Byzantine Influence On Christian Culture

We most commonly see influence of the Roman-Byzantine and Persian cultures in early Islamic architecture. Such as, The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, whose function and meaning are clearly Islamic which shows combined and transformed classical, Byzantine, elements. In the Dome of the Rock and the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, which contain the earliest examples of Islamic vegetal art, we find more realistic depictions of plants and trees, but these examples, as noted earlier, are regarded as Byzantine work for the Umayyad patrons. Byzantine art was fundamentally, like Roman art, based on the incorporation of Christian themes into Greek humanism and naturalism. Together, these concepts symbolized and reflected divinity. Man and nature were seen
as the image of the divine. Byzantine influence is seen in the iconographic themes in the Dome of the Rock, as reflected in the mosaics of crowns and jewels of that mosque, which Grabar (1973) believed were emulating Byzantine symbols of power. These decorations were symbols of holiness, power and sovereignty in Byzantine art. Islamic conquests, the Byzantine and Sasanian lands newly absorbed within the Muslim commonwealth had their own indigenous artistic traditions. It seems likely that the art of the preceding period persisted for a time, as artists who had lately worked under Byzantine or Sasanian patronage initially continued to follow preexisting conventions, but under Muslim patronage.