Majestic mosques, ancient bathhouses, bustling bazaars and imposing fortresses across Pakistan, Iran, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and beyond.
25 programs
Perched on a hill above the plain not far from Tirana, the castle of Preza keeps its walls and its tower, and shelters within them a small mosque with a slender minaret. Fortress and place of prayer share a single enclosure, and a commanding view of the country below.
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The old city of Mostar is organised around a single arch of stone thrown across the Neretva in the sixteenth century, destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt using traditional methods. Reopened in 2004, the bridge and its quarter are inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Courtyards, painted ceilings, stained glass and gardens: the Khan's Palace was the seat of the Crimean khanate, and remains the fullest surviving image of its court culture.
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Facing the Mediterranean in Alexandria, this mosque of pale stone, domes and a slender minaret was built over the tomb of a revered Sufi saint and remains the city's spiritual centre.
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Three pyramids, the Sphinx, temples and causeways: the Giza plateau remains the most ambitious funerary landscape ever built, and a World Heritage site of unmatched recognition.
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Below the walls of Narikala, in the old quarter of the sulphur baths, stands the only mosque left in Tbilisi. It is unusual in the Muslim world: Sunni and Shia congregations share the same prayer hall.
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Standing on the quayside of Chania's Venetian harbour, the Mosque of the Janissaries is the earliest Ottoman building on Crete. Its low domes and arcaded porch mark the moment the island changed hands.
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In the old quarter of Kashan, the Agha Bozorg complex combines a mosque and a madrasa on two levels, arranged around a courtyard sunk below street level. Built in the late eighteenth century, it is one of the most rigorously composed buildings in central Iran.
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Standing alone in the plains of Khorasan, Robat-e Sharaf is a fortified caravanserai of the Seljuk period. Behind blank outer walls, two successive courtyards reveal some of the most refined brickwork and stucco in medieval Iranian architecture.
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One of the largest historic houses of Kashan, the Ameri residence unfolds through a succession of courtyards, reception halls and service wings. Built for a leading family of the city and enlarged over generations, it has been restored and returned to use.
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In the old town of Kashan, the Sultan Amir Ahmad bathhouse preserves its columned changing hall, its heated chambers and its celebrated tilework. Above, the roof forms a field of low domes pierced by convex glass skylights.
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Rising above the roofs of old Acre, the mosque built by Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar is the largest in the country outside Jerusalem. Its arcaded courtyard, fountains and reused antique columns anchor a walled city inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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In the oasis of Jericho stand the remains of an Umayyad palace complex: carved stucco, a monumental bathhouse, a stone rosette window, and the celebrated Tree of Life mosaic, among the finest of the early Islamic period.
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In the old city of Acre, one of the Mediterranean's great walled ports, the Zawiyat al-Shadhiliyya serves as mosque and lodge for a community of the Shadhili Sufi tradition. Its courtyard opens onto a quarter of vaulted lanes and sea ramparts.
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The Hadum Mosque stands at the centre of Gjakova's historic bazaar quarter, one of the landmarks of Ottoman-era Kosovo. Damaged during the conflict of the late twentieth century, it has since been restored and returned to worship.
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Among the largest mosques in Central Asia, Bishkek's central mosque was built in recent years in an Ottoman-inspired idiom, its great dome and slender minarets giving the Kyrgyz capital a new architectural landmark.
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In Kyrgyzstan, a mosque gathers its neighbourhood five times a day. The film observes its architecture, its courtyard and its congregation, offering an unhurried look at Muslim practice in a Central Asian country.
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One of the main markets of Bishkek, Osh Bazaar is a dense, noisy world of stalls where food, textiles and household goods change hands from dawn. The film follows a day inside a Central Asian market and the trades that keep it running.
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With its blue dome and four minarets, the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque dominates Martyrs' Square in the heart of Beirut. Built in an Ottoman-inspired style during the reconstruction of the city centre, it stands beside a Maronite cathedral.
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In Kuala Kangsar, the royal town of Perak, the Ubudiah Mosque raises a great golden dome ringed by minarets in banded marble. Its Indo-Saracenic design makes it one of the most recognisable religious buildings in Malaysia.
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Rising from the sands of the Cholistan desert in southern Punjab, Derawar Fort presents an immense square enclosure ringed by dozens of towering bastions in patterned brick, with a royal mosque and necropolis alongside.
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In the Walled City of Lahore, this haveli is among the best-preserved mansions of the Sikh period. Behind its carved timber facade lie frescoed rooms, mirrored ceilings and a courtyard now filled with the noise of a school.
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In the Daraj quarter of Gaza's old city stands the Sayed Hashim Mosque, long held by tradition to shelter the tomb of Hashim ibn Abd Manaf, great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad. Rebuilt in the Ottoman period, it remains one of the city's principal places of prayer.
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The walls of Niš Fortress date from the Ottoman centuries but rest on far older foundations. Within the enclosure stands the Bali-beg Mosque, one of the city's oldest surviving Ottoman buildings, long used as an exhibition space.
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Antalya holds the Mediterranean coast of Turkey where the Taurus Mountains meet the sea. Its old quarter, Kaleiçi, wraps around a Roman harbour and preserves in a few hundred metres the marks of Rome, Byzantium, the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
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