Muslim Art Essay

536 Words3 Pages
Muslim Art Muslim art takes many forms: Calligraphy, painting, hand woven rugs and carpets, ceramics, tiling, glass, metalwork, and other hand work such a leatherwork, ivory carving, jewelry making, hardstone carving and working with textiles. This is quite an extensive list and as you can see, Islamic art is literally in every art medium there is. The Muslims are known for decorating their mosques, palaces, homes and places of business with beautiful, geometric bold designs that catch you in their beauty. Many have passages and recitations from the Qur’an in their decorations, not surprisingly, since the Qur’an is the most sacred of things to the Islamic people and its passages are held in the highest esteem. Unlike with regular Christian based art that has a strong tradition of portraying the human figure; Islamic Art is featured with more of an arabesque style. Early Islam culture forbade anyone to paint human beings, even prophets, feeling that it led its follows to idolize the form depicted in the painting. Because of this, Muslim art is typically in a style that features calligraphic designs, which typically displayed geometric patterns that were repeated over and over again. This was seen in architecture, carpets and documents that were hand written. The Qur’an was transcribed using Arabic, a very flowing and beautiful script that calligraphy stemmed from. The Muslim people hold sacred the words of the Qur’an, which are the recitations of Muhammad and using this beautiful script to write of his words became a sacred act. Because they saw such beauty in the words of the Qur’an, it would stand to reason that the way they transcribed it would be equally as beautiful. There is an ancient Arabic proverb that states: "Purity of writing is purity of the soul" and that was shown in their transcriptions which became more like art than just
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