed by his dying predecessor and ‘Uṯmān
was elected by a council, the so-called šūra. Nevertheless already the fourth Caliph
‘Alī declared himself the imām in a kind of usurpation.
The fifth Caliph Mu’awiya, from the house of the ‘Umayyads, founded the first Islamic
dynasty, which started to take over several traditional aspects of ancient Near Eastern
kingship. After some time, the dynastic principle became dominant in the ruling
system of the families of the ‘Umayyads and ‘Abbāsids as well as in the most important
Islamic opposition, the family of the ‘Alīds that was supported by the Šī‘a (Halm 1988).
During the reign of the first caliphs, the imām, the leader of the Islamic community,
was a muǧtahid and responsible for the correct interpretation of the religious orders.
After the “gate of the iǧtihād” was closed, he was subordinated to the iǧmā‘, the “consensus”
of the fuqahā’ (sg. faqīh “scholar”) and the ‘ulamā’ (sg. ‘ālim “scientist”). He
had no real religious authority and he could not change any of the Islamic rules (Hourani
1992, 91).
Beside this function, the caliph was the amīr al-mu’minīn, the “commander of the
believers”. He was the political and military defender of the dār as-salām, the Islamic
“world of peace” and ǧihād fighter against the pagan or Christian dār al-ḥarb “world
of war”. His official title was ḫalīfatu rasūl’ Allāh “representative of the prophet of
God”.
During the Islamic “Golden Age” of the late ‘Umayyad and early ‘Abbāsid empire,
the ideology of the Caliphate was fundamentally transformed. Moving towards
the original concept of a human imām religious “leader” or “principal” of the Islamic
community, the caliph became more and more an absolute ruler. Starting with the late
‘Umayyads, the caliphs adapted the court ceremonials of the Byzantine emperor and
the Sāsānian Šāhānšāh. The description of an audience of Byzantine ambassadors at
the court of the Caliph al-Muqtadir gives a good impression of the elaborated court ceremonial
(Grabar 1977, 242–244). The aim was to hide the caliph not only from foreign
visitors but even from his own subjects.
Even the title of the caliph suggests this ideological transformation by its new form
ḫalīfatu Allāh “representative of God” instead of ḫalīfatu rasūl’ Allāh “representative
of the prophet of God”. Though just one word of the original title was left out, a fundamental
change was expressed: Like the charismatic king of the Ancient Near East
the Caliph now was the representative of God on earth and the intercessor between
humans and God.
393The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
As an argumentative instrument for the ideological increase of the position of
the Caliph the doctrine of the mu‘tazila was officially supported (Hartmann 1987:
39). The Sunnite mu‘tazila was founded in Baṣra by the two mutakallimūn Abū’lHudail
al-’Allaf and al-Nazzām under the influence of the atavistic religions of Mani
and Mazdak. With the help of logic and dialectic the scholars tried to elaborate the
dogmatic discussion (kalām). One of the principles was the Qadarīya, the freedom of
human to decide between good and evil without divine predestination. Furthermore,
the imām as a real religious authority should be prior to the iǧmā‘ of the scholars.
This last point was the reason why the mu‘tazila became so popular with some of
the ‘Abbāsid Caliphs: With the help of this doctrine their position as imām was increased
as the highest religious authority, almost reaching that of a prophet. The main
supporter of the mu‘tazila was al-Ma’mūn. He founded the Dār al-Ḥikma in Baġdād
and ordered the translation of philosophical treatises from Greek and Latin. His successor
al-Mu‘taṣim, who shifted his political capital into the new residential city of
Sāmarrā’ (Novák 1995), and after him al-Wāṯiq continued supporting the mu‘tazila
as official doctrine of the Islamic state. The famous qāḍī al-quḍāt Ibn Abū Dā’ūd was
one of the main representatives of the miḥna, a kind of inquisition of the mu‘tazila.
At last, the pressure of orthodox Muslims led by Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal forced the
Caliph al-Mutawakkil to return to traditional Sunnite doctrine and to abolish the
mu‘tazila.
Nevertheless, this attempt shows that the ‘Abbāsid Caliphs tried to increase their
position in the ideological concept of the Islamic state. Even if the attempts of the
‘Abbāsid Caliphs to attain a greater religious power failed – the main authorities
remained the Qur’an and the Sunna of the prophet Muhammad – the Caliph continued
claiming to be the “Representative of God” on earth. As such, his duty was to
guarantee the order of Islam.
The original idea of the imam:
the development of the early Islamic city
The house of the prophet in Madīna was the first (unofficial) centre of the newly founded
community (Grabar 1977, 109). During the reign of the first three Caliphs Madīna
remained both political centre and the house of the prophet the main congregation
mosque (Sourdel-Thomine / Spuler 1990, 139).
Meanwhile the power of the Islamic state grew and the fertile regions of the Near
East came under its control. The first urban foundations of Muslims were military
camps, the so-called amṣār on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile (Al-Sayyad
1991, 43). They served as seats of the regional governments for the invaded areas. By
building new centres, the nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes of the Arabs avoided the
existing capitals like Ktesiphon (called al-Madā’in “the cities” by the Arabs), Damascus
or Alexandria. The most prominent examples of military camps were al-Kūfa
(Djait 1986) near the ancient city of Babylon, Baṣra at the shore of the Persian Gulf
and Fuṣṭāt, the core of later Cairo in Egypt.
394 Mirko Novák
The inner structure of al-Kūfa, as a representative model of these camps, was dominated
by a strict segregation between the various Arab tribes that settled inside the
camp (Fig. 4; Al-Sayyad 1991, 55). Each tribe inhabited one of the ḫiǧāǧ “quarters”,
separated by 15 manāhiǧ “alleys” and a number of zuqāq “lanes”. A large square in
the centre of the town, named as-Sahah or ar-Raḥba, was used as congregation area
and market. It enclosed the great mosque and the adjacent governor’s palace, the Dār
al-’Imāra “House of Rule” (Creswell 1989, 9; al-Jannabi 1983, 220). The founder and
first governor of al-Kūfa, Sa‘d ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, built the Bait al-Māl, in which the
treasury of the community was deposed, inside the mosque so that it could easily be
guarded by all Muslims of the town.
Fig. 4: The Early Islamic military camp of al-Kūfa (from Al-Sayyad 1991, 61, Fig. 3.7)
Irrespective of the religion, all sacral buildings, such as temples, churches or
mosques, were gathering points of the communities. Ceremonies and processions
supported their unity. Sacral buildings normally lay in the centre of the cities and
were visible and accessible to all the inhabitants. Also the mosque of Kūfa was the
most extended and most prominent building of the town while the palace was the second
in size and importance; the two buildings shared a common wall. After a short
period Kūfa was transformed into a real city, like the other military camps. It became
the residence of the fourth Caliph ‘Alī (Djait 1986, 346f.).
395The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
The newly established empire of the ‘Umayyads shifted its political centre to the
old and traditional city of Damascus. The structure of this city was formed during
the previous periods and only slightly changed by the new power. Nevertheless some
of the predominant planning principles of the ‘amsar were repeated: Close to the
dominating main congregation mosque, which was built at the place of the former
cathedral, the palace of the Caliph was erected (Sack 1989; Al-Sayyad 1991, 86). The
spatial organisation between the two buildings was equal to that at al-Kūfa. The markets
surrounded this ensemble. The Bait al-Māl was still placed in the courtyard of
the mosque. As a new visual symbol of caliphate power a Qubbat al-Ḫaḍrā’ “Green
Dome” or “Dome of Heaven” (Bloom 1993) was built above the main hall of the
palace. It became the main feature of the Caliphs’ palaces for nearly two centuries.
A similar dome crowned the palace of Ḥaǧǧāǧ ibn Yūsuf at al-Wāṣit, the ‘Umayyad
administration centre of Irāq (Creswell 1989, 40).
The most striking feature both of the early Islamic foundations and of the first
real capital, Damascus, was the close spatial connection between the main congregation
mosque and the palace, for the palace appeared as an adjunct building to the
mosque. Together they formed an ensemble in the centre of the town, easily reachable
for all inhabitants. This visually demonstrated that the caliph, like the amīr “governor”
in the military camps, was in the first degree the imām of the town who was
responsible for the ḫuṭba, the Friday prayer. The distance between ruler and subjects
was relatively short since the believers had free access to the nearby mosque. The fact
that the Bait al-Māl with the treasury of the community was deposed in the mosque
and not in the palace stressed that the umma was economically superior to the imām.
Nevertheless, with the creation of the “Green Dome” as an outer symbol of caliphal
power, the importance of the Caliph was increased in the physical layout of the
city during the ‘Umayyad rule.
The ambivalent caliphate ideology: Madīnat as-Salām
The first climax of the Islamic “residential city” was early ‘Abbāsid Baġdād, built on
virgin soil shortly after the ‘Abbāsid Revolution (Fig. 5). Even the act of the foundation
of the new political centre was reminiscent of the building programmes of the Assyrians,
Achaemenids and Sāsānians. The inclusion of the toponym into the programme
of the capital was maintained by the name Madīnat as-Salām, the “City of Peace”. It
was modelled on the Qur’an image of the Dār as-Salām, the “House of Peace” (Sura
VI, 127), i.e., the part of the world ruled by Islam. Programmatic toponyms of new
founded cities were already known to the Assyrians and the Sāsānians (Novák 1999,
383–384).
The outer shape and inner structure of the vanished circular city can be reconstructed
on the base of literary descriptions and the comparison with other similar
cities (Lassner 1970; Duri 1986, 894; Creswell 1989, 229–231; Lombard 1991, 136;
Novák 1999, 242–249, Fig. 43.). Sāsānian principles were combined with Early Islamic
ones: The circular layout of the new capital followed the example of Sāsānian
396 Mirko Novák
cities like Ardaḫšīr-Ḫurre in the Fars region and Vēh-Ardaḫšīr near Ktesiphon (Fig.
1; Novák 1997, 192–193 and 1999, 224–225). The city’s four gates, one facing each
wind direction, and four streets represented the four quarters of the world. Like their
Persian forerunners they symbolised the axis mundi, the civilised and – in this case
– Islamised universe (Grabar 1977, 75; Al-Sayyad 1991, 117; Meinecke 1996a, 168
and 1996b, 144.).
Fig. 5: Madīnat as-Salām, the ‘Abbāsid residential city of Baġdād, built by the Caliph
al-Manṣūr (754–775 AD); (drawing by Gabi Elsen-Novák)
In the centre was the palace with the “Green Dome”, the symbol of power, emphasising
the position of the Caliph. The Dār al-Ḫilāfa, the “House of the Caliphate”
carried on the function of the former Dār al-’Imāra in the first Islamic foundations.
Close to it lay the main congregational mosque. While in al-Kūfa the mosque was the
dominating building, the palace of Madīnat as-Salām exceeded the mosque in size
397The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
by far. It seems as if the culminating point of the central arrangement has shifted.
Still, the close connection of palace and main mosque emphasised the function of the
caliph as imām of the umma, the community of Islam.
A vast empty area, the so-called ar-Raḥba, surrounded the mosque and the palace.
In this, the patterns both of the Islamic foundation al-Kūfa and of the Sāsānian
residential cities were visible. Probably the ar-Raḥba was used as a garden area
(Stierlin 1996, 118). The residential quarters were divided into equal sectors. The
inhabitants of the city were drawn from all people living in the Dār as-Salām. In this
way, the city was a microcosm of the Islamic world, just like the quarters of the Arab
tribes in Kūfa were, in a more limited way. While the Islamic community was an
Arabic feature during the first years of the expansion, it now had become a universal
religion connecting many peoples all over the world.
An adapted principle was the extramural paradise close to the river. As descriptions
show, botanical gardens lay besides hunting parks. Palaces were built inside
these vast areas. As mentioned before, such gardens show a tradition, which goes
back to the Assyrian empire. There and in the following Iranian kingdoms, they
symbolised the royal claim of world rule.
The ‘Abbāsid caliphs tried more and more to protect themselves against the frightening
power of the nearly uncontrollable inhabitants of the growing city. The originally
planned intramural markets were settled outside already during the construction
of the city. Later, the inner circle with the palace was fortified (on the change
of the inner structure by transformation of the central space into a “Caliphal Private
Domain” cf. Al-Sayyad 1991, 129, Fig. 5.8.). After a short period the residences of
the caliphs and their families were shifted into the garden palaces. The most prominent
one was the Qaṣr al-Ḫuld, the “Palace of Eternity”. At that point, the Madīnat
as-Salām with the extramural garden palaces became a pure copy of Sāsānian residential
cities.
The Madīnat as-Salām consisted of elements of two planning principles which
became discernible in the architectural combination in the physical layout of the city:
The Islamic one already known from the early military camps, and the Ancient Near
Eastern one adapted from the Sāsānians. The connection of congregation mosque
and palace, the “Green Dome” and the ethno-religious segregation of the inhabitants
stood in the tradition of the early Islamic foundations while the circular layout, the
centralisation of the palace and the vast extramural garden areas with huge garden
palaces show Ancient Near Eastern influences.
As a result, the city symbolised two concurring ideological principles: First, the
Islamic idea of the human imām of the community who was responsible for the ḫutba
and who was accessible to the believers, his subjects. Second, the Ancient Near Eastern
concept of the “charismatic king”, the “representative of God on earth”. Even
the foundation of a new capital with a geometrical shape as the axis mundi stressed
his claim of absolute world rule. In the programme of the extramural paradise gardens
the idea of the “royal hunter and gardener” was still vivid. The name of the
398 Mirko Novák
capital with its religious connotation was part of the legitimisation. Following that,
the Madīnat as-Salām represented an ambivalent Caliphate ideology: on the one side
the human imām, on the other the “charismatic king”.
The “charismatic king”: Surra-man-ra’ā
Many social and political reasons caused the caliphs to shift their residence several
times, e.g. to ar-Raqqa or to Sāmarrā’.2
The well-known layout of the huge military
camp, the ‘askar Surra-man-ra’ā (Northedge 1990) and the architecture of its palaces
show the further development of the caliphate ideology (Fig. 6).
Since the city had no geometrical shape – indeed it had no town wall at all – it
should not be considered to symbolise an axis mundi. Nevertheless the dimensions
of the buildings and the city emphasised the power of the political system with the
Caliph at its head.
The Caliph’s palace was situated in the centre of the city, at the edge of the natural
plateau facing the alluvium of the river (Northedge 1993). The main street ran
alongside this edge. South of the palace it sloped into the valley and crossed the
botanical gardens stretching west of the palace. North of the building the street climbed
up the plateau again and continued its original alignment along the edge of the
plateau.
A visitor to the palace had to walk first downward into the gardens and cross
them. There he had to turn at a right angle. Behind a large water-filled basin a broad
staircase led to the gate of the palace. Here, in or behind the middle līwān, the Caliph
used to give his public audiences sitting high above the ordinary people and facing
the gardens. This stressed the distinct distance of the Caliph and his subjects, which
was also enhanced by the complex court ceremonies.
The architecture of the entire palace clearly showed a strong Sāsānian influence
with open līwāns giving access to the rectangular audience hall covered by a cupola
(Bier 1993, 57; Novák 1996, 362–363). This principle was predominant in nearly all
of the known Sāsānian palaces, such as Qaṣr-i Šīrīn (see Fig. 3; Kleiss 1989).
The gardens inside the building were designed as a double čahar bagh. Although
this was a Persian type of garden it was reminiscent of a Qur’ān description of the
supernatural paradise as a double garden (Sura LV, 62).3
Neighbouring the palace
was a vast area with hunting parks and racecourses. Inside the parks lay palaces
like the one called al-Mušarraḥāt (Northedge 1990, 22f.). The combination of botanical
gardens with geometric shape and landscape parks for the “royal hunt« with
including open garden palaces clearly showed the tradition of Ancient Near Eastern
programmatic paradise gardens.
2	 On the reasons cf. Novák 1995. On the history of Sāmarrā’ cf. Herzfeld 1948.
3	 In the hadīṯ the paradise is described as having consisted of seven or eight parts (Khoury
– Hagemann – Heine 1991, 610f.).
399The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
Fig. 6: The ‘Abbāsid residential city of Surra man ra’ā (from Northedge 1990, 4, Fig. 3)
400 Mirko Novák
The Bait al-Māl with the treasury was situated inside the palace in the part called
Dār al-‘Amma “House of the Publicity” (Northedge 1993, 152). This is clear evidence
that all the economic power of the empire now lay in the hands of the Caliph, as opposed
to ‘Umayyad Damascus where the treasury was deposited in the congregation
mosque. Nevertheless, it was especially this economic power, which eventually made
him a slave of his own military forces (Novák 1995).
Two architectonic features are striking: First, the palaces in Sāmarrā’ were the
first ones without a “Green Dome”, the former symbol of Islamic power. Second, the
close physical connection of palace and mosque was given up. While the original
mosque was situated close to the palace, Caliph al-Mutawakkil gave orders to shift
it away into the vast area of the gardens. For the first time, mosque and palace did
not form an architectural union any more. This suggests that the original concept of
a close relation between the house of the imām and the congregational mosque in
which he held the ḫuṭba was no longer vivid.
Several features, like the complete adaptation of Sāsānian principles of palace
architecture, the erection of the paradise gardens and the control of the economic
sources by the caliph, made him appear to be an absolute monarch, a “charismatic
ruler” in the Ancient Near Eastern tradition.
Conclusion
The physical relation of several architectonic elements of a city indicates the political
and social order of the ruling system. Changes in the layout of cities may help to
understand the development in the ideological concept of a state or empire. Such is
the case with the early Islamic Caliphate. The shift of the caliphate ideology from
the human imām to the absolute monarch and “charismatic ruler” in the tradition of
Ancient Near Eastern kingship is visible in the early Islamic city planning.
The first Muslim foundations, the military camps like al-Kūfa, show a close spatial
connection between the main congregation mosque and the palace. The dominant
part of the ensemble was the mosque in which the Bait al-Māl with the treasury of
the community was deposited. The ensemble in the centre of the town was easily
accessible to all inhabitants. The ruler of the town was the imām who was responsible
for the ḫuṭba, the Friday prayer.
In Damascus, the capital of the first Islamic dynasty, the same layout was chosen.
Although the structure of the city was a result of its long history of occupation,
the position of the congregation mosque and the palace was the same as in al-Kūfa.
While the mosque remained the dominant building of the ensemble in which the Bait
al-Māl was placed, the palace was now more strongly emphasised: The new created
“Green Dome” formed an outer symbol of caliphal power, visible from far away.
With that, the position of the Caliph was increased in the physical layout of the city.
The change of the Ḫalīfatu Rasūl’ Allāh “representative of the prophet of God” to the
Ḫalīfatu Rasūl’ Allāh “representative of God” had already begun.
401The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
After the “‘Abbāsid Revolution” a new capital was built: the Madīnat as-Salām.
Even the act of the foundation of a new residential city as an axis mundi and the
choice of a programmatic toponym, which bore a political and ideological message,
were reminiscent of ancient Near Eastern programs. While some features of the
layout of the city stood in the tradition of the early Islamic military camps, like
the central ensemble with the close connection of mosque and palace, the city itself
looked very much like a copy of Sāsānian capitals. Furthermore, the palace with its
“Green Dome” had become the most extended and the most prominent building. The
Madīnat as-Salām reflected two ideological principles: the Islamic idea of the human
imām of the community and the Ancient Near Eastern concept of the “representative
of God on earth”.
With the shift of the political centre to Surra-man-ra’ā the visualisation of the
change in caliphate ideology was completed. The huge palaces now were by far the
dominating elements of the whole city layout while the mosque looked subject to
them in size. The connection of the palaces, which were not crowned by a “Green
Dome” anymore, with tripartite paradise gardens in Ancient Mesopotamian tradition
emphasised some adapted principles of Near Eastern kingship ideologies like that
one of the “royal hunter and gardener”. The Bait al-Māl with the treasury of the state
now was deposed in the palace so that the caliph had absolute control over it. The
Caliph of the Islamic empire, the Ḫalīfatu Allāh “representative of God”, was now an
absolute monarch in the ancient Near Eastern tradition.
In the decades following to the foundation of Surra-man-ra’ā and the return of the
government to Baġdād, the ‘Abbāsid Caliph came more and more under the control
first of his own military forces and then of foreign rulers. Nevertheless, a lot of dogmatic
treatises produced in the official Madāris of Baġdād stress the role of the Caliph
as the religious leader of the community. With the loss of political power the Caliph
tried to emphasize his dominant religious position in Islamic society. Probably
the increasing distance between Caliph and his Muslim subjects was responsible for
the fact that the concept of the caliphate became less popular in the medieval world.
Many steps in the transformation of caliphate ideology are reflected by the architecture
of the Caliph’s palaces, the gardens and – most of all – the cities. A similar
observation can be made in the art, which adapted the type of the “royal gardener
and hunter”.4
Architecture and art as material keys of immaterial processes may help achieve a
better understanding of the ideological and – connected with that – the social changes
in the development of the early Muslim community. The still vivid intellectual
life of the Ancient Near East influenced the culture of the early Islamic world in an
extended and not often appreciated way.
4	 See for example the Umayyad hunting scene from Qaṣr al- Ḥair al-ġarbī (8th Century AD),
reminiscent on Assyrian and Sāsānian motives of the “Royal Hunter” (Sourdel-Thomine /
Spuler 1990, Fig. XIII).
402 Mirko Novák
Bibliography
Ahn, G. 1992: Religiöse Herrscherlegitimation im achämenidischen Iran. Acta Iranica 31.
Leiden / Leuven.
Bichler, R. / Rollinger, R. 2005: Die Hängenden Gärten zu Ninive – Die Lösung eines Rätsels?
In: R. Rollinger (ed.), Von Sumer bis Homer, Festschrift für Manfred Schretter zum 60.
Geburtstag am 25. Februar 2004. AOAT 325 (Münster), 153–218.
Bier, L. 1993: The Sasanian Palaces and their Influence in early Islam. Ars Orientalis 23,
57–66.
Bloom, J. M. 1993: The Qubbat al- Ḫaḍrā’ and the Iconography of Height in Early Islamic
Architecture. Ars Orientalis 3, 135–141.
Brentjes, B. 1981: Die Stadt des Yima. Leipzig.
Cancik-Kirschbaum, E. 1995: Konzeption und Legitimation von Herrschaft in neuassyrischer
Zeit. Welt des Orients 26, 5–20.
Creswell, K. A. C. 1989: A short Account of early Muslim Architecture. Newly edited by J. W.
Allan. Aldershot.
Djait, H. 1986: Al-Kūfa, The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition 5 (Leiden), 345–351.
Duri, A. A. 1986: Baghdād, The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition 1 (Leiden), 894–909.
Edzard, D. O. 1972–75: Herrscher A. Philologisch. RlA 4, 335–342.
Elsen-Novák, G. / Novák, M. 2005: „Ich bin der wahre Weinstock und mein Vater ist der
Weingärtner“ – Zur Semiotik des Weinstocks in Joh 15, 1–8 aus Sicht der Altorientalistik.
In: A. Weissenrieder / F. Wendt / P. von Gemünden (ed.), Picturing the New Testament.
Studies in Ancient Visual Images. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
2. Reihe 193 (Tübingen), 183–206.
Ettinghausen, R. 1972: From Byzantium to Sassanian Iran and the Islamic World. Three
Modes of Artistic Influence. Leiden.
Fauth, W. 1979: Der königliche Garten und Jäger im Paradeisos. Persica 8, 1–53.
Franke, S. 1995: Königsinschriften und Königsideologie. Münster / Hamburg.
Frye, R. N. 1983: Achaemenid Echoes in Sasanian Times. In: H. Koch / D. N. MacKenzie
(ed.), Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte der Achämenidenzeit und ihr Fortleben. Archäologische
Mitteilungen aus Iran Ergänzungsband 10 (Berlin), 247–252.
Galter, H. D. 1989: Paradies und Palmentod – Ökologische Aspekte im Weltbild der assyrischen
Könige. Grazer Morgenländische Studien 2: Der orientalische Mensch und seine Beziehung
zur Umwelt (Graz), 235–253.
George, A. 1997: Bond of the Lands: Babylon, the cosmic Capital. In: G. Wilhelm (ed.), Die
orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch. CDOG 1 (Saarbrücken), 125–146.
Grabar, O. 1977: Die Entstehung der islamischen Kunst. Köln.
Grabar, O. 1993: Umayyad Palaces reconsidered. Ars Orientalis 23, 93–108.
Halm, H. 1988: Die Schia. Darmstadt.
Hartmann, R. 1987: Die Religion des Islam. Darmstadt (Reprint, first Edition in 1944).
Herzfeld, E. 1948: Geschichte der Stadt Samarra. Ausgrabungen von Samarra VI. Berlin.
Hourani, A. 1992: Die Geschichte der arabischen Völker. Frankfurt a. M.
Hrouda, B. (ed.) 1991: Der Alte Orient. München.
403The Change of Caliphate Ideology in the Light of Early Islamic City Planning
Al-Jannabi, T. J. 1983: Dār al-‘Imāra fī’l-Kūfa. Sumer 39 (Arabic section), 220–232.
Kawami, T. S. 1992: Antike persische Gärten. In: M. Carroll-Spillecke (ed.), Der Garten von
der Antike bis zum Mittelalter (Mainz), 81–100.
Khoury, A. T. / Hagemann, L. / Heine, P. 1991: Islam-Lexikon. Freiburg.
Kleiss, W. 1989: Die Entwicklung von Palästen und palastartigen Wohnbauten in Iran.
Wien.
Kleiss, W. 1996: Die sasanidische Brücke und das Paradeisos. In: W. Kleiss / P. Calmeyer
(ed.), Bisutun. Teheraner Forschungen 7 (Berlin), 99–113.
Knauth, W. / Nadjmabadi, S, 1975: Das altiranische Fürstenideal von Xenophon bis Ferdousi.
Wiesbaden.
Lackenbacher, S. 1982: Le Roi Bâtisseur. Études Assyriologiques 11. Paris.
Lambert, W. G. 1974: The Seed of Kingship. In: P. Garelli (ed.), Le Palais et la Royauté. Actes
de la XIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris), 427–440.
Lassner, J. 1970: The Topography of Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages. Detroit.
Lombard, M. 1991: Die Blütezeit des Islam. Frankfurt.
Maul, S. M. 1995: Das „dreifache Königtum“ – Überlegungen zu einer Sonderform des neuassyrischen
Königssiegels. In: U. Finkbeiner / R. Dittmann / H. Hauptmann (ed.), Beiträge
zur Kulturgeschichte Vorderasiens, Festschrift für Rainer Michael Boehmer (Mainz),
395–402.
Maul, S. M. 1997: Die altorientalische Hauptstadt: Nabel und Abbild der Welt. In: G. Wilhelm
(ed.), Die orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch. CDOG 1 (Saarbrücken),
109–124.
Maul, S. M. 1999: Der assyrische König – Hüter der Weltordnung. In: K. Watanabe (ed.),
Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East (Heidelberg), 201–214.
Meinecke, M. 1996a: Ar-Raqqa am Euphrat: Imperiale und religiöse Strukturen der islamischen
Stadt. MDOG 128, 157–172.
Meinecke, M. 1996b: Die frühislamischen Kalifenresidenzen: Tradition oder Rezeption? In:
K. Bartl / S. Hauser (ed.), Continuity and Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic
to the Early Islamic Period (Berlin), 139–164.
Northedge, A. 1990: Sāmarrā’. Tübingen.
Northedge, A. 1993: An Interpretation of the Palace of the Caliph at Sāmarrā’. Ars Orientalis
23, 143–170.
Novák, M. 1995: Die „Sāmarrā’-Zeit“ als Wendepunkt der islamischen Geschichte. Das Altertum
41, 123–140.
Novák, M. 1996: Der Landschaftsbezug in der orientalischen Palastarchitektur. AoF 23,
335–378.
Novák, M. 1997: Die orientalische Residenzstadt. In: G. Wilhelm (ed.), Die orientalische
Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch. CDOG 1 (Saarbrücken), 169–198.
Novák, M. 1999: Herrschaftsform und Stadtbaukunst – Programmatik im mesopotamischen
Residenzstadtbau von Agade bis Surra man ra’ā. Schriften zur Vorderasiatischen Archäologie
7. Saarbrücken.
404 Mirko Novák
Novák, M. 2002: The Artificial Paradise – Programme and Ideology of Royal Gardens. In:
S. Parpola / R. M. Whiting (ed.), Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. CRRAI 47
(Winona Lake), 443–460.
Orthmann, W. (ed.) 1975: Der Alte Orient. Propyläen Kunstgeschichte 14. Berlin.
Pongratz-Leisten, B. 1994: Ina šulmi īrub. Die kulttopografische und ideologische Programmatik
der akītu-Prozessionen in Babylonien und Assyrien im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. BaF
16. Mainz.
Rashad, M. 1996: Die Bedeutung der Jagd für die Herrschaftsdarstellungen bei den
Achämeniden, Parthern und Sasaniden. In: U. Magen / M. Rashad (ed.) Vom Halys zum
Euphrat. Festschrift für Thomas Beran. Altertumskunde des Vorderen Orients 7 (Münster),
241–255.
Röllig, W. 1981: Zum „Sakralen Königtum“ im Alten Orient. In: B. Gladigow (ed.), Staat und
Religion. Düsseldorf.
Sack, D. 1989: Damaskus. Entwicklung und Struktur einer orientalisch-islamischen Stadt.
DaF 1. Mainz.
Al-Sayyad, N. 1991: Cities and caliphs. New York / London.
Schippmann, K. 1993: L’influence de la culture sassanide. In: Musées royaux d’art et d’histoire
(ed.), Splendeur des Sassanides – L’empire perse entre Rome et la Chine (Brussels),
131–141.
Selz, G. 1998: Über Mesopotamische Herrschaftskonzepte. In: M. Dietrich / O. Loretz (ed.),
dubsar anta-me. Festschrift für Willem H. Ph. Römer. AOAT 253 (Münster), 281–344.
Sourdel-Thomine, J. / Spuler, B. (ed.) 1990: Die Kunst des Islam. Propyläen Kunstgeschichte
4. New Edition. Frankfurt / Berlin.
Stierlin, H. 1996: Frühe Bauwerke von Bagdad bis Córdoba. Taschens Weltarchitektur: Islam
1. Köln.
Stronach, D. 1990: The Garden as a political Statement: Some Case-Studies from the Near
East in the first Millennium BC. Bulletin of the Asia Institute. New Series 4. Studies in
Honour of Richard Nelson Frye: Aspects of Iranian Culture, 171–180.
Tuplin, C. 1996: Achaemenid Studies. Stuttgart.
Wiesehöfer, J. 1993: Das antike Persien. München / Zürich.
Winter, I. J. 1993: The Palace as Construct in the Ancient Near East. Ars Orientalis 23,
27–55.
Wirth, E. 1997: Kontinuität und Wandel der orientalischen Stadt. Zur Prägung von städtischen
Institutionen durch jahrtausendealte kulturraumspezifische Handlungsgrammatiken. In:
G. Wilhelm (ed.), Die orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch. CDOG 1 (Saarbrücken),
1–44.
Wiseman, D. J. 1983: Mesopotamian Gardens. Anatolian Studies 33, 135–144.