These substantial, beautiful, and important books from Thames & Hudson in London are quite obviously companion volumes. Published in exactly the same size and format, and employing the same typefaces and graphics, they both preface their lavishly illustrated directories of artists and their curating, collecting, and organizing supporters with sets of introductory essays. Each also has the multitalented Hossein Amirsadeghi at the helm of its writing and editing team. The principal difference between them, of course, is the area on which each focuses: While the slightly earlier Different Sames features the work of 111 Iranian artists, New Vision covers 69 Arabic artists, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia.

The books’ contrasting concentrations affect their introductory sections as well. That of Different Sames comprises three closely interwoven essays, the most significant being the art historian Hamid Keshmirshekan’s excellent 28-page "Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art: Developments and Challenges." That of New Vision forces together six very diverse essays, dealing with everything from the British Museum’s collection of modern and contemporary Arab art to new directions in Arab graphic design; as a result it fails to provide the sense of certainty — that this is an accurate and thorough account of the subject matter — that is conveyed by Different Sames.

This is important, because for the vast majority of us, both volumes are primarily introductions. At the most basic level, they describe something of what’s going on in countries from which, for a variety of interrelated cultural and political reasons, most of us have been held at a distance. The work of some of these artists will be familiar to many readers, but there are remarkable discoveries for just about anyone picking up either volume. That is why their directorylike structure, which provides each artist with a brief explanatory text and two, three, or four pages of reproductions, is so effective. By listing artists according to no logic other than alphabetic, it also discourages any attempt to see the art activity of either Iran or the Arab states in terms of dominating trends or movements. This is a good thing, regardless of what the books’ editors might feel, for the simple reason that it reflects how the vast majority of art is actually made.

Highlights among the illustrated works by the two books’ combined 180 artists? New Vision has 28-year-old Lamya Gargash’s haunting photographs of dim-lit empty rooms from her 2007 "Presence" series; Mouna Karray’s "Identity at Stake" photographs (from 2006 and 2008), which pair self-portraits with pictures of other women in exactly the same pose, clothing, and setting; and Amal Kenawy’s Nonstop Conversation, created for the 2007 Sharjah Biennial, in which she covered an entire building in pink quilting. In Different Sames are Ali Banisadr’s splendid illusionistic paintings; 85-year-old Monir Farmanfarmaian’s pieces made from mirrors and a range of mixed media; and Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar’s Doormat (2008) — a grouping of rolled-up Persian carpets bearing patterns of stars and stripes.

Just describing those six artists’ work makes another of these books’ important functions plain. Some of the pieces included deal with the issues, or have the formal characteristics, you might expect from artists working in the Islamic countries of North Africa and the Middle East; some of them do not. That is a crucial lesson in itself.