Towards digital Islamic art history’

The advent of digital humanities now poses the primary historiographical challenge for contemporary and future historians of Islamic art. No longer simply tools to archive and exchange information, digital humanities technologies are evolving into analytical instruments often embedded with under-scrutinized theoretical assumptions. Without a critical mass of systematically developed databases of historical texts, translations, images and overlaying analytical tools, the way Islamic art history is written will increasingly diverge from the rest of art history. This paper makes the case that the pressing need to consider and apply new theoretical frameworks in Islamic art history is being superseded by the digital turn in humanities scholarship. The practice of Islamic art history now needs to actively participate in the design and development of databases and analytical instruments specifically geared toward the interests of Islamic art historians. At the same time, the digital shift presents an opportunity to confront the field’s archival legacies.