(From the 6th century)
During the holy month of
Ramadan in 610 CE, a merchant named al-Amin ("the Trusted One") sought solitude
in a cave on Mount Hira, a few miles north of Mecca, in Arabia. On that night,
(as Muslims believe) the angel Gabriel has appeared to him and commanded him to
recite revelations from God. In that moment this merchant became Muhammad, the
"Messenger of God". The revelations dictated by Gabriel at Mecca formed the
basis of a religion called Islam ("submission to God's will"), whose adherents
are referred to as Muslims. Today, nearly a billion Muslims turn five times a
day toward Mecca to pray.Unlike the strong tradition of portraying the human figure in Christian art, Islamic art is often associated with the arabesque style. Early Islam forbade the painting of human beings, including the Prophet, as Muslims believe this tempts followers of the Prophet to idolatry. A prohibition against depicting representational images in religious art, as well as the naturally decorative nature of Arabic script, led to the use of calligraphic decorations, which usually involved repeating geometrical patterns that expressed ideals of order and nature. It was used on religious architecture, carpets, and handwritten documents.
The "Word of God" was recorded on a book known as the Qur'an ("recitation"), which is a compilation of Muhammad's revelations. To transcribe Muhammad's revelations, Arabic was adopted as the uniform script wherever Islam spread, and the very act of transcribing the Qur'an became sacred. It is expressed in the ancient Arabic proverb "Purity of writing is purity of the soul". To accomplish this holy duty, scribes developed Arabic calligraphy, the art of writing, to an extraordinary degree. Calligraphers draw from the Qur'an or proverbs as art, using the flowing Arabic language to express the beauty they perceived in the words of Muhammad.
As a result, Islamic art throughout history has been abstract and decorative, portraying geometric, floral, arabesque, and calligraphic designs. Today we see the presence of Koranic Arabic, used for reading and prayer, and for decoration, as the foremost characteristic of Islamic religious art, wherever it is found in the world and among every race.
Arabesque
The Arabesque, one of aspects of Islamic art, usually found decorating the walls of mosques, is an elaborate application of repeating geometric forms that often echo the forms of plants and animals. The choice of which geometric forms are to be used and how they are to be formatted is based upon the Islamic view of the world. To Muslims, these forms, taken together, constitute an infinite pattern that extends beyond the visible material world, they in fact symbolize the infinite, and therefore nature of the creation of the one God (Allah).
Geometric artwork in the form of the Arabesque was not widely used in the Islamic world until the golden age of Islam came into full bloom. During this time, ancient texts were translated from Greek and Latin into Arabic. Like the following Renaissance in Europe, math, science, literature and history were infused into the Islamic world with great, mostly positive repercussions. The works of Plato and especially of Euclid became popular among the literate. It was Euclid's geometry along with the foundations of trigonometry codified by Pythagoras that became the impetus of the art form that was to become the Arabesque. Plato's ideas about the existence of a separate reality that was perfect in form and function and crystalline in character also contributed to the development of the Arabesque.
To the adherents of Islam, the Arabesque is symbolic of their united faith and the way in which traditional Islamic cultures view the world. There are two modes to Arabesque art:
The first mode recalls the principles that govern the order of the world. These principles include the bare basics of what makes objects structurally sound and, by extension.
The second mode is based upon the flowing nature of plant forms. This mode recalls the feminine nature of life giving.
In addition, upon inspection of the many examples of Arabesque art, some can argue that there is a third mode, the mode of Arabic calligraphy. But calligraphy (as seen by the Muslims) is a visible expression of the highest art of all; the art of the spoken word - the transmittal of thoughts and of history. In Islam, the most important document to be transmitted orally is, of course, the Qur'an. Proverbs and complete passages from the Qur'an can be seen today in Arabesque art.
The coming together of these three forms creates the Arabesque, and this is a reflection of unity arising from diversity (a basic tenet of Islam). The Arabesque can also be equally thought of as both art and science, some say. The artwork is at the same time mathematically precise, aesthetically pleasing, and symbolic. So due to this duality of creation, they say, the artistic part of this equation can be further subdivided into both secular and religious artwork. However, for many Muslims there is no distinction; all forms of art, the natural world, mathematics and science are all creations of God and therefore are reflections of the same thing (God's will expressed through His Creation). In other words, man can discover the geometric forms that constitute the Arabesque, but these forms always existed before as part of God's creation.