Rivers of paradise
Subtitle: water in Islamic art and culture
By: [editors] Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom.
Contributors: Blair, Sheila.; Bloom, Jonathan; Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art and Culture (2nd : 2007 : Dawḥah, Qatar)
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng; ara
Number of pages: 364
ISBN-13: 9780300158991
Subjects: Water in art -- Congresses; Arts, Islamic -- Congresses; Water and architecture -- Islamic countries -- Congresses; Water and civilization -- Congresses
Genres: Congresses
Other titles: Water in Islamic art and culture
Description: For millennia the collection, distribution, and symbolism of water have played pivotal roles in the lands where Islam has flourished. This book is the first to address this important subject. A diverse spectrum of scholars covers a wide range of topics: from the revelation of Islam in the 7th century to todayʹs conservation and development issues, from watering oases in the Moroccan desert to the flooded plains of Bengal. Copiously illustrated with beautiful color photographs and newly drawn plans and maps, this book will provoke readers to appreciate and acknowledge the essential, if often invisible and transitory, roles that water played in the arts of the Islamic lands and beyond.
Notes: "The following essays are the written record of the Second Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art and Culture, held at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts in Doha, Qatar (VCUQ) from November 4 to November 6, 2007."

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: 1. Gardens beneath which rivers flow : the significance of water in classical Islamic culture; title: 2. Control and abandon : images of water in Arabic poetry and gardens; title: 3. Fruited trees and ablution fountains in the Great Mosque of Cordoba : the flow of water from landscape to monument; title: 4. Toward a typology of water vessels in Islamic art : sip, dip, and pour; title: 5. Water, magic and magical inscriptions on "frozen water"; title: 6. Sabil-Kuttabs and the conception of water in Mamluk Cairo (1260-1517); title: 7. Architecture as a message : the Sabil of Muhammad 'Ali Pasha in Cairo; title: 8. Water and water imagery in architecture and the arts in Ottoman times; title: 9. The archeology of urban water systems in Ottoman Greece : the cases of Nafpaktos and Nafplio; title: 10. Out of the desert : water traditions in the South Asian landscape; title: 11. Paradise flooded : water and architecture in Bangladesh; title: 12. Water scarcity and landscaping in the Islamic world : contemporary solutions to historical problems.