In the Middle East

In May 1914 Creswell decided to apply for appointment in the Archeological Survey of India. He did not get to India because the First World War broke out in August. But it was war, not India, which gave Creswell what he desired. Selected on probation for appointment as an Assistant Equipment Officer in the Royal Flying Corps in April 1916, he was in due course posted to Egypt—remaining there the rest of his life.

One does not know how long, if at all, Creswell remained concerned with his post in the air force. In April 1918, he was appointed Staff Captain in the Royal Air Force. In the New Year of 1919, he became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division).

Creswell’s career in Islamic art and architecture was significantly boosted in July 1919 when he was appointed, with help from D.G. Hogarth, Inspector of Monuments in British General Allenby’s military administration of the Occupied Enemy Territory. His first task as Inspector of Monuments was to compile an inventory of all the monuments. The military first stationed Creswell in Aleppo, toward the extreme north of the area, and thereafter moved him successively to Amman, Haifa, and Jerusalem. As Inspector of Monuments, traveling by army transport, on horseback, or by donkey, Creswell was able to measure and photograph monuments from the Euphrates to Egypt. ‘By May 1920’, Creswell writes, ‘I felt I had got an adequate knowledge of Syrian architecture, and I drew up a proposal for a History of the Muslim Architecture of Egypt.’

Creswell’s military postings turned his focal interest from Persia to Egypt, but he always remained of aware of how important the study of Iraq and Syria remained for studying the origins of Islamic art and architecture. In the ten months Creswell lived in Syria and Palestine, he traveled over 5,000 miles, took 960 photographs, made twenty measured drawings, and written 200 pages of notes.

These statistics were essential for Creswell’s later proposal, submitted shortly thereafter to King Fuad I of Egypt, for researching and writing, in Creswell’s words, an ‘exhaustive history’ on the history of Islamic art and architecture. The massive work would contain plans, drawings, and photographs of 65 percent of the Islamic monuments in the region, with brief references to the remaining ones. The work would discuss the evolutions of mosque plans, minarets, domes and pendentives, and madrasa plans. Additional chapters would also include such subjects as military architecture represented the walls and citadel of Cairo. A full bibliography for every monument compiled from the literature of both architecture and travel was also proposed.

King Fuad was pleased to patronize a monumental work devoted to what Creswell described as ‘one of the greatest and most interesting branches of Muslim architecture, which will make known in all parts of the world the glorious achievements, as well as the history and evolution, of modern architecture in Egypt.’ Creswell succeeded in receiving a personal gift from the King, a grant of £800 for three years enabling him to concentrate on his task without financial distraction.

Hearing about his proposal acceptance, Creswell headed back to Cairo on 13 October 1920 with twenty-two cases of books—later referred by Creswell as the most important date of his life.

Next:
Arrival in Cairo