At the end of the year, I like looking back at what I missed (and should not have), but also checking what to expect next. This is why I’ve decided to devote a post to the forthcoming publications about Islamic art and architecture that will be published in 2018, or at least in the first months of the new year.

JANUARY 2018

Nicholas Stone, Symbol of Divine Light: The Lamp in Islamic Culture and Other Traditions, World Wisdom, Bloomington 2018. [amazon link]
The deep significance of light and the lamp in Islamic culture and other traditions – Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist – explored.

Filiz Çakir Phillip (ed.), Arts of the East: Highlights of Islamic Art from the Bruschettini Collection, Hirmer, München 2018. [amazon link]
A selection of 13th- to 17th-century carpets, textiles, polychrome Iznik wares, paintings, and precious inlaid metalwork chosen from the Bruschettini collection.

FEBRUARY 2018

Alain George and Andrew Marsham (eds.), Power, Patronage, and Memory in Early Islam, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2018. [amazon link]
A collection of essays that shed new light on the Umayyad dynasty and the crucial period of their rule.

Olga Bush, Reframing the Alhambra: Architecture, Poetry, Textiles and Court Ceremonial, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2018. [amazon link]
An interdisciplinary study of one of the most important monuments in Islamic art.

MARCH 2018

Deborah Fahid, Chess and Other Games Pieces from Islamic Lands, Thames & Hudson, London – New York 2018. [amazon link]
The definitive catalog of the games pieces kept in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait.

Brian Wichmann and‎ David Wade, Islamic Design: a Mathematical Approach, Birkhäuser, Basel 2018. [amazon link]
A book about the geometric designs: the history of the decoration and the mathematical analysis of the designs.

Michael Frishkopf and Federico Spinetti (eds.), Music, Sound, and Architecture in Islam, University of Texas Press, Austin 2018. [amazon link]
An innovative book that promotes a greater understanding of the centrality of sound production in constructed environments in Muslim religious and cultural expression.

George Michell and Helen Philon, Islamic Architecture of Deccan India, ACC Art Books, Woodbridge 2018. [amazon link]
This book aims to embrace the visual diversity of the Deccan without sacrificing the rigor of academic study.

Elaine Wright, Lapis and Gold: Exploring Chester Beatty’s Ruzbihan Qur’an, Ad Ilissum, Oxford 2018. [amazon link]
This is the most detailed and comprehensive study of the famous Chester Beatty Library’s 16th-century Ruzbihan Qur’an, produced in Shiraz.

APRIL 2018

Yuka Kadoi, Islamic Chinoiserie: The Art of Mongol Iran, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2018. (reprint) [amazon link]
This beautifully illustrated history of Safavid Isfahan (1501 1722) explores the architectural and urban forms and networks of socio-cultural action that reflected a distinctly early-modern and Perso-Shi’i practice of kingship.

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, China’S Early Mosques, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2018. (reprint) [amazon link]
What happens when a monotheistic, foreign religion needs a space in which to worship in China, a civilization with a building tradition that has been largely unchanged for several millennia?

Jonathan M. Bloom, The Minaret, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2018. (reprint) [amazon link]
This richly illustrated book is a sweeping tour of the minaret’s position as the symbol of Islam.