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Geometric Patterns
الزخارف الهندسية
Explanation (not Quran text)
Interlacing star and polygon patterns are among the most recognisable features of art across the Muslim world, on tiles, woodwork, plaster, metal and book covers. Craftsmen built them with a compass and a straightedge on simple grids, so that one small repeating unit can cover a whole wall. No verse is attached to this card: the pattern is an art form, and the card presents its history.
In Muslim civilisation
Pattern scrolls such as the Topkapı Scroll show how master builders designed these patterns on paper. Some later patterns, for example on the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan (1453), use five- and ten-fold symmetry in ways that mathematicians have studied closely.
Sources
- Necipoğlu, G. (1995). The Topkapı Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.
- Lu, P. J., & Steinhardt, P. J. (2007). Decagonal and quasi-crystalline tilings in medieval Islamic architecture. Science, 315(5815), 1106–1110.
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