FORTIFICATIONS

The expression of power has always been one of the functions of architecture. In Islam,
that function is less easy to isolate since the same features recur in buildings of every type. But
it is nonetheless real; Akbar was as alive to it as Louis XIV. Through their palaces, the powerful
of the Islamic world proclaimed their glory in forms that outlasted their own lives and those of
their dynasties. The expression of power is in many ways an automatic attribute of monumental
architecture. The quarrying of stones, the firing of bricks, the planning of buildings and the
organization of work gangs, the acquisition of often expensive material for decoration, these
and many other activities required by any largescale construction demanded financial means
and legal authority that was generally available in the past to only a few rich ruling princes.
Military architecture, the expression of physical power
When the frontiers of the Muslim world became stabilized around the middle of the 8th
century, a more or less formalized system of defence was established almost by necessity. We
know from the historian Baladhuri for instance that, as early as during the rule of the caliph
‘Uthman (644-66), there was someone in charge of the fortresses of Armenia. Whether or not
such an early date is likely for the creation of an official inspactorate of frontier defences,
sooner or later, from Spain or the Moroccan confines of the Sahara to the Steppes of Central
Asia, a system of military protection was certainly develoved.
Archaelogical and visual information on all these defensive establishments is quite
scanty for several centuries. Many of the tall tower-like bulidings of packed earth and
occasionally mud-brick, which were found in Central Asia by several Soviet expeditions, may
for instance have been forts protecting main roads and settlements rather than feudal estates,
as has been argued by several scholars, but the evidence is too unclear to allow definite
conclusions. It was reasonable to assume that the early Muslims simply followed the older,
prevailing types of military architecture.