The introductory course offers a general survey of major artworks, concepts and terms in the arts of Islamic people and lands – Arabs, Persians, and Turks. It focuses on architecture, objects, calligraphy and ornament, imparting the ways of looking at Islamic artworks and interpreting their subtler meanings. Part I – The Beginning: explores the beginnings of Islamic art and its formation of distinctive visual language, on the background of neighboring visual traditions, the Persian- Sasanian, the Central-Asian, and the Byzantine. The timespan covers the early Middle Ages from the rise of Islam in the seventh century, through the great Caliphates of the Umayyads, and the Abbasids until about 1000 C.E.