ABSTRACT
Centres of culture developed essentially in the towns, whose rise was, as has been said, favoured by the conditions of political and economic life which prevailed from the establishment of the first empire of Islam. All cultural and artistic activity was concentrated there, and the only historic buildings of some interest outside them existed for the needs of defence or commerce; strong castles on the one hand, and on the other hand buildings destined to facilitate communications, like bridges, and above all the caravanserais used by merchants and travellers as well as by the couriers of the official post. The chapter explains how the cities of the Umayyad period, those of the 'Abbasid period and those of the Seljuk period showed notable differences—accentuated too by the geographical conditions prevailing here or there—within a world which in this respect was more diversified than one has often tended to say.
