Architecture · Craft · Place · Memory

Images of early Islamic visual culture,

a personal quest.

The Umayyads were the first family dynasty to succeed the Prophet Muhammad. They ruled a new ‘Islamic’ empire from Damascus and Jerusalem between 639–749 ce. A veritable trove of their material culture survived, scattered across Arabia, inaccessible to most and largely unpublished. Saïd Nuseibeh has spent years creating photographs that document and tenderly explore this legacy in light, texture, depth and detail. Read More...Begin with a guided path, browse a collection, or search the growing Archive.

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Curated paths reward a quick visit, while collections, search, related images, and comparison let researchers keep digging.

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Black-and-white overhead photograph of Saïd Nuseibeh working from scaffolding inside an architectural space
Saïd Nuseibeh at work.

About the photographer

Saïd Nuseibeh

An architectural and fine-art photographer bringing close visual attention to Islamic architecture, ornament, craft, and cultural memory.

In 1996, he published The Dome of the Rock with Rizzoli. His photography has been exhibited and reproduced in books on architecture and art history. Born in San Francisco and raised there and in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he studied at Birzeit University and earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Reed College.

A Thomas J. Watson Fellow and Fulbright Senior Scholar, Nuseibeh has concentrated much of his work on Arabia and its historical connections with Greece, Rome, Africa, and Persia. This archive extends that practice by making the knowledge attached to each photograph searchable and connected.

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