Writing becomes architecture. The sacred word unfolds in infinite arabesques. In Persian, Arabic and Ottoman manuscripts, calligraphy reaches unequaled heights.
By Artedusa
••15 min read
Islamic Illuminations: Calligraphy and Decoration
Writing becomes architecture. The sacred word unfolds in infinite arabesques. In Persian, Arabic and Ottoman manuscripts, calligraphy reaches unequaled heights. Faced with an illuminated page of the Quran, the dazzling miniatures of a Shahnameh or the brilliant frontispieces of a collection of Nizami, we measure the full distance separating utilitarian writing from pure art. These pages do not merely transmit a text: they magnify it, transform it into a visual jewel, into a silent prayer. Islamic illumination is not a simple ornament. It is a theology inscribed in matter, a metaphysics of color and line.
For more than a thousand years, from Baghdad to Istanbul, from Cordoba to Herat, from Samarkand to Cairo, generations of calligraphers, illuminators and bookbinders devoted their lives to creating books of stunning beauty. These anonymous or famous artists, working in princely workshops or monastic scriptoria, developed a unique visual language. A language where word becomes image, where geometry embraces the sacred, where gold and lapis lazuli dialogue in luminous silence.
The reed pen and ink: birth of a sacred art
It all begins with a carved reed. The qalam, this reed pen that seems so humble, becomes in the master's hand the instrument of transformation. With it, the first copies of the Quran were born in the seventh century, shortly after the prophetic revelation. These early manuscripts, drawn on parchment, already use this angular script that would become Kufic. Nothing precious yet, no gold or bright colors. Just black ink on a light support, the divine word fixed in matter.
But very quickly, this utilitarian function is coupled with an aesthetic dimension. How not to embellish the Book par excellence? How not to pay homage to the revealed Word by offering it the most sumptuous setting? The Umayyad caliphs, then the Abbasids, understand that the beauty of the manuscript reflects the magnificence of the message. Workshops multiply. Calligraphers acquire high status. Writing becomes a court art.
The qalam is perfected. One learns to cut it at precise angles, to dip it in inks with secret formulas mixing lamp soot, gum arabic and perfumes. Every gesture counts: the pressure exerted on the reed, the inclination of the hand, the speed of the stroke. Ibn Muqla, a Baghdadi calligrapher of the tenth century, revolutionizes the art by codifying the proportions of letters. He establishes a mathematical system where each character is measured in dots, each dot equivalent to the diameter of the circle formed by the tip of the qalam. This geometrization of writing, far from rigidifying it, gives it a new harmony. The arabesque is born from the rule, grace emerges from calculation.
From Kufic to Naskh: evolution of calligraphic styles
Kufic script dominates the first centuries of Islam. Its name comes from Kufa, an Iraqi city where it would have been perfected, although its origins go further back. It is a majestic, angular, almost architectural script. The vertical stems rise like columns, the horizontals stretch in long sober lines. No diacritical points at first, no vocalization signs. The reader must know the text to decipher it. This deliberate ambiguity is not a defect: it further sacralizes the written word, makes it the affair of initiates.
On the oldest Kufic Qurans, dating from the eighth and ninth centuries, the letters seem to float in a golden or white space. A few vertical strokes in blue or red mark the divisions of the text. It is an austere, almost minimalist beauty. But little by little, Kufic becomes ornate. The stems end in stylized foliage. Letters intertwine. The space between lines accommodates vegetal scrolls. Foliated Kufic, plaited Kufic appear. On ceramics, on mosque walls, on bindings, writing becomes decoration.
Then, from the tenth century, a silent revolution takes place. Naskh, a more flexible, faster cursive script, begins to replace Kufic for copying texts. Ibn Muqla, again, establishes its rules. Naskh is more legible, better suited to long texts. Letters become rounded, connect with fluidity. Diacritical points and vocalization signs become systematic. It is the script of clarity, of efficient transmission of knowledge.
But Naskh is only the beginning of extraordinary diversification. Thuluth, a monumental script with ample curves, adorns frontispieces and titles. Muhaqqaq, even more solemn, reserves its elegance for luxury manuscripts. Rayhan combines power and finesse. Tawqi' serves for imperial decrees. Riqa' becomes administrative script. In total, six main styles, codified in the thirteenth century, form the canon of classical Arabic calligraphy. Each has its function, its character, its own emotion.
Gold and lapis lazuli: materials of eternity
Hold in your hands an illuminated manuscript from the fourteenth century. Feel the weight of the thick paper, almost cardboard-like, made from linen and hemp rags. Observe this frontispiece page: the central text in black Naskh, framed by a geometric cartouche where gold, ultramarine blue, vermilion red mingle. The gold is not painted, it is applied in sheets thin as a breath, then burnished with an agate tooth so that it reflects light like a mirror. This process, inherited from Byzantium but perfected in the Islamic world, transforms the page into a luminous surface.
Lapis lazuli arrives from Afghanistan via the Silk Roads. This semi-precious stone, ground into impalpable powder, gives that deep blue, almost nocturnal, which contrasts with the brilliance of gold. Illuminators mix it with gum arabic to create a paint of unequaled intensity. On some manuscripts, the blue seems to vibrate, as if the stone retained its mineral nature even reduced to pigment. Beside it, vermilion obtained from cinnabar, green from copper, pink from madder, brown from earth umber compose a restricted but refined palette.
The application of these colors requires infinite patience. The brush, made of cat hair or squirrel, must be so fine that it can trace lines invisible to the naked eye. Illuminators work with a magnifying glass, laying stroke after stroke, letting dry between each layer. For a simple frontispiece, several weeks of work. For an entire manuscript, years. Human time dissolves in the perfection of form.
Some manuscripts push luxury to excess. The Quran commissioned by the Mamluk sultan an-Nasir Muhammad at the beginning of the fourteenth century has more than a thousand fully illuminated pages. Each text page is framed by a different decoration. Margins accommodate medallions, finials, secondary inscriptions. Gold does not merely adorn the cartouches: it invades the backgrounds, transforms the letters themselves into precious objects. Faced with such a work, one no longer knows whether one holds a book or a reliquary.
Geometry and arabesque: nature transfigured
If you look for figurative representations in a Quran, you will search in vain. Islamic aniconism, this reluctance to represent living beings in a religious context, pushes artists toward other paths: geometry, arabesque, calligraphy itself. Far from being a limitation, this constraint liberates a profuse creativity. Unable to copy nature, illuminators reinvent it, distill it into abstract principles.
The geometric motifs that adorn the frontispieces, margins, intercolumns of Islamic manuscripts obey sophisticated mathematical rules. Circles, polygons, stars with six, eight, twelve, sixteen branches fit together in compositions of dizzying complexity. These motifs, often called geometric arabesques, are not simple decorations: they translate a cosmological conception of the universe. Divine unity is reflected in the infinite multiplication of forms. The invisible center around which the figures turn recalls that everything proceeds from a single principle.
The vegetal arabesque, for its part, is inspired by scrolls, palmettes, stylized flowers. But it never seeks realistic imitation. A vine leaf becomes a golden spiral, a flower transforms into a symmetrical rosette, a stem unfolds in an infinite sinuous curve. This stylized nature evokes paradise, that eternal garden promised to believers. On manuscript margins, the arabesque meanders, branches out, invades available space with organic logic. One follows it with the eye, gets lost in its meanders, meditates on its endless growth.
Muslim artists excel in the art of planar trompe-l'oeil. By playing on interlacing, on the superposition of figures, on the alternation of colors, they create the illusion of depth on a perfectly flat surface. A motif seems to pass in front of another, then behind, then in front again, in a game of visual hide-and-seek that defies Euclidean logic. It is another way of suggesting infinity: not through perspective fleeing to a vanishing point, but through the unresolved interlacing of forms.
The illuminated Quran: splendor of the Holy Book
The Quran is not only a sacred text: it is the very Word of God, uncreated, eternal, descended in Arabic to be recited, memorized, meditated upon. Copying the Quran is therefore not a trivial act: it is a pious act, a form of devotion. The most beautiful Quranic manuscripts are offered to mosques, madrasas, mausoleums. They testify to the piety of the patron and the virtuosity of the calligrapher.
The first Qurans, as we said, are of extreme sobriety. But from the ninth century, under the Abbasids, splendor appears on the pages. Qurans called "blue-bordered" use indigo to delimit sections. Surah titles are traced in gold. Rosettes, palmettes mark text divisions. Parchment, often dyed red or blue for certain pages, transforms the manuscript into a precious object.
The so-called Quran of the Nurse, preserved at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, illustrates this evolution. Copied in Cairo around 1370, it has more than seven hundred pages of impeccable calligraphy in Muhaqqaq. Each double page at the beginning of a surah receives monumental decoration: a large central medallion in gold and lapis lazuli, lateral cartouches, scrolls running on the margins. The whole exudes balance, tranquil majesty. Nothing is ostentatious, everything is in its proper place.
Ottoman Qurans, from the fifteenth century, develop their own style. Illuminations become more delicate, more miniaturized. Flowers, tulips, carnations, roses invade the margins. Colors lighten: pale pink, tender green, sky blue soften the brilliance of gold. Ottoman calligraphers, heirs to Arab and Persian traditions, further refine Naskh, create Nesih, a script of crystalline fineness. The most beautiful Ottoman Qurans seem to float in a dream atmosphere, between earth and sky.
But it is perhaps in Timurid and Safavid Qurans, copied in Iran in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that illumination reaches its apogee. Frontispieces resemble silk carpets suspended in space. Colors, of incredible richness, respond in subtle harmonies. Geometric motifs, of stupefying complexity, seem generated by a divine algorithm. Each page is a universe in itself, a visual meditation on infinity.
Herat and Tabriz: capitals of Persian illumination
If Baghdad and Cairo are the capitals of Arabic calligraphy, Herat and Tabriz reign over Persian illumination. In the fifteenth century, under the reign of the Timurids, Herat becomes an unequaled artistic center. Sultan Husayn Bayqara attracts the best calligraphers, illuminators, miniature painters there. His librarian, the poet Mir Ali Shir Nava'i, supervises a workshop where manuscripts of breathtaking beauty are created.
It is in Herat that Behzad works, the most famous painter of Persian miniatures. His compositions, of hallucinatory precision, integrate dozens of characters in complex architectures. Each face has its personality, each gesture tells a story. Colors, laid in transparent glazes, create effects of depth and light. Behzad does not merely illustrate the text: he transposes it into a coherent, poetic visual universe, where the real and the imaginary merge.
Tabriz takes over in the sixteenth century, under the Safavids. Shah Tahmasp, an erudite prince and collector, commissions a Shahnameh of incredible splendor. This Book of Kings, Persian national epic, recounts the mythical history of Iran from its origins to the Arab conquest. Tahmasp's manuscript, completed around 1540, has two hundred fifty-eight full-page miniatures, works of several dozen artists. Each miniature is an explosion of colors, a theater where heroic battles, court scenes, legendary episodes are played out.
Look at the miniature representing Zahhak with serpents, that demonic king of Persian mythology. Serpents emerge from his shoulders in monstrous contortions. The palace in the background, with turquoise and gold tiles, testifies to insolent wealth. Courtiers, frozen in hieratic poses, attend the scene with a mixture of fascination and horror. Everything is stylized, codified, and yet everything vibrates with intense energy.
Persian miniatures do not seek linear perspective. They use cavalier perspective, where distant objects are placed higher in the image without size reduction. This aesthetic choice, far from being clumsiness, allows showing several levels of action simultaneously. The eye circulates in the image, lingers on each detail, discovers in a corner a secondary character, in another an ornamental motif. It is a slow, contemplative, meditative reading.
The Shahnameh and profane epics
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, composed in the tenth century, quickly becomes the most copied and illustrated text in Persian literature. This monumental epic, of sixty thousand couplets, narrates the exploits of legendary heroes: Rostam the invincible warrior, Sohrab his son whom he kills without recognizing him, Zahhak the tyrant, Fereydun the liberator. Each prince, each sultan wants to possess his own illuminated copy of the Shahnameh. It is a symbol of legitimacy, a link with the glorious past of pre-Islamic Iran.
Shahnameh miniatures follow precise iconographic conventions. Heroes wear distinctive headdresses. Rostam is recognized by his leopard skin. Battles unfold in stylized landscapes where multicolored rocks and flowering trees create an unreal setting. Horses, with immaculate or flamboyant coats, seem to dance rather than gallop. Swords sparkle, armor shines, blood spurts in decorative jets.
But the Shahnameh is not alone. Nizami's Khamseh, a collection of five narrative poems composed in the twelfth century, equally inspires illuminators. The story of Layla and Majnun, lovers separated by destiny, that of Khosrow and Shirin, Sassanid prince in love with an Armenian princess, that of Alexander the Great traveling the world in search of the water of life: so many tales that allow artists to deploy their imagination.
In miniatures illustrating the Khamseh, love scenes dominate. Majnun, driven mad by love, wanders in the desert surrounded by wild animals who have adopted him. Shirin bathes in a basin while Khosrow, hidden behind a rock, observes her entranced. Alexander, under his royal tent, receives homage from vanquished kings. Each scene is a pretext to celebrate beauty: beauty of elongated bodies, beauty of flowering gardens, beauty of shimmering fabrics, beauty of fantastic architectures.
Artists do not merely literally illustrate the text. They interpret it, transpose it into the visual universe of their era. Costumes, architectures, landscapes reflect the Safavid or Ottoman world of the sixteenth century, not the mythical past of Sassanid Iran or pre-Islamic Arabia. This deliberate anachronism shocks no one: it allows the viewer to identify with the heroes, to feel them close despite the centuries.
Master calligraphers: virtuosos of the stroke
Certain names emerge from the anonymity of workshops. Ibn Muqla first, we have mentioned him, codifier of cursive writing in the tenth century. His legend says that the jealous caliph had his right hand cut off to prevent him from writing. Ibn Muqla then attached his qalam to his mutilated wrist and continued to trace perfect letters until his death. True or false, this story says the essential: the calligrapher is one whose art transcends the limits of the body.
Yaqut al-Musta'simi, Baghdadi calligrapher of the thirteenth century, perfects the six canonical styles established by Ibn Muqla. His reputation is such that it is said that no one, for four centuries, will equal his mastery of Thuluth. Mamluk sultans collect his works. His disciples found schools that perpetuate his method. Yaqut dies in 1298, during the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols. But his art survives: Ottoman calligraphers of the sixteenth century still claim his tradition.
Mir Ali Tabrizi, active in Herat at the beginning of the fifteenth century, invents the Nasta'liq style, a brilliant synthesis of Naskh and Ta'liq. Nasta'liq becomes the script of choice for Persian poetry. Its letters, inclined, fluid, seem to glide on the page in perpetual movement. Copying in Nasta'liq requires exceptional dexterity: the slightest hesitation, the slightest tremor shows. The best Nasta'liq calligraphers are venerated like saints.
Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, student of Mir Ali Tabrizi, brings Nasta'liq to its apogee in the sixteenth century. He works for the Timurid and Safavid courts. His pages, of supreme elegance, marry geometric rigor and organic suppleness. Look at one of his compositions: the poetic text, arranged in oblique columns, seems to float in space. Margins accommodate delicate illuminations, stylized birds, golden scrolls. The eye no longer knows where to look, so much each detail deserves attention.
Hafiz Osman, Ottoman calligrapher of the seventeenth century, establishes the Nesih style used for imperial Qurans. His letters, of crystalline fineness, achieve formal perfection never surpassed. It is said he rewrote the same page sixty times before being satisfied. His manuscripts, preserved in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, are studied as absolute models. Even today, calligraphers train by copying his works, line after line, letter after letter.
The qalam and the compass: tools of the sacred
Enter the workshop of a medieval calligrapher. On the low table, a few simple objects: a handful of reeds cut into qalams of different sizes, a bronze inkwell containing black ink, an agate polisher, a compass, a ruler, gold leaf in their booklet, pigments in powder in small pots. Nothing luxurious, nothing superfluous. The richness is not in the tools but in the hand that wields them.
The qalam is cut according to a precise ritual. One chooses a Persian reed, dried for years so that it reaches ideal hardness. It is incised with a clean, oblique stroke, with a sharp knife. The end is split to create two flexible blades that will allow modulating the stroke. The width of the tip is adjusted according to the desired script: wide for monumental Thuluth, fine for delicate Nasta'liq. Each calligrapher has his cutting secrets, transmitted from master to disciple.
The ink, prepared according to ancestral recipes, must be neither too fluid nor too thick. It must glide without smudging, dry quickly without losing its brilliance. The best calligraphers prepare their ink themselves, grinding oil lamp soot, mixing it with dissolved gum arabic, sometimes adding musk or amber to perfume the pages. The smell of an ancient manuscript, this mixture of aged paper, ink and perfume, immediately evokes princely libraries.
The paper, manufactured in Samarkand, Herat, Baghdad according to the technique imported from China in the eighth century, is polished with an agate stone until becoming smooth as a mirror. This tedious step is crucial: on rough paper, the pen catches, the stroke loses its fluidity. Once polished, the paper is sometimes dyed, washed with tea or saffron to give it a warm color. Some luxury manuscripts use paper entirely covered with gold: each page shines like a miniature sun.
The compass serves to trace the invisible guides that structure the page. Calligraphers trace baseline guides, height lines, reference circles. Everything is measured, calculated, harmonized. This mathematical rigor does not hinder creativity: it channels it, gives it a solid framework. The most beautiful pages are those where geometry is forgotten, where the rule disappears under the grace of the gesture.
Istanbul and Ottoman synthesis
When Constantinople falls into the hands of Mehmed II in 1453, it becomes Istanbul, capital of an expanding Ottoman Empire. The sultans, heirs to both Byzantium and Islamic traditions, create their own style. The workshops of Topkapi Palace welcome calligraphers, illuminators, bookbinders from all over the empire. Persians, Arabs, Turks, sometimes even converted Europeans work side by side, merging their traditions.
Ottoman illumination is recognized by its delicacy, its lightened palette. Floral motifs, inspired by palace gardens, invade margins: tulips, carnations, roses, hyacinths bloom in stylized bouquets. Pastel colors, pink, sky blue, water green, replace the saturated tones of Persian manuscripts. Gold, omnipresent but never heavy, plays with light. Frontispieces resemble silk embroideries, vegetal lace.
Sultans commission prestige works: imperial Qurans, poetry collections, calligraphy and painting albums. These muraqqa, composite albums, gather detached leaves from different sources. A page of Persian calligraphy from the fifteenth century sits beside an Indian miniature from the sixteenth, an Ottoman illumination from the seventeenth. Framed by sumptuous margins with golden arabesques, these leaves form a visual anthology, a portable museum.
Ahmed Karahisari, Ottoman calligrapher of the sixteenth century, creates a synthesis between Arab, Persian and Turkish traditions. His Qurans, of serene beauty, use Nesih in a perfected version. Illuminations, entrusted to the best palace artists, achieve an ideal balance between geometric rigor and organic suppleness. These manuscripts, intended for imperial mosques, testify to the ostentatious piety of sultans but also to their enlightened patronage.
Tughra, calligraphed signatures of Ottoman sultans, become works of art in themselves. These complex compositions, where the sultan's name, his father's name and his titulature intertwine in an emblematic form, adorn firmans, imperial decrees. Illuminated with gold and colors, tughra resemble stylized birds, ships sailing on an azure sea. They assert the sovereign's authority while celebrating the beauty of the stroke.
Miniatures of the Khamseh: poetry and painting
Nizami, Persian poet of the twelfth century, composes five long narrative poems that form the Khamseh, the quintet. Each poem tells a story of love, heroic quest, philosophical wisdom. Princes and sultans commission illustrated copies of the Khamseh, allowing painters to deploy their talent in varied scenes: battles, banquets, love scenes, fantastic landscapes.
The British Library's Khamseh, copied in Herat around 1490, contains twenty-two full-page miniatures. Each miniature is a masterpiece of composition. Look at the scene where Khosrow discovers Shirin bathing: the princess, in the center of a turquoise basin, raises her arms in a gesture of modest surprise. Khosrow, hidden behind a rock, contemplates her open-mouthed. Servants, in the foreground, prepare clothes. The garden around the basin explodes with colors: flowering trees in pink and white, multicolored birds, stratified rocks in unreal tones.
Every detail counts. Costumes, embroidered with geometric motifs, testify to advanced textile research. Faces, with delicate features, almond eyes, express subtle emotions despite stylization. Architectures, with bulbous domes, facades covered with ceramics, reflect contemporary Safavid Iran. Landscapes, in acid colors, apple green, candy pink, bright orange, create a dreamlike atmosphere.
Artists rarely sign their works, but some names have come down to us. Sultan Muhammad, painter active in Tabriz at the beginning of the sixteenth century, directs Shah Tahmasp's imperial workshop. His style, recognizable among all, mixes meticulous precision and baroque dynamism. His compositions teem with characters, animals, objects. The eye does not know where to rest, so much each square centimeter swarms with details.
Riza Abbasi, active in Isfahan at the beginning of the seventeenth century, breaks with tradition. His figures, more naturalistic, more sensual, reflect the influence of Mughal India and even Europe. His portraits of languid young people, in lascivious poses, shock puritans but seduce amateurs. His calligraphies, executed in Nasta'liq of extreme fluidity, sometimes integrate words into the very decor of miniatures, blurring the boundary between text and image.
The technique of gold: brilliance of eternity
Gold, incorruptible metal, evokes divine eternity. In Islamic manuscripts, it is not merely decorative: it is theological. Applying gold to a Quran page is to make visible divine light, that light of which the famous verse speaks: "God is the light of the heavens and the earth." Illuminators know this, who treat gold with quasi-religious respect.
Gold used in manuscripts comes in the form of extremely thin sheets, obtained by beating an ingot between parchment sheets. These sheets, translucent, are so delicate that a breath lifts them. The illuminator cuts them with sharpened scissors, places them on the area prepared with an adhesive based on egg white and gum arabic. Once the gold is applied, he burnishes it with an agate tooth or polished bone, rubbing in regular circles until the surface becomes mirror-like.
But gold can also be mixed with gum arabic to form golden ink, used to trace titles, cartouches, illuminations. This ink, called chrysography, allows details impossible with the sheet. Some calligraphers trace entire Qurans in gold on purple parchment: these manuscripts, of almost violent sumptuousness, dazzle as much as they intimidate.
Illuminators also develop sgraffito techniques: they apply a layer of gold, then a layer of colored pigment, then scratch the pigment according to precise patterns to reveal the gold underneath. This technique, requiring a sure hand and infallible eye, creates effects of golden lace on a colored background. It is found especially in Ottoman and Mughal manuscripts of the sixteenth century.
The most luxurious manuscripts use not only gold but also silver, even platinum. Silver, duller, serves for highlights, shadows. It oxidizes over time, sometimes blackens, but this patina adds a temporal dimension to the work. Platinum, extremely rare, appears only in a few Mughal manuscripts of the seventeenth century, commissioned by capricious emperors in search of novelties.
Aniconism and abstraction: philosophy of image
Why so few human representations in Islamic religious art? The question has haunted historians for a long time. The answer is not found in the Quran, which contains no explicit prohibition of images. It is found in the hadiths, these words attributed to the Prophet, which condemn the representation of living beings as a sacrilegious attempt to compete with the Creator. The painter who fashions a human image claims the divine power to create life.
This reluctance, variable according to eras and regions, pushes artists toward abstraction. Unable to represent God, not supposed to represent prophets or saints, illuminators concentrate on calligraphy and geometric or vegetal decoration. Paradoxically, this limitation liberates boundless creativity. Islamic art invents forms never seen elsewhere, geometric combinations of stupefying complexity, arabesques of hypnotic fluidity.
Some see in it a form of iconoclasm, of rejection of idolatry. Others read in it a profound intuition: God, absolute transcendent, cannot be figured. Any representation would limit him, betray him. Better therefore to celebrate his word, the Quran, by offering it the most beautiful setting possible. Calligraphy becomes theophany: by tracing the letters of revelation, the calligrapher gives visible form to divine presence.
But this aniconism concerns only the religious domain. In profane manuscripts, miniatures abound with human and animal figures. Heroes of the Shahnameh, lovers of the Khamseh, princes and hunters frolic in lively scenes. Even religious subjects, like prophet stories in illustrated versions of Rashid al-Din's universal history, include human figures. Only the Quran remains inviolate: no image comes to disturb the purity of the text.
This coexistence between religious aniconism and profane figuration testifies to rare theological sophistication. Muslim artists are neither iconoclasts nor iconophiles in the Byzantine sense. They navigate between these pitfalls, creating an art where the sacred is expressed through the sign, the profane through the image, without the two ever merging.
Princely workshops: from patronage to creation
Without princes, no illuminations. This evidence imposes itself as soon as one studies Islamic manuscripts: almost all were commissioned by sultans, emirs, viziers. Artistic creation, in the medieval Islamic world, depends entirely on princely patronage. Artists work in court workshops, remunerated by the imperial treasury, sometimes housed in the palace itself.
These workshops, true manufactures of luxury, employ dozens of specialists: calligraphers to copy the text, illuminators to decorate margins and frontispieces, miniature painters to illustrate narratives, bookbinders to assemble quires, goldsmiths to create clasps and metal corners protecting the boards. Each trade has its masters, its apprentices, its traditions. Hierarchy is strict: the calligrapher, guardian of the sacred text, dominates the pyramid.
The sultan or prince commissions a manuscript for various reasons: to affirm his piety if it is a Quran, to display his erudition if it is a poetry collection, to legitimize his power if it is the Shahnameh that links him to mythical kings of Iran. Sometimes also, he commissions to offer: a magnificent manuscript is a diplomatic gift of the first order. Ambassadors transport these works from one court to another, contributing to spreading styles and techniques.
The workshop head, often himself an artist of renown, supervises the entire process. He distributes tasks, verifies quality, imposes house style. Under the Timurids, in Herat, it is the poet Mir Ali Shir Nava'i who directs the library and workshops. Under the Safavids, in Tabriz then Isfahan, the imperial librarian plays the same role. These cultivated men, both bureaucrats and patrons, ensure the artistic coherence of court productions.
How long to create a luxury manuscript? Years. Shah Tahmasp's Shahnameh mobilizes several dozen artists for a decade. Each miniature requires weeks of work. The calligrapher must first copy the entire text, that is, tens of thousands of verses. Then illuminators intervene, miniature painters next, finally bookbinders. The sultan, patient or impatient, waits. Sometimes he dies before the end of the manuscript, and his successor completes the project or abandons it. The history of Islamic art is marked by unfinished manuscripts, mute witnesses of fallen dynasties.
From Samarkand to Cordoba: geography of splendor
Islamic illumination knows no single center. It flourishes simultaneously in the four corners of the Muslim world, from Andalusia to Central Asia, adopting regional characteristics while sharing a common visual vocabulary. This dialectic between unity and diversity makes the richness of this art.
In Cordoba, capital of the Umayyads of Spain in the tenth century, calligraphers develop a recognizable Maghrebi style: round letters, short stems, discreet ornamentation. Qurans copied in Andalusia favor sobriety, legibility. Little gold, few colors, but austere elegance. Visigothic influence, still present in Mozarabic Christian illumination, sometimes tints Muslim manuscripts with interlaced motifs.
In the Maghreb, from Fez to Tunis, the Andalusian tradition persists after the Reconquista. Maghrebi manuscripts, often of modest formats, preserve this Hispanic sobriety. Maghrebi calligraphy, with its rounded letters and oversized vowel points, stands out clearly from Eastern styles. Illuminations, when they exist, use simple geometric motifs: stars, rosettes, interlacing.
In Egypt and Syria, under the Mamluks (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries), illumination reaches ostentatious splendor. Mamluk Qurans, in monumental formats, display their wealth without restraint. Each page is bordered with gold, frontispieces resemble architectural portals. Colors, saturated, contrast violently: ultramarine blue and gold, vermilion red and emerald green. It is the art of a military aristocracy avid for luxury and prestige.
In Iran, diversity dominates. Each dynasty, each city develops a style: Tabriz under the Ilkhanids, Shiraz under the Injuids, Herat under the Timurids, Isfahan under the Safavids. But all share a common sensibility: love of color, meticulousness of execution, sophistication of compositions. Persian miniatures, with their dreamlike landscapes and elegant characters, embody Iran's aesthetic ideal.
In Ottoman Turkey, synthesis occurs. Heirs to Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, the Ottomans create a composite but coherent style. Ottoman manuscripts combine Mamluk monumentality, Persian delicacy and an increasing European touch from the sixteenth century. Istanbul becomes the crucible where traditions merge, from which a new art emerges.
Bindings: setting and protection
A manuscript is not reduced to its pages. Binding, which protects and magnifies the object, fully participates in the work of art. Islamic bindings, with sophisticated techniques and sumptuous decorations, reach a level of excellence rarely equaled.
Traditional Islamic binding uses leather, most often goat or sheep, tanned and dyed. The boards in thick cardboard, made from paper glued in successive layers, are covered with this leather. The spine, flat rather than rounded, allows opening the book flat without forcing. Quires, sewn on leather bands, are solidly attached to the boards. It is a robust construction, designed to last centuries.
But what strikes is the decoration. Boards, treated in relief, present geometric or vegetal compositions of breathtaking complexity. Bookbinders use the embossing technique: they apply heated irons on moistened leather, creating impressions in hollow. Then they fill these hollows with gold, creating luminous motifs on dark background. Central medallions, spandrels, borders fit together in rigorous logic.
Some bindings use the technique of leather marquetry: one cuts shapes in leathers of different colors, one assembles them like a puzzle, one glues the whole on the cardboard board. The result, of extreme fineness, evokes decorations of wood or mother-of-pearl inlays. Persian and Ottoman bindings of the sixteenth century exploit this technique with virtuosity.
The doublure, inner face of the boards, receives equally careful decoration. Marbled paper, embossed leather, even painted miniatures adorn these surfaces that only the reader will see when opening the book. It is a hidden luxury, a secret refinement. The most precious bindings include a flap, extension of the lower board that folds over the edge to protect the book from dust and light. This flap, also decorated, transforms the closed book into a sculptural object.
Transmission and teaching: perpetuating tradition
How does one become a calligrapher in the medieval Islamic world? Through a long, demanding, quasi-monastic training. The apprentice enters the house of a recognized master, sometimes from the age of ten. He begins by preparing tools: cutting qalams, grinding pigments, polishing paper. He observes the master work, memorizes his gestures, attempts to reproduce his works.
For years, the apprentice copies models, line after line. The master corrects relentlessly, erases a too-thick stroke, straightens an imperfect curve. Progress is slow, marked by failures and frustrations. Some give up, return to less demanding trades. Those who persevere, after sometimes a decade, receive the ijaza, the certificate attesting that they master the taught style and can transmit in turn.
This transmission from master to disciple creates artistic lineages, calligraphic genealogies. One says: "So-and-so is the student of so-and-so, who was the student of so-and-so, who goes back to Yaqut al-Musta'simi." This filiation, conscientiously retraced, confers legitimacy and prestige. Calligraphers preciously preserve their masters' works, study them, copy them to imbue themselves with their spirit.
Calligraphy treatises, written from the eleventh century, codify rules. They explain how to cut the qalam, prepare ink, measure letter proportions. They include plates showing canonical forms of each character in each style. These treatises, illuminated manuscripts themselves, circulate from library to library, perpetuating knowledge through centuries.
But technique is not enough. Treatises insist on the spiritual dimension of calligraphy. The calligrapher must be pure, morally and physically. He must perform ablutions before tracing the Quran. He must work in silence, concentration, humility. Some masters recommend fasting, prayer, meditation. The calligraphic act becomes spiritual exercise, path of elevation.
Renaissance and decline: from the 16th to the 20th century
The sixteenth century marks the apogee of Islamic illumination. The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires, powerful and rich, support a profuse artistic production. But from the seventeenth century, signs of decline appear. Wars exhaust treasuries, patrons become rarer. Court workshops decline, masters no longer find disciples.
The arrival of printing, introduced in the Ottoman world in the eighteenth century, delivers a fatal blow to the manuscript. Why spend months copying a text when it can be printed in a few days? Calligraphers reconvert or disappear. Only monumental calligraphy survives, on monuments, official inscriptions. The illuminated manuscript becomes a collector's object, vestige of a bygone past.
The nineteenth century sees Islamic manuscripts dispersed. European collectors, taking advantage of the weakening of Muslim empires, buy or plunder libraries. Thousands of manuscripts end up in Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna. Western museums become guardians of a heritage that countries of origin can no longer protect. This cultural dispossession still feeds resentments today.
The twentieth century brings awareness. In the 1920s-1930s, Turkish and Iranian artists rediscover traditional calligraphy. They modernize it, adapt it to contemporary media: posters, logos, abstract paintings. Calligraphy leaves the book, invades public space. In Iran, painters like Sohrab Sepehri integrate Persian calligraphy into abstract compositions inspired by the West.
Today, Islamic calligraphy experiences a renewal. Schools, from Tehran to Istanbul, from Damascus to Cairo, teach traditional styles. Exhibitions celebrate ancient and contemporary masters. Artists, at the intersection of tradition and modernity, reinvent calligraphy: calligraphic graffiti, monumental installations, digital animations. The qalam and ink dialogue with pixel and code.
Collections and museums: where to see masterpieces
If you want to contemplate the most beautiful Islamic illuminated manuscripts, several museums are essential. In Istanbul, Topkapi Palace preserves the Ottoman imperial collection: hundreds of Qurans, some attributed to the first caliphs, albums of calligraphy and painting, sumptuous bindings. The palace library, little known to the general public, conceals hidden treasures.
In Paris, the Bibliothèque nationale de France possesses one of the richest collections of Islamic manuscripts in the West. The Manuscripts Department regularly organizes exhibitions. One can admire Mamluk Qurans in monumental formats, Persian Shahnameh with dazzling miniatures, Ottoman albums of extreme delicacy.
In London, the British Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum compete for jewels. The British Library notably preserves Shah Tahmasp's Shahnameh, an absolute masterpiece of Persian illumination. The Victoria and Albert excels in decorative arts: bindings, framed calligraphies, manuscript fragments transformed into art objects.
In Doha, the Museum of Islamic Art, inaugurated in 2008, presents a collection assembled with considerable means. One finds exceptional pieces there, purchased from all over the world: ancient Qurans, Persian miniatures, rare calligraphies. The museum's architecture itself, designed by I.M. Pei, dialogues with the forms of Islamic art.
In Tehran, the National Museum of Iran and the National Library preserve treasures that remained in the country: Safavid manuscripts, Qajar albums, contemporary works. Visiting these collections is to measure the continuity of a millennial tradition, its persistent vitality despite historical ruptures.
Finally, many manuscripts remain in the libraries of Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus, accessible to researchers but unknown to the general public. Every year, catalogs reveal new marvels, forgotten manuscripts that reappear. The history of Islamic illumination is far from finished: it continues to be written, page after page, discovery after discovery.
Faced with an illuminated page from a fourteenth-century Quran, faced with a sixteenth-century Persian miniature, one feels a complex emotion. Admiration for technical virtuosity, of course. But also something deeper: the sensation of touching with one's finger an entire civilization, of penetrating into a mental universe where art was not separated from faith, where beauty served the sacred, where each gesture carried a meaning that exceeded simple aesthetic pleasure. These manuscripts are not just books: they are silent prayers, visual meditations, bridges thrown between the visible and the invisible. Writing becomes architecture, color becomes light, gold becomes reflection of eternity. And we, spectators of the twenty-first century, stand before them as before an intact mystery, a beauty that defies time and continues to question us.
Islamic Illuminations: Calligraphy and Decoration | Art History
