Beautiful Islamic Calligrams

On November 28, 2014 by Tim Newman

I’ve covered Middle Eastern art a couple of times recently, I like the squiggly detail that it often entails. Last week I popped one up about a young Iranian guy that takes photos of mosques and another about the graffiti of Tel Aviv. Have a look when you get a mo.

Today I’m just going to put up some Islamic calligrams which I’m currently enjoying. These calligrams were born because Islam takes figurative art with a dose of suspicion and it is forbidden to visually represent divinity; Islamic calligrams offer the artist a way round these feelings.

The artists use the Arabic words to surreptitiously create forms. I’m fairly sure that if M*hammed really did mind figurative art, this wouldn’t fool him, but he seems cool with it so far. Fingers crossed.

This style of calligram looks ancient, and indeed Islamic calligraphy has been around for many a year, almost since the Qu’ran’s inception around two and a half thousands years ago. The practice is still going strong in the modern era.

These next few images have been drawn by a guy called Everitte Barbee who is a white fella from Tennessee believe it or not. Everitte studied the Arabic language in America, went to brush up his skills in Lebanon and now lives and works in Beirut. His calligrams sometimes have a cheeky or downright edgy message.