When I was a little kid whenever we drove by mosques, I would be intrigued by the complex motifs they’re decorated by. I always tried to figure out the pattern; to me it was just a pattern, I never thought it can be writing because they didn’t look like letters from any alphabet I knew at the time. I remember thinking that I had finally found a full pattern that was only to be broken in the next square. As I grew older I learned that these pieces that resemble a labyrinth, at first sight, have so much more to offer than just lush visuals. Verses from the Quran were taken and turned into striking artwork carrying valuable messages. The more I learned about Islamic calligraphy and especially square Kufic, the more interesting it became and I will be delighted to share this fascination with my readers.

The importance of calligraphy in Islamic culture is indisputable. Unlike in Christian culture, the visual depiction of verses from the Holy Book is not used in decoration. Calligraphy shows itself reciting the Quran with beautiful writing decorating everything from mosques to plates to clothes to carpets. Islamic Calligraphy derives from two main styles; Naskh and Kufic. The peculiarity of Kufic Calligraphy is the straight and structured lettering. The Kufic style in itself comes in a variety of styles such as floriated, square, knotted, new style… The patterns that appear complex and random comes with strict rules and systematics. This form of Islamic Art is gaining popularity again due to its moderln and graphic look and resurfacing the traditional alluring patterns.

Square Kufic dates all the way back to the 12th-13th century. Sometimes it is also referred to as banna-i which is a Farsi word and it is mostly used to refer to the architectural square Kufic. There are two main theories about how Square Kufic came into being. The first one suggests a fusion between the Arabic script and the Chinese seal script; the Arabic script was fitted into the forms of Chinese scripts and created square Kufic. The second theory argues that it came from architectural adaptations of Arabic script. The second theory seems to be more accreditable and I saw some articles mentioning this assumption as well. This is further supported by the first examples of square Kufic. These were seen in architecture and was done using bricks packed next to one another. The earliest example is from Ghazni (modern-day Afghanistan) in Sultan Meshud Tower also known as the Victory Towers or Masud III Tower.

As I have mentioned above, Kufic calligraphy has strict rules but in square Kufic, these rules are often bent, and even broken. The letters and the overall script is skewed to fit it into shape. This is why sometimes it can be very hard to decipher what was written in the text. I think the fact that it is not always done to pass on the message openly excites me too. Having a somewhat hidden message in the image makes things a lot more amusing. The only rule that is always followed is keeping the f