Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art

Islamic geometric patterns make up one of the three nonfigural types of decoration, which also include calligraphy and vegetal patterns. Islamic decoration makes great use of geometric patterns which have developed over the centuries. Calligraphic ornamentation also appears in conjunction with geometric patterns. Many of these derived from various earlier cultures: Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Central Asian, and Persian.

They are usually distinguished from the arabesque, the term for decoration in Islamic art based on curving and branching vegetal forms. The geometric designs have evolved into beautiful and highly complex patterns, still used in many modern day settings.

The square and rectangle play a significant role in Islamic architecture. A recurring motif is a small central square turned 45 degrees within a larger square. Octagons appear in Islamic architecture in various shapes.

The arabesques and geometric patterns of Islamic art are often said to arise from the Islamic view of the world. To Muslims, these forms, taken together, constitute an infinite pattern that extends beyond the visible material world. To many in the Islamic world, they concretely symbolize the infinite, and therefore uncentralized, nature of the creation of the one God and convey a spirituality without the figurative iconography of the art of other religions.

Repeating geometric forms are often accompanied by calligraphy. To the adherents of Islam, the continuous patterns are symbolic of their united faith and the way in which traditional Islamic cultures view the world.

There are two modes to Islamic decoration. In the first mode, each repeating geometric form has a built-in symbolism ascribed to it. The second mode is based upon the flowing nature of plant forms. This mode recalls the feminine nature of life giving. The geometric patterns can also be equally thought of as both art and science, some say. The art is at the same time mathematically precise, aesthetically pleasing, and symbolic. Discovered geometric forms, therefore, exemplify this perfect reality because God's creation has been obscured by the sins of man.

Plato's ideas about the existence of a separate reality that was perfect in form and function and crystalline in character, Euclidean geometry as expounded on by Al-Abbās ibn Said al-Jawharī in his Commentary on Euclid's Elements, the trigonometry of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta as elaborated on by the Persian mathematician Khwārizmī, and the development of spherical geometry by Abū al-Wafā' al-Būzjānī and spherical trigonometry by Al-Jayyani for determining the Qibla and times of salat and Ramadan, all served as an impetus for geometric patterns in Islamic art.