The great Islamic civilizations of the 13th century were almost completely destroyed by the Mongol invasions and the ravages of Timur (or Tamerlane). In central Asia, the rule of Shah Rukh, Timur’s successor, began a brilliant era in the history of architecture with the building of the Madrassah of Ulugh Beg, Samarkand in 1417, Gur-i-Emir, Samarkand in the 15th century and the Kalyan Mosque, Bukhara in 1514.

Under the II Khan dynasty established by the Mongols in Persia, the use of colour in buildings developed, in the form of painted glazed tiles reflecting a characteristically Persian emphasis on surface as opposed to structure.

In Spain, before the Islamic states fell to the Reconquista in 1492 the Nasrids of Granada (1248-1492) had evolved an architecture of elaborate decorative effects using stone, stucco, brick, painted tiles, multi-lobed arches and muqarnas (stalactite vaulting), which was brilliantly displayed in the Alhambra Palace (13th-14th centuries).

Orthodox Islam proscribes the use of human imagery in art. This together with the nomadic Arab’s fascination with abstraction and rhythm as demonstrated in their poetry and music, led to the creation of a distinctive Islamic building decoration style in the history of architecture. Geometric ornament was used to frame and border major architectural elements. The cursive vine of pre-Islamic origin evolved into the arabesque: infinite patterns developed from repeated spirals. Walls, vaults and domes were covered in geometric and arabesque decoration and muqarnas, dissolving tectonic forms and enhancing the feeling of unlimited space. The symbolism of the Arabic script inspired the art of calligraphy, and inscriptions from the Koran were used as important decorative elements in mosques throughout the Islamic world, using the geometric Kufi and the cursive Nashki scripts.

The Ottoman Empire, founded in 1281 in Anatolia and centred in Constantinople (now Istanbul) after the conquest of the city in 1453, was to absorb most of the western Islamic world until the 20th century. The concept of the hemispherical dome built over a rectangular chamber and buttressed by half domes and smaller apsidal domes resulted in the characteristic Ottoman mosque with its colonnaded courtyards and tall slender stone minarets. In Constantinople, SINAN produced a brilliant diversity of mosque designs. His mosques, together with the use of Iznik tiles in such magnificent complexes as the Topkapi palace and the 17th-century Sultanahmet Mosque, characterize Ottoman architecture.

In Persia the Safavid dynasty (1501-1732) made their capital at Isfahan, creating the Masjid-i-Shah in 1612, the Friday Mosque in the 17th century and the Sheikh Lutfallah Mosque in 1617. In the history of architecture, here architecture of iwans, domes, arcades and minarets displayed radiant mantles of turquoise, blue and yellow glazed tiles combining calligraphy, geometric and arabesque decoration.