With equal originality the Muhammedan artists developed the metal crafts both in the direction of tempering the metal and in its decoration; introducing and carrying to a wonderful pitch of perfection the engraving, encrusting and inlaying of the surfaces with ornamental designs; a process known as damascening, since Damascus was the earliest important centre of the craft. Further, in weaving they developed a corresponding skill and feeling for design. Rugs and carpets, laid on the floor or spread over doorways, were the chief furnishing of a Muhammedan home, while a small rug was carried by the worshipper or his servant to the Mosque to protect his bare feet while he prayed. These “prayer rugs” were frequently embellished with a representation of a mihrab, enclosed in borders bearing Koran texts, and were of silk of finest weave; that is to say, with an extraordinary number of knots to the square inch. There is a fragment of silk weave in the Altman collection at the Metropolitan Museum, of Indian craftsmanship, each square inch of which embraces 2500 knots. In a way, however, the very exquisiteness of Muhammedan craftsmanship prepared the way for its decay. It originated in the limitation of motives permitted to the decorator, who in consequence had to satisfy his love of perfection by resort to delicacies and intricacies of design beyond which there was no further possibility of creative invention. CHAPTER IV MUHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE The Koran prescribed that every believer when praying should face toward Mecca. This could be done as readily in the open desert as in a building, so the early mosques were probably of little importance. It was only as the Arab tribesmen extended their conquests to the neighbouring civilisations and came in touch with the temples of antiquity and the churches of the present, that they began to raise handsome places of worship for their own religion. As Muhammedanism spread eastward through Syria to Persia and later to India and westward into Egypt, along the northern shore of Africa into Spain and finally occupied Constantinople and Turkey, it absorbed much of the civilisation of each country and employed the constructive methods, the workmen, and the materials which it found ready to hand. Consequently, the architectural expression of Muhammedanism, while retaining everywhere certain essential characteristics, varies locally. It offers notable distinctions according as it is found in Syria, Persia, India, Egypt, Spain, and Turkey. =Mosque of Mecca.=--The =Great Mosque of Mecca=, called by Moslems the Haram El Masjid el Haram, or Baisullahi el Haram, the “House of God, the Prohibited,” represents a succession of additions, extending from early Muhammedan times to the middle of the sixteenth century. It comprises an enclosure, 300 yards square, the walls of which are pierced with nineteen gateways and [Illustration: MOSQUE OF EL AZHAR, CAIRO SHOWING EGYPTIAN TYPES OF MINARETS]