In the pre-Islamic period, pagan religions were strongly entrenched in the Arabian peninsula, but Christianity and Judaism were also notable forces in pre-Islamic Arabia, as well as through much of the Near Eastern region.  These religions were closely related to Islam in their monotheistic orientations and beliefs in a Last Judgment; in addition, Muhammad claimed to be one in a line of prophets including, among others, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.  As a result, Islam viewed members of these religions as ahl al-kitab, or "peoples of the book" who shared the same revelations from God.

Because of these common revelations and origins, Islam was closely tied to Christianity and Judaism, and this positive relationship had important religious and political implications, some of which appear to find expression through Islamic architecture.  First, while Muhammad and the early Muslims sought out and destroyed many pagan holy sites and idols, religious buildings of ahl al-kitab peoples were respected, and use of those buildings was allowed to continue.  More striking, however, is that during the period of the Islamic conquests, when Muslims were without an appropriate building in which to worship, they sometimes shared churches with Christians.  In addition, as the form of the mosque developed, some influences from Christian and Jewish architecture seem apparent.  However, while the close relationship of these groups seems to be evident in Islamic architecture, architecture eventually became a valuable and enduring way for Muslims to demonstrate explicitly the victory of Islam over the ahl al-kitab religions.  In a number of major Islamic religious buildings, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Great Mosque of Damascus, and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Muslims appropriated ahl al-kitab religious sites and/or buildings, and in so doing implicitly asserted through architecture the ultimate supremacy of Islam over the other ahl al-kitab religions.  As a result, the architecture of the Near East continues to stand as a reflection of the varied and changing relations of Islam and its doctrinal cousins, the ahl al-kitab.

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