, and in India as far as to the Ganges; and westwards along the
north coast of Africa, in Sicily, and in Spain. It was only to be
expected that such a wonderful tide of conquest and such a widespread
change of religion should before long leave its impress on the
architecture of the continents thus revolutionised; and accordingly a
Mohammedan style soon rose. This style did not displace or override
the indigenous art of the various countries where it prevailed, as
Roman architecture did in the age of universal dominion under the
Empire; it assimilated the peculiarities of each country, and so
transmuted them, that although wherever the religion of Mohammed
prevails the architecture will at a glance confess the fact, still the
local or national peculiarities of each country remain prominent.

The Arabs, a nomadic race who lived in tents, do not seem to have been
great builders even in their cities. We have no authentic accounts or
existing remains of very early buildings even in Mecca or Medina, as
the oldest mosques in those cities have been completely rebuilt. It is
to Egypt and Syria that we must turn for the most ancient remaining
examples of Saracenic architecture. These consist of mosques and
tombs.

_Egypt._

A mosque--or Mohammedan place of worship--has two forms. The earlier
mosques are all of them of a type the arrangement of which is
simplicity itself. A large open courtyard, resembling the garth of a
cloister, with a fountain in it, is surrounded cloister-wise by
arcades supporting timber roofs. On the side nearest Mecca the arcades
are increased to several rows in depth, so as to cover a considerable
space. This is the part in which the congregation chiefly assembles;
here a niche or recess (termed Kibla), more or less enriched, is
formed in which the Koran is to be kept, and hard by a pulpit is
erected. For many centuries past, though not, it is believed, from the
very earliest times, a minaret or high tower, from the top of which
the call to prayer is given, has also been an indispensable adjunct to
a mosque.

The second sort of mosque is a domed, and sometimes vaulted building
of a form chiefly suggested by the Byzantine domed churches, with a
central space and four short arms. This sort of mosque became almost
universal in Turkey and Egypt after the capture of Constantinople by
the Turks, and the appropriation to Moslem worship of Santa Sophia
itself. The tombs are ornate and monumental buildings,