original forms of the palace (Blair and Bloom 141).
The scarcity of Islamic palaces also means that it is very rare that "enough palatial buildings cluster in one place at one time to allow generalisations" (Hillenbrand Islamic 377). The Umayyad palace at Mshatta and the Ukhaidir palace from the early Abbasid dynasty are, therefore, quite unusual in having been built relatively close in time. The distance between the locations was the result of the shift in power from the western part of Asia to the region around Baghdad, but the earlier building type found at Mshatta clearly served as a model in some respects for Ukhaidir. In general Islamic palaces varied considerably in size and plan, but they largely "tended to be agglomerations of units arranged around interior courts and were formally very different from European" palaces and houses on a grand scale (Blair and Bloom 141). Large private residences of all types were either set in gardens or built around them. These private areas provided the shade, cool breezes, and water that were so hi
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