Heads upyour readings this week are by two very well-known historians of Islamic art, Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Robert Hillenbrand, but they are long and a bit dense! Make sure to set aside time to analyze them closely.

Both Behrens-Abouseif and Hillenbrand focus on the Umayyad desert palaces made in the seventh century, but they make very different arguments about how to interpret their meanings.

For your homework this week, please upload a 300-word reading response as a PDF, answering the following questions.

1 – Summarize the arguments main arguments of each author in your own words. *Tip: Hillenbrand makes his argument early on, but Behrens-Abouseif doesnt get to her main point until around p16!

2 – What are some of the challenges Behrens-Abouseif and Hillenbrand encounter when trying to find sources that provide information about the desert palaces?