Ruba Kana’an
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Room:CCT 3061
I am a historian the art and architecture of the Muslim world whose research raises questions about artists, materials, styles, techniques, history, and historiography. Specifically, my research focuses on mosque architecture and portable objects in Muslim contexts through exploring ‘the object’ and its reception in Islamic legal texts. I use visual, archival, textual, and field-based research in my work. I have conducted research in East Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. My publications address the formation, materiality, and meanings of architecture, metalwork, and civic space in pre-modern Muslim societies.
My professional experience spans the worlds of academia, architectural practice, museums, and community-based art education. Before joining the Faculty of Visual Studies at UTM, I taught Islamic art and architecture in the UK and Canada. In 2007, I developed the first accredited on-line course of Islamic art at Oxford University, UK. My role as a founding member of the Aga Khan Museum’s leadership team in Toronto between 2011 and 2017 enabled me to work closely with the museum’s Islamic art collection in the areas of museum management, research, education for all levels of learners, scholarly programs, publications and community engagement and programming. More recently, I curated contemporary art exhibitions focusing on the art and practice of Pakistani Canadian artists.
I am passionate about teaching and learning and believe that the arts provide students opportunities to explore many different world views and think critically about contemporary and historical questions concerning the diverse and changing contexts in which art is produced, consumed and imagined.
Courses Taught
Undergraduate
FAH281 An Introduction to Islamic Art and Architecture
FAH282 Gardens and Landscape in the Muslim World
FAH382 Artists and Craftsmen from the Muslim World
FAH383 Cities in the Early Modern Muslim World: Istanbul, Isfahan, and Delhi
FAH390 Topics in Modern Art and Architecture (Painting and Figural Images in Islam)
FAH395 Topics in Islamic Art and Architecture (Art Encounters on the Silk Road)
FAH462 Islamic Art and the Museum
FAH495 Topics in Islamic Art and Architecture (Islamic Art, Representation, and Decolonization: Africa)
Graduate Courses
NMC2129F Arabic Manuscript Studie; Islamicate Codicology
NMC2530 New Approaches to ‘Islamic Art’, (2024)
NMC2531 The Mosque: Readings in Architecture, Law, and Authority in Muslim Context
NMC2532 Istanbul and Isfahan: Architecture and Power in Early-Modern Muslim Empires
Publications
Books and Journals
The Friday Mosque: Law, Architecture, and Authority in Pre-Modern Muslim Societies. Edinburgh University Press, 2027.
Approaching Architecture in the Muslim World: Novel Paths of Investigations [special issue co-edited with Avinoam Shalem], Journal of Material Cultures of the Muslim World. Vol 4. 2024.
Learning at the Aga Khan Museum, A Curriculum Resource Guide for Teachers. Grades 1-8, (co-authored with Patricia Bentley) The Aga Khan Museum, 2015.
Book Chapters and Journal Articles
“Matter, Making, and Mode: Stucco in the Legal Texts of Iran and Central Asia (11th-13th c.),” in Stucco in the Architecture of Iran and Neighbouring Lands: New Research – New Horizons, edited by Lorenz Korn, Brill (Studies in Islamic Art and Archaeology), 2026.
“Rethinking the Friday Mosque: A Critical Enquiry of an Architectural Paradigm,” Approaching Architecture in the Muslim World: Novel Paths of Investigations [special issue co-edited by Ruba Kana’an and Avinoam Shalem], Journal of Material Cultures of the Muslim World. Vol 4 (2024): 211-229.
“Reflections on Teaching with Online Museum Collections: Challenges and Opportunities,” RACAR, revue d'art canadienne, Canadian art review (Aug 30, 2022): 81-85.
“‘And God Will Protect You from Mankind’ (Q. 5:67): A Talismanic Shirt from West Africa in the Collection of the Textile Museum Canada”, in Approaches to the Qur’an in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Zulfikar Hirji, Oxford University Press, 2019. 259-285.
“The Social and Economic History of Metalwork. 1050-1250,” with James W. Allan. A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, edited by Gulru Necipoglu and Finbarr B. Flood, Blackwell Companions to Art History, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017. 453-477.
“Highlights in the Permanent Collection” including 100 catalogue entries in Pattern and Light, Aga Khan Museum (ed.) Ruba Kana’an, Skira Rizzoli and the Aga Khan Museum, 2014. 56-169.
“The Biography of a Thirteenth-century Brass Ewer from Mosul” in God Is Beautiful; He Loves Beauty: The Object in Islamic Art and Culture, Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom (eds.), Yale University Press, 2013. 179-193.
“Patron and Craftsman of the Freer Mosul Ewer of 1232: a Historical and Legal Interpretation of the Roles of tilmidh and ghulam in Islamic Metalwork,” Ars Orientalis, vol. 42, (2012): 67-78.
“The de jure artist of the Bobrinski Bucket: production and patronage of pre-Mongol metalwork in Khurasan and Transoxiana,” Islamic Law and Society, vol. 16, no. 2, (2009): 175-201.
“The Carved-Stucco Mihrabs of Oman: Form, Style and Influences,” in Islamic Art in Oman, A. al-Salimi, H. Gaube and L. Korn (eds.), Mazoon Publishing, 2008. 230-259.
“Waqf, Architecture, and Political Self-Fashioning: the Construction of the Great Mosque of Jaffa under Muhammad Aga Abu Nabbut (1812),” Muqarnas, vol. 18, (2001): 120-140.
“Two Ottoman sabils in Jaffa (c.1810-1815): an architectural and epigraphic analysis,” Levant, vol. 33, pp. 189-204. 2001.
Research
Current Research Projects
My current research continues to investigate legal texts as a way to understand the social and economic history of objects in a Muslim context. I am currently researching and writing a book on The Object in Islamic Law. The book explores the socio-legal history of materials and artifacts by examining a broad range of media including silver inlaid metalwork, woven and embroidered textiles, carved and composite marble panels, as well as stucco decorative patterns and inscriptions. This allows me to examine objects in museum collections from the perspective of the historical context in which they were commissioned, made, and traded.