Search Results (81)

This article examines the early formation of Confucian–Islamic synthesis during the Yuan dynasty, arguing that institutional and intellectual adaptations in this period laid the groundwork for the later systematic synthesis known as “Yi-Ru Huitong” (伊儒會通). Moving beyond narratives of assimilation or resistance, it analyzes how Muslim communities navigated China’s pluralistic sociopolitical landscape through a process of creative adaptation. Employing a multidisciplinary approach that integrates textual analysis, historical comparison, and transcultural theory, the study investigates three key dimensions: the development of hybrid religious institutions, legal-political negotiations, and mechanisms of social integration. Drawing on multilingual sources—including Persian Islamic manuals, Yuan administrative archives, and epigraphic evidence—it demonstrates how Yuan-era Muslims established patterns of selective adaptation that preserved Islamic identity while enabling meaningful engagement with Chinese cultural norms. These developments not only ensured the survival of Islam in China but also generated a range of transcultural achievements in astronomy, medicine, architecture, and the literary arts, thereby creating the necessary conditions for the profound philosophical syntheses of the Ming-Qing era. By positioning the Yuan period as a crucial incubator of Sino-Islamic civilization, this study offers insights for comparative philosophy and the global history of civilizational dialog, inviting reflection on the early Chinese Islamic experience as a significant case of sustainable cross-civilizational engagement. Full article

Masonry minarets constitute an important component of Islamic architectural heritage. Beyond their religious function, they stand as social and cultural landmarks reflecting the diversity of architectural styles and building techniques of the regions in which they are located. Historical minarets have demonstrated remarkable resilience against environmental degradation and aging; however, in seismically active regions, earthquakes pose a major threat to their integrity. Due to their slender geometry and material characteristics, these structures are particularly vulnerable to seismic effects. Many historical records document that minarets have suffered severe damage and collapse during earthquakes. This study presents a state-of-the-art review of seismic vulnerability assessments of masonry minarets. It concentrates on Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean, regions that are characterized by high seismic risk and a rich inventory of this structural typology. Currently employed approaches to the seismic analysis of minarets typically require substantial computational resources and expertise. Recognizing the need for rapid and accessible methodologies in place of them, this study proposes a Kinematic Limit Analysis framework that is suitable for fast vulnerability assessment of large-scale building stocks. This allows for the most critical structures to be identified for further scrutiny using more sophisticated approaches. Full article

Poetry, the bearer of collective memory in the Turkish state tradition, has been used as an art and administrative tool for generations in the Ottoman dynasty. The fact that 27 of the 36 Ottoman sultans wrote poetry and 10 sultans owned a “divan” (poetry book) suggests that this art served a political function for the dynasty. This study aims to investigate whether the sultan poets used poetry as a religiously based political propaganda tool to appear pious and artistic and to reinforce the legitimacy of their reign. Because the poems in these works are noteworthy as texts that promote the image of the sultan as a just, pious, and powerful ruler, legitimise Islamic expansionist policy (jihad), and aim to perpetuate cultural superiority. The study includes an analysis of relevant examples selected from the poems of ten Ottoman sultans (Mehmed II, Bayezid II, Selim I, Suleyman I, Selim II, Murad III, Ahmed I, Osman II, Ahmed III, Selim III). It is argued that these types of poems by Ottoman sultans, besides being the result of a simple literary pursuit; they served as a means of communication that reinforced the religious and political legitimacy of the sultans. Full article

Religious buildings such as synagogues, churches, and mosques, which are central to religious, cultural, and social life, have served important purposes throughout history as sacred spaces where art, architecture and performance converge. Although these sacred spaces offer unique spatial contexts that deepen individuals’ spiritual experiences through their physical, symbolic, and atmospheric qualities, empirical studies examining this relationship remain limited. This study aims to investigate the impact of biophilic design features within the Yivli Minaret Mosque, one of the oldest Islamic monuments in Antalya, constructed during the 13th-century Anatolian Seljuk Period, on the spiritual experiences of congregation members, and to identify the key psychological mechanisms shaping this relationship. The methodology of the study is based on a mixed-methods approach that combines expert assessments conducted using the Biophilic Interior Design Matrix (BID-M), which integrates proven scientific data with artistic perspective within a historical and symbolic religious structure, with survey data obtained from 359 mosque congregation members. The findings indicate that the mosque exhibits medium-to-high levels of biophilic design characteristics and that the relationship with nature is established indirectly through historical, cultural, and ecological contexts and symbolic representations rather than directly through natural elements. In this respect, the biophilic characteristics of sacred spaces are not merely an artistic and aesthetic approach, but an element that supports individuals’ relationship with nature and their restorative and spiritual experience. Overall, the study reveals that spiritual experience cannot be considered independently of its spatial context and that sacred spaces related to nature support spiritual experience. Full article

This study presents the modeling, analysis, and control of a novel planar three-degrees-of-freedom TTR (Translational–Translational–Rotational) mechanism. A comprehensive kinematic and dynamic formulation is developed, with the governing equations derived analytically using the principles of virtual work and Hamiltonian mechanics. Due to the nonlinear nature of the inverse kinematics, a numerical solution based on the modified Newton–Raphson method is employed to compute joint trajectories. To ensure robust trajectory tracking in the presence of modeling uncertainties and external disturbances, a sliding-mode control strategy is designed and implemented. The proposed approach is evaluated through numerical simulations and experiments conducted on a custom-built prototype. Quantitative performance metrics, including mean squared error, are used to assess tracking accuracy and to compare simulation and experimental results. The consistency between analytical modeling, numerical solutions, and experimental observations demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed framework for planar robotic motion control applications. Full article

Drowsy driving is a major contributor to road accidents, as reduced vigilance degrades situational awareness and reaction control. Reliable assessment of alertness versus drowsiness can therefore support accident prevention. Key gaps remain in physiology-based detection, including robust identification of microsleep and transient vigilance shifts, sensitivity to fatigue-related changes, and resilience to motion-related signal artifacts; practical sensing solutions are also needed. Using Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings from the MIT-BIH Polysomnography Database (18 records; >80 h of clinically annotated data), we framed wakefulness–drowsiness discrimination as a binary classification task. From each 30 s segment, we extracted 61 handcrafted features spanning linear, nonlinear, and frequency descriptors designed to be largely robust to signal-quality variations. Three classifiers were evaluated—k-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Decision Tree (DT)—alongside a DT-based bagging ensemble. KNN achieved 99% training and 80.4% test accuracy; SVM reached 80.0% and 78.8%; and DT obtained 79.8% and 78.3%. Data standardization did not improve performance. The ensemble attained 100% training and 84.7% test accuracy. While these results indicate strong discriminative capability, the training–test gap suggests overfitting and underscores the need for validation on larger, more diverse cohorts to ensure generalizability. Overall, the findings demonstrate the potential of machine learning to identify vigilance states from EEG. We present an interpretable EEG-based classifier built on clinically scored polysomnography and discuss translation considerations; external validation in driving contexts is reserved for future work. Full article

Art is the most aesthetic creation produced by humankind, and it is quite unthinkable that art should exist independently of religion. Even in works of a profane nature, a sense of divinity can still be felt at some level. In the revealed religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the teachings of the sacred scriptures, intermingled with certain pagan beliefs, have a profound influence on the shaping of art. In the works of the fourteenth century, when Classical Turkish literature began to flourish in Anatolia, numerous Christian elements appear in the form of metaphors, allusions, or similes. The early period of intense interaction with the Orthodox Byzantine Empire, the proliferation of written literary texts, the introduction of the devşirme (child-levy) system, Ottoman settlements in Rumelia, and the expanding military, commercial, and social relations all accelerated the entry of Christian motifs into daily life and literature. This article examines how Christianity—the religion with the largest number of adherents today—was reflected in fourteenth-century Turkish literary texts and how it influenced the cultural life of the period. Full article

Ilkhanid architecture occupies a distinctive position in the history of Islamic art through the development of highly elaborate stucco decoration. Despite their technical and artistic significance, these works have seldom been examined with respect to execution methods and design principles. That gap is addressed here through a field identification and classification of the techniques and stylistic patterns characteristic of Ilkhanid stucco in Iran. The analysis reveals that Ilkhanid craftsmen introduced several innovative methods in hand-carved stucco, such as Seh-gacha (very high relief) and Moshabbak (reticulated forms), as well as a specialized molding technique (Patta), frequently enriched with gilding—the earliest documented use of gilding in Iranian architectural stucco. These findings challenge the prevailing view of Ilkhanid stucco as merely a continuation of earlier traditions, instead demonstrating its role as a medium of experimentation and innovation. Key stylistic features include multilayered arabesques combined with inscriptions of varying scales (exemplified by the Mādar-o Farzand style), gypsum-plastered surfaces adorned with knotted Kufic and Bannāī inscriptions, complex geometric frameworks, and the earliest known trefoil arch mihrabs and muqarnas-like stucco mihrabs. Together, these results highlight the Ilkhanid contribution to the technical and aesthetic evolution of Islamic architectural ornament during the 13th–14th centuries. Full article

This study examines the figure of the baksı as a living reflection of ancient Turkic belief systems in contemporary Kazakh culture. The baksı, whose earliest attestations in Old Uyghur Turkic derive from the Chinese po-shih (“scholar, teacher”), historically denoted a wide range of roles, including religious guide, scholar, scribe, healer, bard, and shaman. Employing an interdisciplinary methodology that integrates philological, lexicographic, folkloric, and ethnographic perspectives, the research traces the semantic development of the term across Turkic and Mongolic traditions, its uses in historical texts, and its representations in Kazakh oral literature such as proverbs, idioms, epics, and fairy tales. The findings show that while the baksı has been idealised as a healer, sage, and spiritual mediator, it has also been depicted with suspicion as a deceiver or figure associated with jinn, particularly in the post-Islamic period. Ethnographic insights further reveal that becoming a baksı involves a sacred calling, initiation rituals, and distinctive clothing and performance practices, situating the figure at the intersection of religion, medicine, and art. The study concludes that the baksı is not only a historical heritage but also a dynamic cultural institution, mediating between past and present, nature and society, and continuing to shape Kazakh identity today. Full article

The first monographic exhibition dedicated to Vittore Carpaccio (ca. 1460–1525) in the US, and the first outside of Italy, was hosted at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 20 Nov 2022 to 23 February 2023 (from where it went to Venice). Building on the research of art historians and experts on Venice and the larger Mediterranean region in the early modern period, this paper examines Carpaccio’s depiction of various “Turks” in some of the large narrative painting cycles (teleri) commissioned by the devotional confraternities (scuole) in Renaissance Venice. While Carpaccio’s and the larger Venetian familiarity with Islam, including Turks, has been studied, this paper compares various female figures in the St. Stephen cycle with those in his St. George cycle, situating them in the larger historical context of the commissioning scuole (Scuola di Santo Stefano and Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, respectively). While attempting to uncover the significance, if not the identities, of a few individuals who stand out from the crowd, this paper urges caution when attempting to discern social history from a painting, much as we take literary texts (particularly those written well before our own times) with a grain of salt. Full article

The residential building sector is a major contributor to global energy consumption and carbon emissions, making retrofit strategies essential for meeting climate targets. While many studies focus on reducing operational energy, few comprehensively evaluate the trade-offs between operational savings and the embodied carbon introduced by retrofit measures. This study addresses this gap by developing an integrated, novel scenario-based assessment framework that combines dynamic energy simulation and life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify whole life carbon impacts. Applied to representative Irish housing typologies, the framework evaluates thirty retrofit scenarios across three intervention levels: original fabric, shallow retrofit, and deep retrofit incorporating multiple HVAC technologies and envelope upgrades. Results reveal that while deep retrofits deliver up to 80.2% operational carbon reductions, they also carry the highest embodied emissions. In contrast, shallow retrofits with high-efficiency air-source heat pumps offer near-comparable energy savings with significantly lower embodied impacts. Comparative analysis confirms that reducing heating setpoints has a greater effect on energy demand than increasing system efficiency, especially in low-performance buildings. Over a 25-year lifespan, shallow retrofits outperform deep retrofits in overall carbon efficiency, achieving up to 76% total emissions reduction versus 74% for deep scenarios. Also, as buildings approach near-zero energy standards, the embodied carbon share increases, highlighting the importance of LCA in design decision-making. This study provides a scalable, evidence-based methodology for evaluating retrofit options and offers practical guidance to engineers, researchers, and policymakers aiming to maximize carbon savings across residential building stocks. Full article

Excavations in Iran’s Lorestan province uncovered a 200-year-old water system consisting of four earthenware jars connected by clay pipes, each jar built from six or seven pottery sections. Due to local conditions, the dimensions and spacing of the jars in this water supply system design deviate from the established standards in historical water science literature (a diameter-to-length ratio of less than 1:4). This deviation prompted detailed archaeo-hydraulic investigations, including fieldwork analyses and hydraulic calculations of the discovered water supply system. The system was designed to serve both public and governmental purposes. Structural modifications (diameter-to-length ratio < 1:4) improved durability and strength for regional conditions. The jars divided, ventilated, and filtered water from mud and sand. Comparative analyses suggest the water supply system dates to the late Zand and Qajar periods (18th–19th centuries). Full article

This article examines tropes of (proto)colonialism in medieval European culture and Raymonda (Раймoнда), a ballet that premiered in St. Petersburg in 1898 and is set during the Fifth Crusade (1217–1221). Juxtaposing premodern travel accounts with a postmedieval dance creation, this study illuminates how religious otherness, imperial ambitions, and feminine resistance frame representations of dance spectacle and spectatorship. Following a synopsis of the ballet, the subsequent section considers Raymonda’s Muslim characters vis-à-vis medieval texts and images. Here, I incorporate Crusades-era sources, travel literature, and their accompanying iconography alongside the characterizations and aesthetics that pervade Raymonda. These comparisons apprehend the racializing and (proto)colonial thrust of crusader ideology and Russian imperialism. The final section historicizes Raymonda through medieval lyric and gestures toward an Afro-Islamicate ancestry of lyricism and ballet medievalism. Therefore, while traditional versions of Raymonda project Islamophobia, I posit that a rigorous examination of the Middle Ages imbues this ballet with profundity and intercultural nuance. Ultimately, this article demonstrates how a combined study of premodern travel and postmedieval dance may help scholars challenge the Eurocentrism, colonialism, and Whiteness that pervade medieval studies and the art of ballet. Full article

This study examines the complex process of Islam’s localization in Sudan, focusing on how hospitality, Sufi dhikr, and Mawlid celebrations integrate with Islamic practices. Drawing on three years of qualitative fieldwork, it demonstrates how Sudan’s geography, ethnic diversity, and historical heritage enable the blending of core religious principles with local customs. Sufi brotherhoods—particularly Qādiriyya, Tījāniyya, Shādhiliyya, and Khatmiyya—play a pivotal role in local culture by incorporating traditional musical, choreographic, and narrative art forms into their rituals, resulting in highly dynamic worship and social interaction. In Sudan, hospitality emerges as a near-sovereign social norm, reflecting the Islamic ethics of charity and mutual assistance while remaining deeply intertwined with local traditions. Islam’s adaptability toward local customs is further illustrated by the vibrant drumming, chanting, and dancing that enhance large-scale Mawlid al-Nabi celebrations, uniting Muslims under a religious identity that goes beyond dogmatic definitions. Beyond their spiritual meanings, these Sufi practices and networks also serve as tools for social cohesion, often functioning as support systems in regions with minimal state presence. They help prevent disputes and foster unity, demonstrating the positive impact of a flexible Islam—one that draws on both scripture and local traditions—on peacebuilding in Sudan. While highlighting the country’s social realities, this study offers insights into how Islam can function as a transformative force within society. Full article

This study examines the architectural ceramic corpus—comprising azulejos (tiles) and alicatados (tiling mosaics)—preserved in the Alhambra Museum, with the aim of elucidating its historical, artistic, and technical significance. Through a systematic methodology combining visual analysis, documentary research, and typological classification, a representative selection of ceramic artefacts was assessed. This article explores the artistic characteristics and technological principles of pieces produced using painted, relief, metallic lustre, incrustación, alicatado, cuerda seca, and arista techniques and reconstructs the historical trajectory of these decorative practices, tracing their origins in the pre-Islamic world to their adaptation within the Alhambra Palatine City. This diachronic perspective contextualises the innovations observed in the citadel, where production strategies reflect both inherited traditions and local adaptations across different historical phases. The findings highlight the richness and diversity of the Nasrid (mediaeval era) and Christian (modern era) ceramic legacy in the Alhambra and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of manufacturing processes and conservation challenges associated with these architectural elements. This preliminary characterisation establishes a basis for future material analysis and supports broader initiatives in documentation and heritage management. Full article