Splendours of Islam by Wilfrid Blunt (1976)

Islam, essentially a religion of conquest, has endured for over thirteen centuries and has spread throughout the world. Muslim warriors carried the word of the prophet Mahomet westward through North Africa to Spain and eastward through Persia and Central Asia to India, Malaysia and Indonesia. Wherever they conquered the Muslims absorbed something of the culture of their subject peoples, blending it with their own to make Islam not only one of the world’s great religions, but also one of its richest and most enduring cultures.

Drawing on a lifetime’s study of Islam and its arts Wilfrid Blunt presents an entirely personal ‘appreciation’ of Islam, seen through its architecture, painting and crafts and his text is magnificently highlighted by photographs in both colour and black and white.

He also covers the lives and achievements of many of the great Muslim leaders and draws, too, on the diaries and reports of travellers who visited the great Islamic cities at the height of their beauty and prosperity, thereby reminding us that, though much Islamic architecture survives, even more has been destroyed through neglect, vandalism or natural disaster. Islamic culture, however, is still a living force, and the author does not neglect its contemporary achievements in such countries as Indonesia and on the African Continent.
For the reader who is unfamiliar with Islamic art, Wilfrid Blunt is the perfect guide to its magical world of colour and pattern and craftsmanship.