Why I do not teach class “Islamic Architecture?”

“Islamic architecture” is usually understood through the concept of “otherness”–as architecture made by those whose religion is Islam, for patrons who live in predominantly Muslim lands, or for Muslims who live outside predominantly Muslim territories. Similarly, socio-political studies of otherness, although they elucidate power mechanisms and identity constructions, as in Edward Said’s critical book Orientalism (1979), maintain exclusionary dichotomies between the “I” and “the Other” that have led to a monolithic and somewhat oversimplified definition of Islamic as “non-Western.” This paper argues for a discourse that speaks about the Islamic “I” not against but rather with “the Other,” an approach that would allow architectural historians to localize and examine architectural traditions and practices within distinct socio-political or geographic regions in more subtle ways. Such an approach would allow for an engagement with non-religious and non-monumental aspects of “Islamic architecture,” as in the discussions of vernacular architecture. Without privileging specific locale, it would also enable the examination of larger thematic questions on technological, economic, gender, or philosophical aspects of architecture. In the process, it would allow the study “Islamic architecture” side by side with other architectures, both “Western” and others labeled “non-Western.” In such an inclusive approach towards architecture, the emphasis would be on the idiosyncratic qualities that various traditions bring forward and on highlighting the different criteria and vibrant processes we may use to study architecture beyond its binary definitions. This paper will present some classroom and research results from studying Islamic architecture as non-monolithic entity and within inclusionary discourses.