Zoomorphic Calligraphy of Islam

One of the most amazing things about Islamic art is how unstymied that average Muslim artist was by a religious prohibition. Beautiful caligraphy and abstract onyx and jacinth mosaics. But at a certain point, the prohibition lapsed enough that artists were able to begin composing drawings of animal and people out of calligraphy.

This new mode was not a matter of script metamorphosing into living forms which are also readable letters, but of using script to delineate such forms. Seldom had the flexibility of the Arabic alphabet been so tested.

This practice established itself only relatively late in Islamic art, when the taboos outlawing religious iconography had lost some of their power.

BibliOdyssey (a blog we woefully underlink, but is a daily read) has a beautiful gallery of examples. Ingenious: it really beats the shit out of the elephant I can make out of 'John'.

Zoomorphic Calligraphy [Bibilodyssey]