The Role of Potters in Transferring Artistic Styles in the Field of Ceramics among the Islamic Regions from the Abbasid Era to the Era of the Alawite Family in Egypt (132-1371 AH / 750-1952 AD)

Various factors, such as conflicts, wars, political fluctuations, famines, epidemics, and others, led to -most of the time- to forced or voluntary migrations of Muslim makers and artists to other places near or far from their original homeland. They transferred with them the industrial and decorative methods that they had learned and perfected in their countries of origin, to the countries to which they migrated. This phenomenon was repeated throughout the Islamic eras, starting from the Abbasid era and extending to the era of the Alawite family in Egypt. It also included vast and distant parts of the Islamic world during the same period, from Iran in the east to Andalusia in the west. The same applies to potters, who played an important role in transferring artistic influences. Mentioning these artistic influences, we mean the industrial and decorative methods in the manufacture and decoration of ceramics between the regions of the Islamic world and over many centuries. The study aims to highlight the role of those potters in transferring such artistic influences from their original environments to the new ones they moved to, as well as their manifestations of Islamic ceramics from the Abbasid era until the era of the Alawite family in Egypt. This is based on the historical and archaeological evidence through which was found of the products and works of some of those potters who recorded their names on their ceramic production.  By doing so, they proved their affiliation to regions other than the ones in which their production was found and the role of each of them in the light of their ceramic works.