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From the stony desolation of Jordan's desert, it is but a step through a doorway into the bath house of the Qusayr 'Amra hunting lodge. Inside, multicolored frescoes depict scenes from courtly life and the hunt, along with musicians, dancing girls, and naked bathing women. The traveler is transported to the luxurious and erotic world of a mid-eighth-century Muslim Arab prince. For scholars, though, Qusayr 'Amra, probably painted in the 730s or' 740s, h'as proved a mirage, its concreteness dissolved by doubts about date, patron, and meaning. This is the first book-length contextualization of the mysterious monument through a compelling analysis of its iconography and of the literary sources for the Umayyad period. It illuminates not only the way of life of the early Muslim elite but also the long afterglow of late antique Syria.

Arabic poetry --- Mural painting and decoration, Umayyad --- Umayyad mural painting and decoration --- History and criticism --- Foreign influences. --- Qusayr ʻAmrah (Jordan : Dwelling) --- History and criticism. --- Arabic poetry - 622-750 - History and criticism. --- abbasid. --- abd al malik. --- al azraq. --- al buldn. --- alois musil. --- amir. --- ancient art. --- apodyterium. --- arab. --- arabic poetry. --- arabic. --- architecture. --- art history. --- bath house. --- baths. --- captive woman. --- court life. --- dancing girls. --- decorative arts. --- desert. --- dynasty. --- femininity. --- frescoes. --- gender. --- hunt. --- hunting lodge. --- iconography. --- iran. --- islam. --- jordan. --- khusraw. --- late antiquity. --- middle east. --- monument. --- murals. --- musicians. --- muslim. --- mythology. --- negus. --- nonfiction. --- ode. --- persia. --- prince. --- princess. --- qusayr amra. --- roderic. --- royal court. --- self fashioning. --- shaykh musa. --- syria. --- umayyad. --- women. --- Qusayr Amrah (Jordan : Dwelling)