Talk:Abbasid architecture

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Citation fixes

Wham2001 thank you as always for your diligent copy-editing and ref fixes. In reply to your question here: yes, all the other Tabbaa 2017 sfn citations refer to Tabbaa's chapter in the A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture (2017) book. Thanks for spotting that overlap. R Prazeres (talk) 08:26, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent – thank-you for checking!

Wham2001 (talk) 20:01, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Qubbat al-Khazna and the Palaces gates

@R Prazeres do you think Qubbat al-Khazna since it was built during the Abbasids period but clearly looks more Umayyad in style?

and should the palaces gates be added like the File:Inbound3876607660648875635احد ابواب القصر العباسي.jpg (Abbasid palace gate in Baghdad) or Old rusafa (1).jpg (Mustansiriya Madrasah Gate) since they hold a lot of details and I believe they should be added to the article under "Decorations" or under each entry Prosnu (talk) 02:28, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"since it was built during the Abbasids period but clearly looks more Umayyad in style" Based on what? There's no source stating this Umayyad style. But in any case I did re-add the Qubbat afterwards as I said I would, see here.

As for an image of the Abbasid Palace gate (I'm assuming you meant to link this image?): I don't support adding that, as reliable sources state that this portal is mainly the work of a 20th-century reconstruction (see current version of Abbasid Palace article and its cited sources: Tabbaa p.317 here; Al-Janabi vol 1., p.63 here). As Tabbaa also states there, the parts of this structure that are still well-preserved from the Abbasid period are its vestibule (for which we don't have any pictures in Wiki Commons at the moment), plus parts of the courtyard and its vaulted arcades, for which we have pictures already in the article in the relevant section. These are the features discussed in scholarly sources, and since this is an article about Abbasid architecture it should focus on preserved materials from that period too. The main article about the Abbasid Palace takes care of the rest. R Prazeres (talk) 03:07, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Prosnu: we could make more room for the Nilometer image if we remove the "Givati parking lot" image in the same gallery and then move the Qubbat al-Khazna image from that gallery to the gallery in the "Mosques" section above. The Givati image is not supported by the cited source (and the linked article doesn't mention the Abbasid period) and its caption is pretty tangential (the comment about peasants in Palestine has no clear relevance to architecture), so I'm inclined to remove it anyways. The Qubbat al-Khazna image could reasonably be placed in the Mosques section since it's about a structure inside mosques. If we do this, we can place the Nilometer photo as a regular side image in default size, below the Qubbat al-Sulaibiyya image. Do you think this would be better? R Prazeres (talk) 16:10, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we could do that, in fact I read that the "Givati parking lot" has Umayyad remains not Abbasid as per this website "https://madainproject.com/givati_parking_lot_dig" but I didn't look much into it

We could add the Qubbat Al-khaznah to the mosques yes though it's more of a treasury dome than hold any religious value to the Mosque but it was built in the mosque after all. Regarding my comment that Qubbat al-Khazna that it looks Umayyad, it's because it matches the Umayyad mosque mosaic-design but does not match any Abbasid structure - and now reading about the Wudu dome (but apparently was renovated or reconstructed by the Ottomans) in the courtyard of the Umayyad mosque actually also belong to the Abbasid period not only Qubbat Al-khaznah

Regarding Qasr al-Banat in Raqqa is it considered an Abbasid palace?, because most sources I've read cannot tell from which period it is, but many online videos trace it to the Abbasids

Also why did you add the "The so-called Abbasid Palace" why it's not "Baghdad's Abbasid Palace" ? Prosnu (talk) 19:41, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you for the response. I'll remove the Givati parking lot, as we seem to agree. (Madainproject.com is probably not a reliable source, but we don't have another source here supporting this anyways so everything points us towards removing this.)

I agree that Qubbat al-Khaznah could still fit in the "Other buildings" section, but since it's just an image and caption at the moment, I think we can be flexible in where we put it so long as it's reasonably relevant to the section. I take it you agree with moving this in the meantime. The Qubbat al-Khaznah is fairly well known, but I would not add other pictures or mentions of similar courtyard domes until the main text of the article has been expanded to talk about them. (The question of the provenance of the mosque treasury domes is a little complicated, which is why I left a hidden note about some sources to cite for a potential future expansion on this.)

For Qasr al-Banat, the article is not well-sourced but it does say it was built in the 12th century around the time of Nur ad-Din. I would not take online videos (or online websites generally) very seriously; as you know, we need to rely on scholarly sources. I don't have time to research further now, but the sources I found in a quick search say the same thing: Yasser Tabbaa (a well-known scholar, already cited at Qasr al-Banat) here and another fairly reliable source here. Both mention there may have been Abbasid foundations there before, but the current remains are likely Zangid, so they're not relevant here for now.

The words "so-called" are used for caution, to indicate that it is known as the "Abbasid Palace" but that it may or may not be an actual Abbasid Palace (its original function is debated). Reliable sources on this, including some of those cited, use this wording as well; for example, [1], [2], [3]. I hope that clarifies it. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 20:57, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]