Inlaid metalwork

The Nuhad Es-Said collection booklet (Riyadh 1985) describes the inlaying of brass and bronze with gold, silver and copper as developed to an unequalled degree in Islamic culture, its richness, integration of design with surface and form, and mastery of complex patterns in a difficult technique embodying the highest ideals of the Islamic artistic tradition. ^{2 1}

• Herat: the first great centre, where the technique was fully developed in the second half of the twelfth century; its pieces include inkwells and bowls of four-metal alloy or high-tin bronze inlaid with silver, copper and a black compound. ^{1 3 4}
• Mosul: reached next, westward; an ewer made for Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Sanjar Shah in the first half of the thirteenth century. ^{1 5}
• Northern Jazira, Syria and Egypt: candlesticks from Siirt, an incense box for Sultan Muhammad ibn Qalawun, and Mamluk pieces of the mid-fourteenth century inlaid with gold and silver. ^{1 6 7}
• The Hijaz: two Kaaba keys probably made in Mecca. ^{1 7}
• Fars, Timurid Herat, Safavid Iran and the Delhi Sultanate in later centuries, including a steel kashkul overlaid with gold of 1015 AH. ^{1 8}