Mashrabiya - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mashrabiya or Shanasheel is the Arabic term given to a type of projecting oriel window

Oriel window

Oriel windows are a form of bay window commonly found in Gothic architecture, which project from the main wall of the building but do not reach to the ground. Corbels or brackets are often used to support this kind of window. They are seen in combination with the Tudor arch. This type of window was...

enclosed with carved wood latticework

Latticework

Latticework is a framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, typically wood or metal. The design is created by crossing the strips to form a network...

located on the second storey of a building or higher, often lined with stained glass

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

. The mashrabiy (sometimes shanshool or rushan) is an element of traditional Arabic architecture used since the middle ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

up to the mid twentieth century. It is mostly used on the street side of the building; however, it may also be used internally on sahn

Sahn

A sahn , in Islamic architecture, is a courtyard. As per the traditional Islamic architectural style, almost every mosque has a sahn, which is surrounded by an arcade from all sides. In Persian architecture, the sahn usually contains a howz, a symmetrical pool, where ablutions are performed...

side.

Mashrabiyas were mostly used in house

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

s and palace

Palace

A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome. In many parts of Europe, the...

s although sometimes in public buildings such as hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

s, inn

INN

InterNetNews is a Usenet news server package, originally released by Rich Salz in 1991, and presented at the Summer 1992 USENIX conference in San Antonio, Texas...

s, school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

s and government buildings. They are found mostly in the mashriq – i.e. east of the Arab world, but some types of similar windows are also found in the maghrib (west of the Arab world). They are very prevalent in Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

, Hejaz

Hejaz

al-Hejaz, also Hijaz is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. Defined primarily by its western border on the Red Sea, it extends from Haql on the Gulf of Aqaba to Jizan. Its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better known for the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina...

and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. They are mostly found in urban settings and rarely in rural areas. Basra

Basra

Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...

is often called “the city with Mashrabiyas”.

Etymology and History

Mashrabiya is derived from the triliteral root Š

Shin (letter)

Shin literally means "Sharp" ; It is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Aramaic/Hebrew , and Arabic ....

-R

Resh

Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonants: usually or , but also or in Hebrew....

-B, which generally denotes drinking or absorbing. There are two theories for its name, the most common one is that the name was originally for a small wooden shelf where the drinking water pots were stored. The shelf was enclosed by wood and located at the window in order to keep the water cool. Later on, this shelf evolved until it became part of the room with a full enclosure and retained the name despite the radical change in use.

The second theory is that the name was originally mashrafiya, derived from the verb Ashrafa, to overlook or to observe. During the centuries the name slowly changed due to changing accents and influence of non-Arabs speaking Arabic.

There is no point in history that can be dated as the first time they appeared; however, the earliest evidence on use of the Mashrabiya as it currently is dates back to the twelfth century in Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

during the Abbasid

Abbasid

The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....

period. Whatever is left in Arabic cities is mostly built during the late nineteenth century and early to mid twentieth century although some Mashrabiyas can be found that are three or four hundred years old. Unfortunately, very few are restored.

In Iraq in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, the designs of the latticework was affected by the Art Deco and Art Nouveau movements of the time. This was evident in Al Rasheed street Mashrabiyas up to the late sixties before most of them were demolished.

Construction

Traditionally, houses are built of adobe, brick or stone or a combination of that. Wooden houses are not popular and hardly ever found. Building heights in urban setting range from two to five floors (although Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

i houses can reach up to seven floors) with the Mashrabiyas on the second level and above. The roofs are usually built using wooden or steel beams

Beams

Beams is a Japanese clothing brand, established in 1976, whose chief executive officer is Yo Shitara. Besides stores in many places in Japan, they have branch offices in New York, Milan, London, and Paris....

with the areas between filled with brick in a semi vault

Vault (architecture)

A Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...

style. These beams were extended over the street, enlarging the footprint of the upper floor. The upper floor is then enclosed with latticework and roofed with wood. The projection is cantilevered and does not bear the weight of traditional building materials.

There are different types of Mashrabiyas, and the latticework designs differ from region to region. Most Mashrabiyas are closed where the latticework is lined with stained glass and part of the Mashrabiya is designed to be opened like a window, often sliding windows to save space; in this case the area contained is part of the upper floor rooms hence enlarging the floor plan. Some Mashrabiyas are open and not lined with glass, in this case the Mashrabiya works like a balcony

Balcony

Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...

and the space enclosed is independent of the upper floor rooms and accessed through those rooms with windows opening towards it, sometimes even the woodwork is reduced making look much more similar to a regular roofed balcony; this type of Mashrabiya is mostly used if there is a view facing the house rather than other houses, such as a river, a cliff below or simply a farm.

Social

One of the major features of the Mashrabiya is for privacy, an essential aspect of Arabic culture. A good view of the street can be obtained by the occupants without being seen, preserving the private interior without depriving the occupants from a vista of the public outside. It is said that Mashrabiyas are the ornaments of the rich as it cost a lot of time and finance to produce them.

Environmental

The wooden screen with openable windows gives shade and protection from the hot summer sun while allowing the cool air from the street to flow through. The designs of the latticework are usually with smaller opening in the bottom part and larger openings in the higher parts, hence causing the draft to be fast above the head and slow in lower parts. This provides a significant amount of air moving in the room without causing it be uncomfortable. The wood itself absorbs the humidity from the air.

The projection of the Mashrabiya achieves several purposes, on one hand it allows air from three sides to enter, even if the draught outside was parallel to the house façade; on the other hand it serves the street and in turn the neighborhood. A row of projected Mashrabiyas provides shelter for those in the streets from rain or sun. The shade in normally narrow streets will cool the air in the street and increase the pressure as opposed to the air in the sahn, which is open to the sun making it more likely that it would flow towards the sahn through the rooms of the house. The Mashrabiya also provides protection and shade for the ground floor windows that are flat and usually unprotected.

Architectural

One of the major architectural benefits is correcting the footprint shape of the land. Due to winding and irregular streets, plots of land are also commonly irregular in shape while the house designs are usually regular (squares and rectangles). This would cause irregular shapes of some rooms and creates dead corners. The projection allows correcting the shapes of the rooms on the upper floors, hence allowing to utilise the entire plot. This also increased the usable space without increasing the plot size.

On the street side, in addition to their ornamental advantage, they served to provide enclosure to the street and a stronger human scale.

Alternate spellings