Female Sultans: Women, Power and Patronage in Islamic Visual Culture

Catalog description

This course serves as an introduction to Islamic visual culture through the lens of art, architecture and material culture commissioned exclusively by female patrons. Students will explore the role of women as patrons and connoisseurs of art through a series of case studies. We will begin with the earliest influential women in Islam, the Prophet Muhammad’s wives Khadija and Aisha and his daughter Fatima, who themselves drove the transmission of religious knowledge as well as played a major role in the early development of Islamic religious spaces. After exploring the emergence of Islam in the seventh century, we will analyze medieval artifacts and architecture from the Iberian Peninsula, Syria, Egypt, and Morocco, revealing how elite women used patronage to express aesthetic preferences, forge strategic alliances, and assert influence. These include funerary monuments, carved ivories, and religious endowments that demonstrate the intersection of power, piety, and artistic production. Finally, we will explore the early modern empires of the Ottomans, Mughals, and Safavids, and consider some of the most elaborate and architecturally significant buildings produced in Turkey, India, and Iran for royal women who wielded unprecedented political power. Considering these examples of female patronage in Islamic societies can help us to trace the agency of women within historical and cultural frameworks, and reframe the existing canon of Islamic art, which for decades has privileged the contributions of male rulers and reinforced the misconception that women lacked agency in Islamic societies. In encouraging students to critique the traditional canon of Islamic art and reevaluate the role of women’s contributions, this course will include discussions and readings pertaining to feminist art history, postcolonial analysis, and intersectionality. Through individual research…