'Islamesque: The Muslim Master-Builders Behind Europe’s Finest Architecture' with Diana Darke

Who really built Europe’s finest Romanesque monuments?

Join author Diana Darke as she sheds startling new light on the masons, carpenters and sculptors behind Europe’s medieval monasteries, churches and castles. She shows that at a time when Christendom lacked such expertise, Muslim craftsmen had advanced understanding of geometry and complex ornamentation.

Challenging Euro-centric assumptions, Darke uncovers the profound influence of the Islamic world in ‘Christian’ Europe, and argues that ‘Romanesque’ architecture, a nineteenth-century art historians’ fiction, should be recognised for what it truly is: Islamesque.

This event is part of the Muslim LitFest. Find our full programme of events here: buytickets.at/muslimlitfestlondon26

Diana Darke is a Middle East cultural historian with special focus on Syria. She holds degrees in Arabic from Oxford University, and in Islamic Art & Architecture from SOAS, London, and has spent over 40 years living and working in the region, for both government and commercial sectors. Among her publications are the bestsellers My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis and The Ottomans: A Cultural Legacy. Her book Stealing from the Saracens published by Hurst in 2020), received three Book of the Year 2020 awards. Its sister volume, Islamesque, was selected by Daunts as a History and Current Affairs Book of the Year 2024. In 2027 she has a new book on Damascus coming out in March, an updated edition of My House in Damascus in May and a revised edition of the Bradt Syria guide in December. She is a Non-resident Scholar at Washington DC’s Middle East Institute.

This event is sponsored by Beacon Books
Publishing classic and contemporary books since 2012
www.beaconbooks.net