Figurative Images In Islamic Architecture

Superior Essays
Islam spread throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia rapidly after it was founded. Due to Islam discouraging the use of figurative images in religious contexts, pushing Islamic artists to create and develop a rich decoration style of non-figural images, consisting of such ornament that make a hallmark of Islamic work. Islamic decoration includes complex geometric patterns, calligraphy and scrolling vines better known as arabesques.

Islam has affected Islamic architecture when it comes to its decoration by the religion prohibiting Muslims from depicting or having sculptures of symbolic religious people such as Prophet Muhammad to refrain them from worshipping an image/sculpture; having their believers focus more on the
…show more content…
The artist of these patterns must have had a good knowledge in geometry to be able to produce such patterns.
Islamic geometric patterns vary in shapes and forms, having a circle as their origin. Using the circle as a starting point you are able to derive three shapes, a square, triangle and a hexagon, leading to these shapes, which make up the bases for the complexity in Islamic patterns. Having different complexity levels and design, deriving from such basic shapes such as circles, squares, triangles, polygons and stars.
Islamic geometric patterns through its complexity convey symbolism, showing infinity through their twinning and lacing symbolizing the nature that Allah created. To the followers of Islam arabesque is more than just a pattern; instead it shows their unity in faith.
A triangle which originates from three circles conveys the meaning that “human consciousness and the three basic biological functions: ingestion, digestion and excretion”. While expanding the circle produces a hexagon and a square, “a square often symbolizes earth and its materiality and a hexagon represents

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Caliph Dbq Essay

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages

    II. Islam’s main religious focus was: ‘’ to bring humankind under the authority of the religion espoused by the Prophet Muhammad.’’ (WTWA 320). Arabian peoples would be the motor behind their own universal faith, which in the process, joined with forerunners in Afro-Eurasia. Especially in Baghdad, religion and religious debates were keen topics of discussion.…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Holocaust will always be remembered as a horrifying event in history. It was a genocide were six million jews were executed. The Jews were seen as the reason why society was falling apart and for that, they were sent to ghettos and/or concentration camps where they were mass murdered. Many survivors have painted their experiences so that the Holocaust is never forgotten. One of those artists is Samuel Bak, he painted With a Blue Thread.…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Did Islam Spread Dbq

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Islam: the religion that spread far and wide” The Islamic civilization originated in the Arabian peninsula, and spread quickly to Europe and parts of North Africa. Nearby countries that did not follow Islam were rapidly conquered. While the Islamic civilization spread as an extensive empire using different methods, it did so in a way that violated people’s beliefs. Politics and warfare were used as methods of convincing others to follow the faith. Furthermore, cultural depictions through art and decorations were also used to gain more followers of Islam.…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Islamic Civilization Dbq

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Muslims had a culture that was a mix of Greek, Roman, Indian, and Persian traditions. The Islamic civilization was very advanced for its time. Muslims made advances in medicine and trade. These new ideas were very influential to other areas, especially Europe. Muslim society was very medically advanced, and had a large trading network connecting to most of the known world.…

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gateways To Art Summary

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The text “Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts”, introduces and discusses a lot of information that has to do with spirituality and religious art. Many architectural works that have been created as an art form also function as sacred spaces. It should be known that although there are many sacred spaces across different belief systems, that they actually have many architectural features in common. In Greece, we have the Parthenon and the Acropolis.…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Islam In America

    • 1355 Words
    • 6 Pages

    With a continuous increase of practicing Muslims in the United States than there are American Episcopalians, Jews, or Presbyterians (Yahya, Harun). It certainly does seem inevitable for a religion like Islam not to have an impact on American main stream media, politics, or pop culture. Even though, they represent a smaller portion of the total population in the United States, Muslims over the years have been greatly influential in shaping certain aspects like the sciences, art, and humanities of American society. With some 6 million adherents in the United States, studies have shown that Islam slowly is becoming one of the nation 's fastest-growing religion (Brown). During December 2000, a crescent symbolizing Islam stood along with the Christmas…

    • 1355 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sacred geometry connects natural patterns, designs, and structures to an overall sacred origin. This inseparable relationship between complex solidified values and generalized faithful concepts appears to be the unlikeliest duo. This mysterious relationship proved to be a huge attraction to many mathematicians, including Plato, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Kepler. However mathematicians today continue to seek evidence that complies with Plato’s cosmology, and “theory of everything”. Evidence lays everywhere we look, from rocks to flowers to human cells.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay About Mongols

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The movie was to inform us about all that we needed to know about different religions, and some history about different places. The movie was a good source of information to help, and very effective, although very dull and could quite possibly be used as a children's lullaby. Even if it had been irrelevant, there should have been more information about the Mongols. It would really capture the attention of the watchers. Muslims are those who surrender to god's spirit teaching, no physical linking to God, media, or the city of prophets.…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The olden Egyptians believed in a cosmos order and assumed that the entire natural existing had once been established when the world was created by Ptah/ God. And so god rested after all creations had been made with all divine words. There is an Egyptian scholar, John Wilson has rephrase the word divine by stated Ptah had made a system into which all elements should be in appropriate order while being created. [1]Page 7-8. The association of divine powers with animals was understandable for the ancient Egyptians.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Islamic Bookmaking

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Art of Bookmaking In the 800’s, Baghdad became a major papermaking center for creating books, but how were Islamic books made? Books were very important for the Muslims’ value of education. Wealthy people like kings and nobles supported bookmaking and it also provided job opportunities. Illustrators, scholars, craftsmen, calligraphers, paper and leather suppliers, and librarians all were necessary in the art of bookmaking.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dome Of The Rock Essay

    • 2426 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Armstrong argues that the replication of Mecca’s central sanctity and the mythical Garden of Eden is a symbol of the desire and struggle for unity (242). He claims that after the Dome’s completion, both Muslim and Jews eventually considered the Rock to be “the foundation of the Temple, the center of the world, the entrance to the Garden of Eden and the source of fertility” (Armstrong…

    • 2426 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Muhammad and the Believers presents us with a historical narrative of the early life of Islam and its formation. The five chapters inform the reader with the necessary exposition and background as well as subtle and reoccurring criticisms. While Donner makes it clear that not every story, reading, and text in the Quran is believable, they are in fact important as they give us insight and understanding. The book presents itself as a historical reading yet is familiar enough for the average reader to enjoy.…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Flatland is a two dimensional world, whose citizens consist of shapes like triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and circles. This world is divided into a class system where the more sides or angles you have, the higher in class a person is. In Flatland, all figures must be regular and by regular they mean equal sided. Every shape is in its more honorable state if it has equal length in all sides. But there is the the rare situation when an irregular shape is born.…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Sharhmah Essay

    • 1366 Words
    • 5 Pages

    An Islamic vision for a divine-human relationship is concerned with the higher objectives (Maqāṣid) of the Lawgiver (al-Sharī’). Linguistically, Sharī’ah is dervied from the root (sha-ra-‘a) and literally means a path to water or a straight path. Metaphorically, water is indispensable and an essencial componet for maintaining life; therefore, the significance of Sharī’ah to faith is as important as water is…

    • 1366 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Rise Of Islam Essay

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Rise of Islam The rise of Islam has played a major role in world history. Islam has contributed to many aspects of life: it has made a great impact on medicine, architecture and mathematics. It all starts in the early seventh century with Prophet Mohammed who lived in Mecca. He started out with meditation in a cave and in the year 610, then he started having visions/ messages from God.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics