UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID 
 

FACULTAD DE BELLAS ARTES 
 
 

  
 

TESIS DOCTORAL 
 

Investigación sobre las potencialidades de la imagen caligráfica islámica para la 
pintura iraní contemporánea 

 
An Investigation of the Potentialities of the Islamic Calligraphic Image for 

Contemporary Iranian Painting 

 
MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR 

 
PRESENTADA POR 

 
 

Saeid Zakeri 
 
 

Directoras 
 

Ana Eva Iribas Rudín 
Mahnaz Shayestehfar 

 
 
 

Madrid 
 
 
 

© Saeid Zakeri, 2024 



 
 

UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID 

FACULTAD DE BELLAS ARTES 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESIS DOCTORAL 

 

Investigación sobre las potencialidades de la imagen caligráfica islámica para la 

pintura iraní contemporánea 

An Investigation of the Potentialities of the Islamic Calligraphic Image for 

Contemporary Iranian Painting 

 

MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR PRESENTADA POR 

Saeid Zakeri 

 

Directoras 

Ana Eva Iribas Rudín 

Mahnaz Shayestehfar 

 

Madrid, 2023 



 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID 

FACULTAD DE BELLAS ARTES 

PROGRAMA DE DOCTORADO EN BELLAS ARTES 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESIS DOCTORAL 

Investigación sobre las potencialidades de la imagen caligráfica islámica para la 

pintura iraní contemporánea 

An Investigation of the Potentialities of the Islamic Calligraphic Image for 

Contemporary Iranian Painting   

 

MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR PRESENTADA POR 

Saeid Zakeri 

 

Directoras 

Ana Eva Iribas Rudín 

Mahnaz Shayestehfar 

 

 

Madrid, 2023 



 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

Acknowledgments 

 

A dissertation is a single first step on a much longer path, but it is a step supported by 

multiple hands. I would like to thank a few people who helped me through my academic 

journey. First of all I would like to thank my father and mother whose support and love 

were my primary motivation. 

Particular gratitude goes to my tutor, Ana Eva Iribas Rudín, for her unconditional 

support, encouragement, and patience so that this thesis came to fruition, and her 

invaluable guidance was key in every step of this work. My co-director, Mahnaz 

Shayestehfar, has been continually inspirational. I also thank José Manuel Gayoso 

Vázquez, who supervised my work in the first year.  

I would like to thank the Department of “Pintura y Conservación-Restauración Facultad 

de Bellas Artes UCM,” for its support and strength during these years. It has been a 

professional and human learning to share so many meetings, seminars, workshops, 

conferences...  

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Table of Contents 

Resumen .............................................................................................................................. 1 

Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 5 

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 9 

Research hypothesis .......................................................................................................... 12 

Research questions ............................................................................................................ 13 

General objectives ............................................................................................................. 14 

Specific objectives ............................................................................................................. 15 

Research methodology ...................................................................................................... 15 

Chapter 1. Islamic calligraphy ........................................................................................... 25 

1.1. The relation between the written Koran and Islamic calligraphy ........................... 26 

1.2. The origins and formation of Arabic script ............................................................. 29 

1.2.1. The development of Arabic script ..................................................................... 30 

1.2.2. The adoption of round scripts ........................................................................... 35 

1.2.3. Six pens ............................................................................................................. 37 

1.3. The Iranian system of scripts .................................................................................. 45 

1.3.1. Calligraphy under the Mongol and Turkoman dynasties .................................. 45 

1.3.2. Calligraphy under the Safavid .......................................................................... 52 

1.3.3. Calligraphy under the Qajar .............................................................................. 58 

1. 4. The art of calligraphy: Siyah Mashq ...................................................................... 62 

1.5. Summary ................................................................................................................. 83 

Chapter 2. A historical overview: Iranian modernism ....................................................... 85 

2.1. The west influence: Iranian art and artists .............................................................. 86 



2.2. Iranian society encounters modernist values .......................................................... 86 

2.3. Kamal al-Molk as an inspiration for modern Iranian art ........................................ 88 

2.4. Early Pahlavi: Revivalism and modernity .............................................................. 90 

2.5. The perspective of orientalism ................................................................................ 94 

2.6. Modernism and Its connection with Iranian politics and culture ............................ 95 

2.7. New currents ........................................................................................................... 97 

2.7.1. The Tehran Biennials (1958-1966) ................................................................... 99 

2.8. Iranian modernism: 1941–79 ................................................................................ 100 

2.9. Summary ............................................................................................................... 104 

Chapter 3. The Saqqa-khaneh movement in Iran ............................................................ 107 

3.1. The term Saqqa-khaneh ........................................................................................ 109 

3.2. The formation of the Saqqa-khaneh movement .................................................... 110 

3.3. The main pioneers of the Saqqa-khaneh movement ............................................. 115 

3.3.1. Hossein Zenderoudi ........................................................................................ 116 

3.3.2. Parviz Tanavoli ............................................................................................... 118 

3.3.3. Faramarz Pilaram ............................................................................................ 126 

3.3.4. Massoud Arabshahi ......................................................................................... 129 

3.3.5. Mansur Qandriz .............................................................................................. 129 

3.3.6. Sadeq Tabrizi .................................................................................................. 130 

3.3.7. Nasser Oveisi .................................................................................................. 131 

3.3.8. Zhazeh Tabatabaei .......................................................................................... 132 

3.4. Summary ............................................................................................................... 137 

Chapter 4. Aspects of contemporary Islamic calligraphy ................................................ 139 

4.1. Traditional calligraphy styles ................................................................................ 140 



4.2. Islamic calligraphy: Print and typography ............................................................ 146 

4.3. Calligraphic art ...................................................................................................... 147 

4.3.1. Contemporary Iranian artist: Mohammad Ehsaei ........................................... 148 

4.3.2. Contemporary Iranian artist: Shirin Neshat .................................................... 155 

4.3.3. Contemporary Iranian artist: Farhad Moshiri ................................................. 159 

4.3.4. Contemporary Egyptian artist: Ahmed Moustafa ........................................... 162 

4.3.5. Contemporary Iraqi artist: Madiha Umar ....................................................... 167 

4.3.6. Contemporary Lebanese artist: Etel Adnan .................................................... 170 

4.3.7. Contemporary Iraqi artist: Dia Azzawi ........................................................... 173 

4.3.8. Contemporary Algerian artist: Rachid Koraichi ............................................. 177 

4.4. Summary ............................................................................................................... 180 

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 183 

Appendix A: The Arabic and Persian alphabet ................................................................ 186 

Appendix B: Timeline ..................................................................................................... 191 

References ....................................................................................................................... 203 



 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

List of Figures 

 

Figure 1. Koran Leaf, central Islamic lands, 9th century……..……………........................32 

Figure 2. Koran Leaf, late 8th-first half 9th century, Sura 45: end of verse 30-verse 37......33 

Figure 3. Al-Khatt al-Mansub……………………………………………………………… 36 

Figure 4. Thuluth and Naskh, Muhaqqaq and Rayhani, and Tawqi and Riqa……………... 39 

Figure 5. Ibn al-Bawwab, undated, Sura 112, 113 and 114 from a Koran ………...……… 43 

Figure 6. Yaqut, 1286, Sura 23: 1-17 from a single-volume Koran ……………………………... 44 

Figure 7. Haydar, 1310, inscriptions on the stucco mihrab in the Jāmeh Mosque of Isfahan ……. 47 

Figure 8. Ahmad al-Suhrawardi, 1307-8, colophon page of a Koran …………………..…………. 48 

Figure 9. Abulfazl Sawji, 1184 A.H., written in ta‘liq ……………………………………………. 51 

Figure 10. Mir Emad, 1608, Leaf from a poem by Amir Khusrou Dehlavi ……….......................... 56 

Figure 11. Abdul Majid Taleqani, 1760-61, untitled……………..………………………………….57 

Figure 12. Page of mashq by Mohammad Reza Kalhur ………...………………………………… 60 

Figure 13. Emad al-Ketab, undated, untitled ……………………………………………………..... 61 

Figure 14.  Yaqut Mustasimi, 13th century, page from a mufradat album ………………………... 64 

Figure 15. Page of mashq by Mir Emad, datable before 1600………………………...…….......... 69 

Figure 16. Page of pen exercises (karalama) by Shayk Hamdullah,………..……………………… 70 

Figure 17. Siyah mashq page by Mir Imad……………………………………………………..….. 76 

Figure 18. Page of siyah mashq by Ghulam Riza Isfahani, 1870-71…………... ………..................77 

Figure. 19. Page of mashq by Muhammad Shafi Vesal…………………………………………….. 78 

Figure. 20. Composition in naskh by Abu al-Qasim Shirazi, 1229 (1813-14) …………………….. 79 

Figure 21. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1970, Ayn + Ayn ………………………………………………... 80 

Figure 22. Mohammad Ehsaei, 1999, Mijmar-i Gulvazheha ……………………………………… 81 



 
 

Figure 23. Pouran Jinchi, 1997, Untitled, …………………………………………………………. 82 

Figure 24. Kamal al-Molk, 1889, the spring hall of Golestan Palace ……………………………... 90 

Figure 25. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1962, Untitled…………………………………………………... 114 

Figure 26. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1962, K+L+32+H+4 …………………………………………... 120 

Figure 27. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1970, DAL+DAL+DAL ………………………………………... 121 

Figure 28. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1973, SAT+HE+SAT …………………………………………... 122 

Figure 29. Parviz Tanavoli, 1965, Heech and Hands …………………………………………….. 123 

Figure 30. Parviz Tanavoli, 2007, Heech and Chair VII ………………………………………… 124 

Figure 31. Parviz Tanavoli, 2001, The Wall and the Window …………………………………….. 125 

Figure 32. Faramarz Pilaram, ca. 1960–1965, Untitled …………………..……………….............. 127 

Figure 33. Faramarz Pilaram, 1977, Untitled, ……………………………………………………... 128 

Figure 34. Massoud Arabshahi, 1979, Untitled …………………….……………………………... 132 

Figure 35. Mansur Qandriz, early 1960s, Untitled ……….………………………………………. 133 

Figure 36. Sadeq Tabrizi, circa 1980s, Saqqa-Khaneh ………………………….………………… 134 

Figure 37. Sadeq Tabrizi, 2008, Untitled ………………………………………….………………. 135 

Figure 38. Nasser Oveisi, 2010, Untitled …………………………………………….……………. 135 

Figure 39. Zhazeh Tabatabaei, 1964, Untitled ……………………………………………………. 136 

Figure 40. Mohammad Ehsaei, 2007, He is the Merciful ………..…………………………............ 152 

Figure 41. Mohammad Ehsaei, 1998, Allah ………………………………...……………………... 152 

Figure 42. Mohammad Ehsaei, 2019, Allah …………..…………………………………………... 153 

Figure 43. Mohammad Ehsaei, 2019, Yazdan ……………………………………………………... 154 

Figure 44. Shirin Neshat, 1996, Speechless ………………………………………………………... 158 

Figure 45. Farhad Moshiri, 2009, Golden Allah ……………………………….…………………... 160 

Figure 46. Farhad Moshiri, 2005, Ya Abolfazl …………………………………………………… 161 



 
 

Figure 47. Ahmad Moustafa, 1975-6, Scriptorial Fugue …………………………………………. 163 

Figure 48. Ahmad Moustafa, 1977-78, Perspective of the Bismillah ……………………………… 164 

Figure 49. Ahmad Moustafa, 1977, The Heart of Sincerity ……………………………………… 165 

Figure 50. Ahmad Moustafa, 1987, Still Life of Qur’anic Solids ………………………………… 165 

Figure 51. Ahmad Moustafa, 1987, God is the Light of Heaven and Earth ……………………… 166 

Figure 52. Ahmad Moustafa, 2013, Naming Infinity – 100 minus One (triptych) ………………. 166 

Figure 53. Madiha Umar, 1963, Untitled …………………………………………………………. 170 

Figure 54. Etel Adnan, 2012, Sarjoun Boulos, Markab Nouh ……………………………………. 172 

Figure 55. Etel Adnan, 1998, Zikr ………………………….……………………………………… 172 

Figure 56. Dia al-Azzawi, 1986, Object: Oriental scene ………………………………………… 175 

Figure 57. Dia al-Azzawi, 1981, Ijlal li Iraq ………………………………………………………. 176 

Figure 58. Rachid Koraichi, 2001, Le Chemin de Roses …………………………………………. 179 

Figure 59. Rachid Koraichi, 2001, Le Chemin de Roses ………………………………………….. 180 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 
 

 

 

 

 



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RESUMEN 

 

 

TÍTULO Y AUTOR 

Investigación sobre las potencialidades de la imagen caligráfica islámica para la pintura 

iraní contemporánea 

Autor: Saeid Zakeri 

INTRODUCCIÓN 

En la cultura iraní, la palabra escrita ha ido más allá de sus funciones de documentación y 

comunicación y se ha transformado en una forma de arte. Los artistas iraníes han 

empleado su talento para producir estilos y patrones de escritura que se han aplicado, más 

allá de las páginas escritas, en diferentes formas de arte. En las últimas décadas, los 

artistas han enriquecido las escrituras islámica e iraní, dotándolas de variedad y belleza, y 

han producido muchas obras maestras, especialmente cuando se combina la caligrafía con 

la pintura. 

OBJETIVOS 

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo estudiar las potencialidades y aplicaciones 

visuales de la caligrafía islámica para la pintura iraní contemporánea.  

Mi estudio se desarrolla a lo largo de dos ejes temáticos. Uno es la rica tradición artística 

de la caligrafía islámica. Sigue siendo un poderoso símbolo religioso y cultural en el 

universo islámico contemporáneo y los historiadores del arte mencionan a menudo la 



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importancia de la escritura caligráfica en el arte y los textos islámicos, que ha dado lugar 

a una variedad de análisis estéticos, visuales y culturales. El segundo eje es el enfoque 

pictórico, que relaciona la pintura iraní contemporánea con el movimiento modernista y 

la caligrafía iraníes, que ha sido examinado desde una perspectiva sociopolítica, así como 

una comparación crítica con la modernización europea. 

RESULTADOS 

El primer capítulo examina las raíces, el proceso de desarrollo innovador y las 

potencialidades visuales y semánticas de la caligrafía islámica e iraní. 

El segundo capítulo explora el arte iraní contemporáneo rastreando la historia de las 

evoluciones políticas, socioculturales y artísticas del país en el período 1940-1960. 

El tercer capítulo se centra en el movimiento Saqqa-khaneh, que fue el grupo organizado 

más importante de la pintura iraní contemporánea de los años 1960. También analiza a 

los artistas del Saqqa-khaneh, su interpretación de la cultura iraní contemporánea y su 

interés crítico compartido en las normas estéticas y sociales de Irán. 

El cuarto capítulo estudia las manifestaciones de la caligrafía islámica en el período 

contemporáneo, trazando tres partes genéricas. La primera considera la permanencia de la 

caligrafía tradicional en la época contemporánea. La segunda parte trata la utilización de 

la escritura árabe en tipografía, impresión e infografía. La tercera parte analiza las últimas 

tendencias en el arte caligráfico islámico. 

 



3 
 

CONCLUSIÓN 

El arte caligráfico contemporáneo iraní, en convivencia con su práctica según los estilos 

tradicionales, ha encontrado sus propios ámbitos de aplicación y posibilidades de 

comunicación alfabética. Las obras de caligrafía contemporánea iraní reflejan las 

exploraciones de los practicantes, que emplean prácticas y técnicas de la estética 

occidental para presentar nuevas formas de significado y logros plásticos. En la época 

contemporánea, además de modificar las técnicas y estilos tradicionales, los artistas están 

probando los límites estéticos de la caligrafía islámica, esforzándose por ampliar los 

materiales y medios utilizados para escribir caligrafía e integrarlos en sus composiciones 

visuales. Además, la caligrafía moderna se diferencia de ejemplos anteriores no sólo por 

la notable diversidad de sus medios sino también por la variedad de talentos y habilidades 

de sus practicantes y el volumen de trabajo producido.  

.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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5 
 

ABSTRACT 

TITLE AND AUTHOR 

Title: An Investigation of the Potentialities of the Islamic Calligraphic Image for 

Contemporary Iranian Painting   

Author: Saeid Zakeri 

INTRODUCTION 

In Iranian culture, the written word has been carried beyond its functions of 

documentation and communication and has been transformed into a form of art. Iranian 

artists have employed their talents to produce styles and patterns of writing that have 

been applied, beyond the written pages, in different forms of art. In recent decades, artists 

have enriched Islamic and Iranian scripts endowing them with variety and beauty and 

have produced many masterpieces, particularly when calligraphy is combined with 

painting.  

OBJECTIVES 

This research aims to study the potentialities and visual applications of Islamic 

calligraphy for contemporary Iranian painting.  

My study is developed along two thematic axes. One is the rich artistic tradition of 

Islamic calligraphy. It remains a powerful religious and cultural symbol in the 

contemporary Islamic universe, and art historians often mention the significance of 

calligraphic writing in Islamic art and texts, which has given rise to a variety of aesthetic, 



6 
 

visual, and cultural analyses. The second axis is the pictorial approach, relating 

contemporary Iranian painting to the Iranian modernist movement and calligraphy, which 

has been examined with a socio-political perspective, as well as a critical comparison 

with European modernisation. 

RESULTS 

The first chapter examines the roots, the process of innovative developments, and the 

visual and semantic potentialities of Islamic and Iranian Calligraphy.  

The second chapter explores contemporary Iranian art by tracing the history of the 

country’s political, socio-cultural, and artistic evolutions in the period 1940-1960.   

The third chapter focuses on the Saqqa-khaneh movement, which was the most 

significant organised group in contemporary Iranian painting in the 1960s. It also 

analyses the Saqqa-khaneh artists and their interpretation of contemporary Iranian culture 

and their shared critical interest in Iran’s aesthetic and social norms.  

The fourth chapter studies the manifestations of Islamic calligraphy in the contemporary 

period, dividing them into three general parts. The first considers the continuance of 

traditional calligraphy in contemporary times. The second part treats the utilisation of 

Arabic script in typography, printing, and computer graphics, and the third part analyses 

the latest trends in Islamic calligraphic art. 

 

 



7 
 

CONCLUSION 

Contemporary Iranian calligraphic art, which runs parallel to its practise along traditional 

styles, has found its own spheres of application and its possibilities of alphabetical 

communication. Contemporary Iranian calligraphic works indicate the explorations of 

practitioners, who employ practises and techniques of Western aesthetics to present new 

shapes of meaning and plastic achievement. In the contemporary period, besides 

reforming traditional techniques and styles, artists are probing the aesthetic boundaries of 

Islamic calligraphy and endeavouring to extend the materials and media utilised to write 

calligraphy and to integrate them into their visual compositions. In addition, 

contemporary calligraphy is differentiated from previous examples not only by the 

notable diversity of its media but also by the range of the artists’ talents and skills and the 

volume of the work produced. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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9 
 

Introduction 

 

Humans produced and developed writing to communicate and thus based the 

practise on utilitarian requirements that preserve valuable knowledge and information. 

Historically, in the Islamic lands, writing was particularly valued as the medium of the 

Koran (AbiFarés, 2001), more exactly, the Arabic alphabetical characters in their 

calligraphic form. Calligraphy, signifying beautiful (hand) writing taken from the Greek 

kallos (beauty) and graphe (writing), is especially considerable in this context, seen as 

uniquely meaningful in Eastern cultures, allowing readers to comprehend the words' 

visual meaning even before reading them. Calligraphy in Islamic culture is specifically 

comprehended to have sacred connotations. The Arabic word for calligraphy, khatt (خط), 

derives from line, design, and construction (Puerta Vílchez, 2007), and the practise of 

khatt in Islamic culture includes both the art of the pen and an expression of the sacred. 

Therefore, Arabic calligraphy is always inspired and formed by religious reverence and 

contemplation. 

Arabic writing came to be formalised and adorned because of the need to copy the 

Koran, which, until a short time after the demise of the Prophet Mohammad, had been 

conveyed orally amongst Muslims. While written transcriptions must be accurate, they 

must also be worthy of the holy verses. Thus, scribes focussed on balance, harmony, and 

elegance in their scripts, devoting their skills and often their whole lives to writing. Islam 

is a religion that makes the distinction between those who hold a revealed holy Book, the 

Koran, and those who do not have written revelation. Therefore, the importance of 



10 
 

retaining the revealed Koran, in the best feasible shape, was pivotal from both the 

aesthetic and religious points of view (Schimmel, 1992). Moreover, the Islamic aversion 

to the figural representation of living beings, which was not explicitly banned in the holy 

Koran, caused Muslims to progress in calligraphy and other styles of Islamic art1. 

Since Arabic was the language through which the Prophet of Islam claimed to 

receive divine revelations, the script employed for writing the holy word was taken for 

 
1 The Koran directly says nothing about the proscription of images in Islam. Some ahadith ( احادیث) are 

critical of images, especially images that can be regarded as frivolous, not necessarily all images. Images 

that certainly can be taken to be facets of idolatry or shirk, the idea of praying to images or via images is 

absolutely forbidden. Islam was a new product that sought to stress its links with previous religions and 

its role as the zenith of those religions. It could have utilised art forms similar to those religions, and it did 

in many ways. Also, On the other hand, it had differently to represent itself, to institute a new label, as it 

were, and this indicates the requirement for something that would aid users of the product both to 

recognise it and incline them to admit it. For instance, the coins appeared instead of the emperor's head 

with writing on them, but they could have had the caliph's head on them, which would also have been 

another symbol of strength. There are coins from both the Umayyad and the Abbasid times that indicate 

the caliph on them, sometimes on a horse and sometimes wielding a sword (Leaman, 2004, pp. 17-21). 
Religion has played a huge part in determining the creation of art objects and criteria for beauty. And 

ideas about aesthetics, particularly what is proper as an art object, are not irrelevant to religion. Although 

Islam opposed the representation of animal and human figures in religious architecture and art, in the 

nonreligious area, such portrayals prospered in almost all Islamic cultures. As in other shapes of Islamic 

decoration, artists adapted and changed living beings’ forms, generating an extensive variety of figural 

patterns. Figural motifs are seen in the ornamentation of architecture and objects, the textiles patterns, but 

seldom in a three-dimensional configuration. In some cases, ornamental images are linked to the tradition 

of narrative painting, where textual portrayals supply sources for decorative motifs and themes. As for the 

illustration of the manuscripts, miniature paintings were inseparable parts of this artwork as pictorial 

helps to the text, thus no confines were imposed. There was also another category of imaginary images 

from which decorative designs were produced, which also existed. Numerous extraordinary motifs, such 

as griffins and harpies, were sketched from pre-Islamic mythical sources, while others were generated 

through the manipulation of figures by artists. Painting in Islam completely differs from painting in other 

civilisations, the Arabic language, in the Islamic tradition is adequate for physical and spiritual expression 

and entirely substitutes imagery with its illustrative vocabulary. Islamic aesthetics aim to represent a 

subject’s intangible and spiritual qualities; to release art from the confines of its time; and to render it 

eternal by leaving aside natural mimicry. The Muslims utilised arabesque designs to ornament a void 

space by filling it in a repetitive and continuous manner that has an evident aesthetic worth, as well as a 

spiritual connotation indicating the infinity of Allah. 

 



11 
 

the writing of many other languages spoken in the nations under Islamic hegemony 

(Blair, 2006). After Latin, Arabic is the most widely utilised script in the universe. 

Calligraphy has become the noteworthiest form of the visual arts in Islamic cultures to 

the extent that it encompasses the visual sphere in various forms from writing 

manuscripts to architectural façades and interiors carved on ornamental stone or hung and 

framed like paintings. Regardless of its decorative aspect, the main purpose of most of 

the calligraphy is to communicate a message of a religious and linguistic order. As a 

procedure of reproducing manuscripts, calligraphic writing generally aims to 

communicate meaning in a readable form (Grabar, 1978). Even employed as mere 

architectural ornamentation, calligraphic texts are still instructive inscriptions that 

thoroughly accomplish their semantic and linguistic function of conveying a message, 

frequently a religious one. Nevertheless, calligraphic epigraphics are able to also 

transcend this global function of writing and almost forfeit their purpose of objective 

linguistic signaled by transfiguring themselves into unreadable shapes, in some cases 

even into a pointless inscription type entitled pseudo-Arabic (Gonzales, 2001) where 

sophistication and beauty gain prominence. On this basis, some decorative works of 

Islamic calligraphy, whether written on paper or textile or on a building, tend to 

subordinate normal semantic and linguistic rules to a visual function that results in the 

aesthetics of the script as well as the viewing pleasure. In such written work, the 

overmuch ornamentation, the overstated rhythm, and the exaggerated figural 

demonstration of the letters and words dominate the content of the intended text. This 

alteration from the linguistic to the visual disrupts the interaction between the signifier 



12 
 

and the signified at the holy book level, resulting in an iconographic reading generated by 

the featured visuality of the writing that becomes the text unreadable, but visually 

instigating. When the script is so detailed, manipulated, or distorted as to be barely 

readable, it limits itself to presenting to the devout Muslim a prominent religious phrase 

or literary work, letting the reader’s memory and visualisation produce the rest. Based on 

this, the reader’s comprehension of the calligraphic artworks is beyond the easy task of 

reading. 

Many modern and contemporary artists who use Arabic letters in their artworks 

employ the term ‘Islamic calligraphy’, emphasising the importance of the form for the 

shaping of cultural and national identities. It is interesting to note that, while Islamic 

calligraphy is purely demonstrated in Arabic letters and words, its most outstanding 

developers were from non-Arab lands, especially Iran and Turkey. Actually, the 

widespread cultural and international diffusion of Islamic calligraphy continues to the 

present. Under the current flourishing of visual culture at a global scale, we now witness 

many uses of Arabic letters, especially in visual arts and design. 

Research Hypothesis 

The impact of the visual potentialities of Islamic calligraphy in Middle Eastern 

contemporary painting has different dimensions: 

- A separation of painting from the meaning of the text and its literary qualities, achieving 

a visual expression independent of content. 

- A tendency toward abstraction. 



13 
 

- A critical reference to tradition, revisiting it not for the purpose of repetition, but to re-

create it. 

- A growing importance of the expression of the personal identity of the painter. 

- A separation of painting from representation, realism, and the imperatives of reason. 

- An intention to promote this painting to the global art world. 

Some Iranian and Western artists and critics assume that calligraphic painting 

deserves full consideration as art and that it is only after learning the visual literacy of 

writing and having completed a period of artistic development that the artist’s work 

reaches original creativity in the field. In accordance with this position, the main 

hypothesis of this research is that in-depth knowledge of the principles and rules of 

Islamic calligraphy enables contemporary Iranian artists to put the visual potentialities of 

this tradition to use in various fields of visual communication, especially in calligraphic 

painting. 

Research Questions 

The questions that lead this research belong to two categories: the potentialities of 

Islamic visual calligraphy and calligraphic painting. Their definitions, functions, and 

commonalities will be examined. 

- What are the roots of Islamic Iranian calligraphy? 

- What are the origin and the main reason for the creation of Iranian calligraphic 

painting? 



14 
 

- What factors have led to the combination of painting and Islamic calligraphy, leading 

them to the configuration of calligraphic painting? 

- What are the common roots and roles of Iranian pioneer artists of the last decades who 

practise calligraphic painting? 

- Are calligraphic painting artworks based on individual identities or collective, historical 

identities, or both? 

- Is it possible to be true to Iranian identity and culture when fusing traditional text 

elements and abstract art forms? 

General Objectives 

 

The following study weaves together two branches of scholarship, which are often 

examined in isolation. One branch examines the roots and potentialities of the Islamic 

calligraphic image. The other branch investigates contemporary Iranian painting and its 

relationship with the modernist movement in Iran and with calligraphy. This research 

explores the perceptions of Iranian artists at a time of cultural and social change. It pays 

special consideration to the influence of Orientalism and modernity2 and how these 

 
2 Western scholars generally employ modernity as a phrase that refers to the 18th-century Enlightenment 

time, along with its related historical, cultural, political, and economic conditions, particularly pointing to 

the notions of rationalism, technology, and controlling nature through science (Sturken & Cartwright, 

2009). Furthermore, modernity has always been regarded as related to the West, particularly Europe, and 

hence, the term modern is commonly utilised synonymously with the West. In a sense, Europe is the 

origin of modernity and has been transmitted from there to the rest of the universe, the non-West. Thus, 

modernity is frequently accompanied by Eurocentrism—the concept that the intellectual life in Europe 

formulates a social and cultural force as an extraordinary universal power in the world. Hence, to be 

modern is to follow or imitate the West. Modern Iranian artists have faced the West in numerous ways, 

chiefly via colonialism, education in Western universities, and sociocultural changes in the region. Such 



15 
 

concepts helped the emergence of new modalities of plastic expression. These objectives 

are pursued through conventional academic research and also through the author’s 

personal practise of pictorial research, producing fruitful mutual enrichment.  

Specific Objectives 

 

Chapter 1: Study of the roots and potentialities of the Islamic and Iranian calligraphic 

image. 

Chapter 2: Investigation of Western political and artistic influences on contemporary 

Iranian painting. 

Chapter 3: Research on the origin and the main reason for the creation of contemporary 

Iranian calligraphic painting. 

- Identification of Islamic calligraphy as a decisive component of Iranian-Islamic identity 

in contemporary painting.  

Chapter 4: Study of the roots and common roles of the pioneering Iranian and Islamic 

world artists of the last decades who practised calligraphic painting. 

Research Methodology 

The methodology that is imposed for this research is qualitative, specifically, the 

case study. The richness of this type of research lies in its adequacy to understand in 

depth and detail the object of study, with all its complexity, its processes, and its 

relationship with the context. Its character is holistic because it considers the totality of 

the phenomenon in question and tries to approach it from different perspectives. Another 

 
encounters with the West have been characterized by ambivalence. In consequence, the West turned into 

a symbol of advancement and power, and thus, it also became a model for acquiring modernity.  

 



16 
 

appropriate research methodology for my thesis is semiotics, due to its methods of 

analysis. Semiotics is the recognition and analysis of signs, a sphere that is extensive and 

results from many approaches, where its background returns to the ancient. Semiotic 

studies refer both to the ‘general science of signs’ and the ‘specificity of human semiosis.’ 

Semiotics results in various perceptions and can encompass the entire world up to a point 

that signs pervade (Peirce, 1955). The borders of semiotics come to be defined by the 

character of signs as subjects of study and through the relationship of this field to other 

sciences. Under the second meaning, semiotics pertains to the specific human potentiality 

for ‘meta-semiosis.’ In the world that embraces semiosis, ‘human semiosis’ is identified 

as meta-semiosis – i.e., the feasibility of thinking on signs (Petrilli & Ponzio, 2005). 

The semiotics principles were compiled in the late 19th century and the early 20th 

century by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). 

Both proffered significant linguistic approaches that were applied in the middle of the 

20th century for utilisation in picture analysis. However, Saussure’s writings have had 

the greatest impact on the structuralism theories that characterise visual culture analysis 

methods. As maintained by Saussure, language is similar to a chess game. It relies on 

codes and conventions for its purposes. However, he stated the connection between 

things and words in the universe is relative and arbitrary (Saussure, 1938). Essential to 

the science of Saussure is that meanings change simultaneously with the context and 

rules of language. The sign consists of two components, the signifier and the signified, 

which together form the meaning. A signifier is an entity that exists, and the signified 



17 
 

alludes to what it means. Therefore, in the method of Saussure, an image or word may 

have several signs, meanings, and constructs. 

Peirce presented the theory of the science of signs before Saussure. Peirce supposed 

that thought and language are sign-interpreting processes. For him, meaning is not in our 

preliminary understanding of a representation or sign but in our explanation of the 

percipience and next-up act based upon that perception. French semiotician Roland 

Barthes (1915-1980) employs denotative and connotative words to characterise various 

kinds of meaning generated in an image (Barthes, as cited in Sturken & Cartwright, 

2009). The image’s denotative meaning indicates its straightforward and literal meaning. 

Connotative meanings are characterised by the image’s historical and cultural contexts 

and the lived and felt understanding of its viewers of those situations. The parting line 

between denotes and connotes meanings of an image can be obscure, and over time, 

connotative meanings may alter with changes in social and cultural contexts. Entirety 

messages and meanings become culturally notified, and no such thing exists as a merely 

denotative image. However, two principles, denotation and connotation, are useful, 

because they aid us in thinking about how images function to imply explicit, denoted 

meanings and extensively connote social and contextual specific meanings. Many 

changes have occurred to semiotics, but it continues to be the essential method to analyse 

visual arts works. 

Barthes’s semiotic model presents a direct and obvious way to comprehend the 

connection between depictions and meaning. In his approach, besides denotative and 



18 
 

connotative concepts, there exists the sign that includes the signifier — the written word, 

image, or sound — and the signified, the concept that is evoked through that image or 

word. The signifier, for Saussure, is the entity that indicates, and the sign is the 

compound of the signifier and its meaning. Many theorists have employed Saussure’s 

science of signs, concentrating on language, chiefly to interpret and explain visual 

representational systems. 

Peirce’s model is somewhat dissimilar in that the sign is differentiated from the 

meaning as well as the object itself. His work has continued to be significant for 

examining the discernments between various types of signs and their connection to the 

actual. Peirce shows three forms of representations or signs: iconic3, indexical4, and 

symbolic5 (Peirce, 1994).  In semiotics, the main idea is that all things are a sign 

(Silverman & Rader, 2012). Basically, semiotics simply is reading and interpreting non-

traditional objects. We constantly perform semiotics and develop our understanding and 

capacity for it over the years. The moments of semiotic interpretation are named semiotic 

situations, which indicate our attempt to comprehend our surroundings and interpret 

facets of them based on the signs of our situation. In such a manner, we are invariably 

reading and making sense of our universe. Some signs are facile to read because we, at 

 
3 In Peirce’s description, iconic signs are somehow similar to their object. Many drawings and paintings 

are iconic, as are many photographs, films, television images, and comics. 
4 Indexical signs carry an existential connection to their objects. That is, they have coexisted in an 

identical place for some time. 
5 Dissimilar to iconic signs that usually bear resemblance to their objects, as believed by Peirce, symbolic 

signs convey no apparent relation to their object. Symbols are shaped by the arbitrary or unnatural union 

of object and meaning. Symbolic signs are unavoidably more limited in conveying meaning because they 

deal with learned systems. 



19 
 

some point in our lives, grasped their meanings and ideas and took these signs for 

granted. For example, green means go, yellow means slow down or caution, and red 

means stop. Some signs are complicated, and not facile to read because they do not reveal 

themselves easily. Therefore, our culture has come to a general comprehension of a 

number of signs and symbolised certain notions. The word symbol has been utilised as an 

alternative word for sign and, in both every day and philosophical contexts, has many 

meanings, inclusive of semiotic discussion. Surely, there are various conceptions of the 

sign in which the sign is an element in a process formed either dually by signifier and 

signified or triply through representamen, object and interpretant. In semiotics, Certainly, 

we use the reading language system and its representations, not just the physical signs. 

Many semioticians regard everything as a sign, even written words—texts are signs, as 

well as the manners we read them (Silverman & Rader, 2012). Alphabetical characters, 

words, and sentences are the elements of writing that are not limited only to transcription, 

display, and following orality. In reality, writing is a particular human modeling device; 

by its means, we systematise our experience of the universe and temporal and spatial 

surrounding facts (Petrilli & Ponzio, 2005). With only a confined set of elements that are 

the alphabet letters, we can create various views of the universe and unlimited new 

senses. In this regard, writing is the practise that models the universe and opens it to an 

endless splendor of creativity, invention, and otherness. Thus, writing is essentially 

associated with reading and thinking, forming a triad of expression shapes that are 

intimately tied. To be a good reader, we need to comprehend rhetoric. The Greek 

meaning of rhetoric is speaking/speech, and Aristotle considered rhetoric as the art that 



20 
 

finds feasible means of persuasion in any situation. On a scientific level, Burke 

characterizes rhetoric as a symbolic means of utilizing language that induces cooperation 

in beings who respond to symbols naturally (Golden, Berquist, Coleman, & Sproule, 

2003). In Burke’s definition, this stress on symbols indicates the advantageousness of 

visual language, which most of the communications in our universe depend on. This 

indicates how rhetoric is combined with the visual realm and unified within the scope of 

culture.  

 Rhetorical principles and approaches mostly applied in visual and cultural texts 

also can work in writing. Assuredly, the employment of rhetoric permits us to 

comprehend the world through movies, buildings, graffiti, clothing, video games, and 

almost anything. Any text formed to have meaning or effect involves some facet of 

rhetoric, and hence, rhetoric revolves around civil participation. Undoubtedly, texts have 

an important place within semiotics and linguistics systems. Comprehension of how to 

read the meaning of a text will aid us in understanding how to read the meanings of 

visual images with specific care because images have many signs and values, but we 

interpret them subconsciously and simply. Writing as a human modelling device gives a 

range of superior manifestation that fosters new expressive approaches. Shapes of writing 

include not only letters, words, or texts, but also encompass design, photography, film, 

and music. Hence, we must rethink all shapes of writing and appreciate them as the 

mediums of a high level of originality and creativity. Thus, visual representations are 

shapes of writing and can be analysed by semiotics. So, semiotics is a valuable lens for 



21 
 

understanding and interpreting visual culture. In such a comprehension of semiotics, an 

alphabetic letter as a sign carries a denotation (its literal meaning for communication 

goals), while having a series of connotations through its metaphysical and sacredness 

presence as a living being. The denotation and connotation of the letters relate to their 

signifier and signified relationship. The Arabic letters’ connotative meaning gives the 

reader a comprehension particularly of the holy text, the Koran, for contemplation. 

Indeed, Semiotics is a powerful strategy that helps to understand a broad range of textual 

and visual language systems found within the letters. The letter certainly is both text and 

image; it is comprehended as a symbol that has multiple interpretations and translations. 

The universe we live in is full of objects, images, and screens that all invite us to see 

them (Mirzoeff, 2009). As stated by Mirzoeff, visual culture is the link between all 

approaches of visuality in contemporary culture (Mirzoeff 1998). Any observing 

experience can contain varied kinds of infrastructure, meaning, intertextual meanings, 

and media (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009). Most essentially, it is the spectators themselves 

who generate cultural associations that affect the image interpretations of individuals. It 

is a dynamic and interactive process wherein on one side meaning and value are 

exchanged between people and on the other the technologies and articles. In such a view, 

visual culture is comprehended as the combined and shared practises of a certain group of 

people in a society or community, through which the aural, textual, and visual 

representations aid in constructing meanings of the universe. Visual culture involves us 

through symbolic and communicative activities. Thus, we better comprehend our world 



22 
 

via visual culture. We utilise our perceptions and interpretations to interact and 

communicate with the world. Hence, visual culture shows many learning experiences for 

art practise, in which, the applications of semiotics present an explicit approach to 

analysing and understanding visual representations and their meanings, particularly, 

Arabic-Farsi letter forms in our visual universe. Such a combination will formulate more 

obvious comprehensions of calligraphy and eventually help to improve pedagogy, 

practise, and research. 

Since semiotic approaches overlap with each other and contribute to our universe 

understanding by mapping out signs’ networks, they provide a platform to comprehend 

the entire semiotic world. Such a task is most significant in the face of universal 

communication that has altered our time, distance, space, and feelings. Consequently, 

artists must acquire knowledge to read and interpret visual culture semiotically to 

comprehend the universal communication system and its messages to form a better sense 

of critique and reasoning and thus help in their practise. Today, we live in an era of 

universal communication, witnessing a striking spread of the efficiency and productivity 

of ideology via visual culture. Reading our visual universe is an act of opening feelings, 

reactions, and ideas to comprehend these ideologies. Learning how to read cultural and 

visual texts semiotically results in better utilisation of rhetoric within our practise of art. 

Furthermore, using semiotics to analyse our visual universe will enable us to live 

engaged, questioning, and informed. The semiotics enable us to understand visual culture 

regarding it. Such an approach can aid artists in comprehending the letters, interacting 



23 
 

with them, and identifying their textual and visual expressions. Visual analysis of texts 

and images, along with textual and visual formation in composing or designing, helps in 

the procedure of knowledge formation. 

We deal with visual culture nearly continually because of the process of looking. 

Hence, semiotics is one of the noteworthiest lenses to interpret images in distinctive 

ways. The calligraphic writing’s semiotic interpretation indicates its dual essence as 

informative and symbolic, denotative and connotative. Thus, the visuality and receptivity 

of alphabetical characters are essential to their interpretation and perceptivity. Likewise, 

the calligraphic manuscripts’ complexity degree and comprehensibility must be engaged 

in order to achieve full elucidation. Hence, many skilled practitioners are able to both 

read and understand calligraphic texts and appreciate artistic merit while arranging and 

analysing their components. Since they can recreate and design letters, they are cognisant 

of the aesthetic values of calligraphy such as complexity, clarity, and beauty. 

Accordingly, it is essential for artists to broaden their capacity to acknowledge and 

produce artworks with complicated inscriptions of calligraphy. In such a manner, artists 

should utilise visual culture at the side of semiotics for better understanding and employ 

the alphabet’s anatomy and mechanisms to juxtapose and merge letters and images, 

producing bodies of work that are active for representing the cultural, national and global 

significance of contemporary letterforms.  

 

 



24 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



25 
 

Chapter 1. Islamic Calligraphy 

 

The first chapter focuses on Arabic and Iranian scripts, and therefore, I have 

investigated the ways that calligraphy has been credited historically, culturally, and 

artistically. Such a viewpoint shows us the aesthetic, educational, and cultural importance 

of this written art, and emphasises the reasons that define it as an influential constituent in 

diverse arenas of visual communication, particularly in Islamic nations. The first part of 

the chapter indicates the connection between the written Koran and Islamic calligraphy. 

The process of writing the Koran led to the expansion of Arabic script in the early Islamic 

era. Even though calligraphy has developed in many forms and has included functions 

and spheres not directly associated with the Koranic text, the spiritual essence of the 

Koran has remained within all facets of traditional Islamic calligraphy. It has occupied a 

status of particular privilege in Islam to such a degree that it could be termed the 

instigator of traditional Islamic visual artworks and the most characteristic of the 

observable facet of Islamic culture and civilisation. It has become incorporated into the 

culture over the centuries, fine handwriting being taken as an indication of a cultured 

human and a trained mind, spirit, and hand. The second part studies the origins of Arabic 

scripts, as well as historical endeavours to perfect and systematise these scripts and 

generate new forms, and then outlines the variety of scripts employed by the Iranian 

calligraphic tradition. I strive to comprehend and identify the Arabic and Iranian writing 

systems and follow sensitivities related to letter forms. Thus, this chapter brings a space 



26 
 

to explore the nature of the letters, their writing system, and their capacity as both a 

communication network and an identity indicator. 

1.1. The Relation between the Written Koran and Islamic Calligraphy 

 

In Islamic lands, calligraphy is employed beyond the religious texts, and its 

utilisation in contexts such as the ornamentation of objects and architectural buildings 

attests to its ubiquitousness within Muslim states. According to the definition, Arabic 

writing is the most Arabic art among the Islamic pictorial arts. It belongs to the whole of 

Islamic lands and is regarded to be the most original of the arts since it begets observable 

shape to the word of the Koran (Burckhardt, 2009, p.52). For centuries Muslims have 

practised calligraphy to cultivate nice handwriting and discipline the spirit. They have 

also pondered the appearance of calligraphic shapes because they emanate directly from 

the origin of all elegance and beauty (Nasr, 1987, p. 34). In the faith of Islam, the sacred 

book functions as a documentary issue of the Godhead. Its importance and structure are 

shared and displayed as much as possible on many sites. The form and wording of the 

Koran facilitate the presence of a holy mystery in the Islamic community (Graham, 1987, 

p. 111). The sound and words of the Koran are auditory expressions of the divine soul. 

Koranic characteristics of rhyme, alliteration, rhythm, and pitch supply indications of its 

Godhead outside of the semantic essence of the letters and words (Nelson, 1985, pp. 90-

99). The Koran is the basis of Islam’s book heritage and culture. Islamic art reflects the 

language of the Muslim holy book with repeat and multiplicity, symmetry and balance, 



27 
 

regularity and diversity, and the finely equilibrated composition that sustains it from 

degeneration and deterioration (Ali, 1996, p. 23).  

Islamic writing spread as a visual medium for recitation. At the beginning of 

Islam, most penned texts were kept as scrolls, whereas the Koranic pages were bound. 

This structural difference characterises the appearance of the Koran from other written 

works, just as text divinity differentiates it ontologically (Al-Baghdadi, 2005, p. 92). 

Writing became a mark of origin, content, and authority in its visual form and material 

composition. Over time, interactivities that connected the material shape with the 

spiritual content of penned text led to the emergence of other Mussulman’s writing styles. 

Expanding Arabic script responded to the challenge of the holy book, which remarks 

upon the significance of writing due to continuity and maintenance of knowledge. The 

Koran denotes the qalam (Pen) in the same starting verses in the Sura al-Alaq (العلق) and 

orders the Prophet Mohammad to read: 

یَعْلَمْ .   لَمْ  مَا الِإنسَانَ   عَلَّمَ .  بِالْقلََمِ  عَلَّمَ  الَّذِي.   الأكَْرَم   وَرَبُّكَ  اقْرَأْ .  عَلَق   مِنْ  الِإنسَانَ  خَلَقَ .  خَلَقَ  الَّذِي رَب ِكَ  بِاسْمِ  اقْرَأْ   

Recite in the name of your Lord who created,  

Created humanity from a clot of blood,  

Recite: your Lord is most bountiful,  

Who taught by the Pen,  

Taught humanity what it did not know (Sura 96: 1-5). 

 

While the Sura entitled al-qalam ( القلم) begins with the letter nūn ( ن) and comes 

after with the verse, ‘By the pen and that which they write.’ In Arabic, the letter form nūn 



28 
 

looks like an inkwell that contains the ink by which the archetypes of all creatures are 

inscribed upon the guarded tablet. Also, this letter looks like a ship carrying the 

possibilities of a special cycle of manifestation on the ocean of unexistence (Nasr, 1987, 

p. 25). According to Muslim artists, the Koran is the foundation of any art form. They 

acknowledge that sacred calligraphy’s origin and basis is the visualisation of the Holy 

Word. Koran itself emphasises and testifies to the writing material ink and pen — it is 

mentioned in Sura Luqman (لقمان), verse 27, that if all the sea were ink, and the whole 

trees were pens, Allah’s Words could not be penned out unto their end. As stated by other 

hadith, the qalam (قلم) symbolises and signifies the tongue, and nūn ( ن) the mouth. In 

accordance with Kamal al-Din Hossein Kashifi, an Iranian scholar of the 15th century, 

the Supreme qalam is bright light whose spread is the interval between earth and heaven. 

Also, he states that the nūn (ن) is an innuendo to the exhaustive Divine Knowledge and 

awareness included in the inherent unity and the qalam alludes to the comprehensive 

Divine Knowledge held in the heavenly unicity (Ibid, p. 26). 

Islamic calligraphy emerges at once from the Koranic revelation and indicates the 

response of the Islamic people’s souls to the holy word. The Koranic words are 

everywhere throughout Islamic countries and followers of Islam give the greatest value to 

calligraphy, the art of writing Allah’s word (Blair & Bloom, 2003, p. 168); the whole life 

of a Muslim is laden with prayers and invocations, the details of which are taken from the 

Koran; numerous texts and epigraphs bear attestant to this. We can say that this 

pervasiveness of the Koran works similarly to vibration, and this spiritual vibration 



29 
 

essentially determines the measures and modes of Muslim art; thus, Islam’s plastic art is 

somehow the reflection of the Koran’s word (Burkhardt, 2009, p. 50). Islamic calligraphy 

is the image embodiment of the formation of the spiritual facts held in the Koranic 

messages. This calligraphy supplies the outward clothing for the expression of Allah in 

the visible universe (Nasr, 1987, pp. 18-19). 

1.2. The Origins and Formation of Arabic Script 

 

The more aged, and more quoted reasoning is that the script employed for Arabic 

documentation derived from the kind of Aramaic script utilised by the Nabataeans. From 

the 2nd century B.C. to the 4th A.D., Nabatean Arabs travelled the pathways from 

Yemen to Petra and used written Aramaic to keep their records. As Naveh states, “the 

language of the Nabatean epigraphs and documents is official Aramaic, but it absorbed 

Arabic words and forms. Most of the people mentioned have Arabic names. In the course 

of time, the Arabic elements in the language of the Nabatean inscriptions gradually 

increased6. Nabatean text is written in what amounts to a mixed language, containing 

many Arab words and forms (Naveh, 1997, p. 158).” The Nabatean inscriptions’ 

 
6 Rene Dussaud, in 1901, along with Frederic Macler, made a quest into the Leja and Jabal al-Duruz 

regions of Syria, with the goal of copying epitaphs and investigating archeological remains. The team 

arrived at al-Namarah, the place of a Roman fort, and explored the district. They encountered a tomb 

completely in ruins in the Wadi l-Sawt, in the rubble of which they found the now renowned inscription 

carved on a grand block of basalt that had initially been used as the lintel of the entry to the mausoleum. 
The inscription indicated that this was the mausoleum of Imru‘u I-Qays, son of ‘Amr, monarch of the 

Arabs, mentioned his deeds as ruler, and gave his demise date as 7 Kaslul (December) of the year 223 
(Bellamy, 1985, p. 31). Other epigraphs more recently discovered and dating to the early centuries of the 

Common Era are similarly Arabic texts written in Nabatean letters. 

 



30 
 

epigraphic study traces a gradual transformation from Aramaic alphabetical characters of 

distinct shapes into cursive writing of ligatured letters (Anderson, 1992, p. 292). Also, 

written Nabatean, over time, incorporates all kinds of Arabic words and names. The 

earliest reference to a specific Arabic script appears in the 6th century with the label 

Jazm. It originated from the Nabataean writing system and became the primal reference 

from which ensuing Arabic scripts formed. Jazm is an unrefined script, characterised by 

letters of a stiff angular appearance and equal proportion (AbiFares, 2001, p. 28). Bishr 

ibn Abd al-Malik and Harb ibn Umayyah are credited with transmitting a similar script to 

the Hijaz and Mecca (Safadi, 1979, p. 8). 

1.2.1. The Development of Arabic Script  

 

The Holy Koran, during the 7th century, was revealed to the Prophet Mohammad. 

Though many fragments of the Koran were documented in writing within the Prophet’s 

duration of life, because of the historical possibility of new revelations and additions, the 

verses were not formally collected in their entirety. When the Prophet died in 632 C.E., 

the Koran’s revelation ended. The Koran was memorised orally by a faithful group of 

huffaz. Nevertheless, in the military campaigns that followed the Prophet’s death, a 

number of loyal and trustworthy huffazes were killed in war. Concerned about the 

consequences of this loss, Umar ibn Khattab suggested that Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, 

collect and collate the Koran as a written text (Ibid, p. 9). Abu Bakr requested the 

Prophet’s personal secretary, Zayd ibn Thabit, to oversee the gathering of an organised 

and written Koran. He accepts the assignment and commences collecting fragments 



31 
 

inscribed (on the materials including cloth, parchment, palm stalks, and the camel’s 

shoulder bones). Each written piece is carefully confirmed and verified against two 

witnesses from dependable huffaz (Al-Sa’id, 1975, pp. 19-27). When Zayd had 

assembled a complete version, the Caliph Uthman (r. 644-56) permitted the formal 

written text to be authorised for distribution. Muslims refer to these texts as mushaf to 

differentiate them from the Koran’s orally recited. Initial mushaf7 are transcribed in a 

number of styles, commonly called after the place wherein they were written. These 

consist of the Makki and Madini, which are called after Islam’s holy cities, and the Kufic 

script (Fig. 1) from the city of Kufa, which obtains popularity for its grandeur, 

refinement, and aesthetic balance. 

There were two main writing styles that led to the formation of all other ensuing 

script styles, each with distinct attributes; one was curved and rounded, called Muqawwar 

va Mudawwar ( مدورمقور و  ), and the other, called Mabsut va Mustaqim ( مبسوط و مستقیم) was 

elongated and straight angled. These two major characteristics governed the growth and 

development of the primary Makki and Madini styles and resulted in the shaping of a few 

scripts, the most significant of them were Ma‘il (Fig. 2), Mashq, and Naskh. When the 

Kufic was being developed in Kufa, these styles were common in Hijaz, and endured 

 
7 Mushaf is a gathering of sheets upon which the Koranic verses are written. The term means a codex, the 

collecting of multiple material sheets (Al-Bagdadi, 2005, pp. 95-96; Madigan, 2001, pp.36-37). Mushaf 

specifically signified the Koranic text’ material copies. The term originated from the Abyssinian word for 

book and relates to the Koran through the Ethiopian Bible (Al-Bagdadi, 2005, p. 96). Its codex forms 

further strengthened this relation. The codex’s material form symbolised its affinity with books of Jewish 

and Christian tradition, which had previously commenced to be bound as codices. 

 



32 
 

until after the Arabic scripts’ major reform which was formed in that city. The Naskh and 

Mashq continued to be utilised after striking advancements, while the Ma‘il was stopped, 

and the Kufic replaced it (Safavid, 1978, p. 9). 

 

 

Figure 1. Koran Leaf, central Islamic lands, 9th century, penned in Kufic, Sura 47: 36. Ink, colour and 

gold on parchment. 23.8 x 33.3 cm. Retrieved from (Schimmel & Rivolta, 1992, p. 3). 



33 
 

 

Figure 2. Koran Leaf, late 8th-first half 9th century, penned in Ma‘il, Sura 45:end of verse 30-verse 37. 

Ink, colours on parchment. 24.1 x 28.3 cm. Retrieved from (Ibid, p. 5). 

 

In the time of the Umayyads and Abbasids, a series of reform movements 

addressed the Arabic script’s visual conventions and appearance. The Umayyad capital, 

Damascus, became a center of Arabic writing with the advent of Tumar and Jali scripts. 

Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705) mandated the official utilisation of Arabic for all 

government documents (Welch, 1979, p. 23; AbiFarès, 2001, p. 34). Umayyad coins 

show Arabic script instead of images as an indication of visual dominance (Bierman, 



34 
 

1998, pp. 33-34). The Tumar’s grand naskh script turned into the official script of the 

Umayyad state, and numerous styles based their relations and measurements on the 

height of the alif (الف) in the Tumar. The Abbasids later employed the Tawqi as the 

official autograph script of commands and administrative declarations. This selection 

visually differentiated the new dynasty from the Umayyads’ Tumar texts, stressing the 

territorial role of writing as a sign of religious and political unity. 

Abul Aswad al-Du‘ali (d. 688), an Umayyad scholar, in the 7th century, notices 

that spoken Arabic’s linguistic habits are changing and commences an examination of 

Arabic grammar. Ad-Du‘ali, to address the matter, offers the tashkīl (diacritisation or 

vocalisation) system, wherein coloured marks indicate the vowel sounds as diacritics that 

do not exist as independent Arabic letters. In primal Arabic writing, however, certain 

letter forms could also have more than one consonant. So, Yahya ibn Ya‘mar and Nasr 

ibn Asim, innovate a system wherein diacritical nokte (dots) are placed below and above 

basic letter forms to differentiate consonants. Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (d. 786), an 

Abbasid scribe, facilitated the earlier diacritical marking system for general utilisation. 

He keeps nokte for distinguishing consonants but substitutes the tashkīl’s coloured marks 

with 8 new diacritical signs. The changes were encountered with resistance and at first 

confined to secular writings (these changes may have been assumed as modifying the 

Koran’s text) (Safadi, 1979, pp. 13-14). However, opposition decreases over time, and 

vocalisation marks become functional and helpful, especially for instructing the right 



35 
 

Koranic recitation. These marks are still applied to the transcription of religious 

documents and books. 

1.2.2. The Adoption of Round Scripts  

 

By the 10th century, a series of naskh styles known as al-aqlam al-sittah (the 

sextet hands or six pens) ( خطوط ششگانه ایاقلام سته  ) were commonly utilised across the East 

of the Islamic universe. Ibn Muqlah (866-940)8 for administrative objectives, pursued 

systematising the appearance of these scripts, and his subsequent reforms drastically 

reorganised the universe of Arabic writing.  

The six pens became formalised as three pairs of scripts: Thuluth and Naskh, 

Muhaqqaq and Rayhani, and Tawqi and Riqa. Every pair included a larger ornamental 

variety and a smaller script with finer lines. The appearance differences differentiating 

the styles are slight and subtle but readily recognisable to a trained eye. He applied an 

accurate system of geometrical reform in the writing and, specifically, the gathered canon 

of the six pens (Abbott 1939a; Abbott 1939b; Welch, 1979, p. 28). The system came to 

be recognised as al-khatt al-mansub (الخط المنسوب) (proportioned script). Al-khatt al-

mansub presented the Arabic script with an official constancy of written design and 

gradually became the basis of the Arabic calligraphic tradition. The new system 

 
8 Abu-Ali Muhammad ibn-Ali ibn-Muqla was several times vizier to Abbasid caliphs under al-Muqtadir, 

al-Qahir, and al-Radi (Ahmad ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 56; Khatibi & Sijelmassi, 1976, p. 26). With the 

financial and economic crisis at the time of the al-Radi (r. 934-40), Ibn Muqla was ousted, his hand 

amputated, and his assets confiscated. He died neglected, in prison. 



36 
 

proportioned the shapes and sizes of letters based on three parameters: nokte (dot) (نقطه), 

alif (الف), and the circle9 (Fig. 3): 

Starting with the point—a rhombus made by the pen when pressed heavily 

on the paper, the length of its sides depending on the width of the nib—the 

scribe placed several vertex to vertex to arrive at the desired length of a 

given alif, which varied in the different pens. Having decided to start with 

an alif the length of which is a given number of points, Ibn Muqlah related 

(nasaba) all other letters to this basic measure. With this simple and 

ingenious device of straight lines and arcs, both based on the length of the 

alif, Ibn Muqlah placed the art of penmanship on a scientific, mathematical 

basis (Abbott, 1939a, p. 35). 

Figure 3. Al-Khatt al-Mansub, as it measures every letter in relation to the nokte ( قطه ن  ), 

the height of the alif (الف), and the circle (دایره). Retrieved from (Safadi, 1979, p. 17). 

 

 
9 The visual integrity of a script is controlled by repeating identical forms amongst letters. Consequently, 

the script’s distinct styles came to be recognisable regarding their employed proportions and the base 

nokte (dot) measurement of the alif. Therefore, the alif in thuluth script measured 7 nokte tall; the alif in 

naskh measured 5, and the alif in muhaqqaq measured 9. Ibn Muqlah, proposing these standards, wanted 

to ease the interchange of written communication amongst a rapidly extending scribal community. 

 



37 
 

1.2.3. Six Pens 

The name of the thuluth (ثلث) script is characterised by delicate fluidity and 

relatively thin and precise strokes. Executed compositions keep proportions of 

approximately 4 straight segments to 2 curved segments. Thuluth, rarely employed for 

writing the text’s body, was chiefly a decorative script in inscriptions and manuscripts. 

The close association of script with Koranic headings and religious inscriptions gives it 

with the aura of a hieratic script. Also, it was the preferred style for inscriptions on altars, 

portals, public monuments, domes, framed ornamental pieces, and tombstones (Ali, 1996, 

p. 44). Naskh (نسخ) (cancelled), which is a label for the whole rounded scripts, may 

originate from its popularity, which cancelled the other styles. Accompanied by thuluth, 

it shaped many texts’ bodies in which the larger script was utilised for textual headings. 

Its proportions resemble those of the thuluth script but are distinguished by straighter 

verticals and shorter and more compact horizontal strokes. Also, the legibility of the 

naskh heightened its application throughout a diversity of spheres, including religious 

books, general knowledge, histories, and scientific texts (Ali, 1996, p. 44; Ülker, 1987, p. 

57). Following the acquisition of printing, naskh came to be the standard pattern for 

typefaces. The name muhaqqaq (محقق) means fully realised, and meticulously produced. 

This script with proportions of 4/5 straight to 1/5 curved segments is the most angular of 

the six pens (Ahmad ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 56). These proportions are highlighted 

with pointed letters, extended up-strokes, and very few sublinear strokes (Safadi, 1979, p. 

20). Because of its compressed structure and legibility, it was preferred for grand Korans 



38 
 

and seldom, if ever, employed as an administrative script (Mahir, 1999, p. 12; Schimmel, 

1984, p. 23). The pointedness of muhaqqaq in decorative pieces frequently contrasts with 

the thuluth’s fluidity. Though Rayhani (ریحان) is called after its creator, often the name of 

this style is interpreted as an apparent similarity with the leaves of raihan (basil) (Ahmad 

ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 56). As a companion to muhaqqaq, it has similar proportions 

and pointed letters, but the rayhani’s size is smaller, and its down strokes are more 

overstated (AbiFarès, 2001, p. 36). Also, rayhani is discerned by the marking of its 

diacritics, which were outlined with a finer pen than that utilised for the script. The name 

tawqi (توقیع) (confirmation or signature) indicates its early function as the Abbasid 

caliphs’ formal signature script. With proportions, 0/5 straight segments and 0/5 curved 

segments, is the most rounded of the sextet hands (Ahmad ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 56). 

Tawqi is also ascertained by fine ligatures that connect the last letters of one word to the 

beginning letter of the subsequent word. Often, it was used on important occasions or 

official documents, including imperial orders, permissions, letters of reference, and 

textual signatures (Ülker, 1987, p. 66). Riqa script (رقاع), or ruqah (small sheet), was 

characterised by short strokes and round fluidity curves, and its proportions are similar to 

those of tawqi script. Riqa was originally employed primarily for individual written 

communication but later appeared as an essential script for writing Ottoman diplomas. To 

gain an ijaza (diplomas) in the naskh or thuluth’s calligraphic writing, trainees would 

copy the master’s work. If the trainee’s instructor approved the copy as almost the same 

as the original version, he would inscribe approval beneath the piece in riqa. After 



39 
 

attaining an ijaza, a calligrapher could employ his signature in future works (Acar, 1999, 

p. 206; Mahir, 1999, p. 17). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Thuluth and Naskh, Muhaqqaq and Rayhani, and Tawqi and Riqa. Differences can be seen in 

the sharpness of points and the proportions of straight-to-curved segments.  



40 
 

Ali ibn Hilal ibn al-Bawwab (d. 1022) was a scribe with an artistic look at the 

movement and rhythm that found expression in the graceful curves and flowing lines. Ibn 

al-Bawwab’s writings meticulously reproduce the al-khatt al-mansub’s strict proportions. 

After centuries, the continuing readability of his manuscripts attests to both the scribe’s 

skill and the Ibn Muqlah’s geometric innovation. He, who was famous for the elegance, 

harmony, and consistency of the script, perfected and beautified the calligraphic system 

of Ibn Muqlah and raised the naskh script to the position of a visual and aesthetic art 

worthy of the Koran by relying on the al-khatt al-mansub (Abbot, 1939b, p. 77). 

Although Ibn al-Bawwab was not the first scribe to transcribe the Koran in the naskh 

script, he wrote a graceful mushaf in the well proportioned script, and after his specimen, 

the number of naskh Korans increased strikingly (Grabar, 1992, pp. 77-78) (Fig. 5). The 

visual design of his Koranic manuscript indeed comprises numerous writing styles, 

including naskh and Kufic. Ibn al-Bawwab effectively navigates several styles and uses 

differences in the script to visually differentiate the text’s body from section titles, 

paratextual markers, and indexical tables (Rice, 1955, p. 12). As a result of these changes, 

the Arabic style variants’ semiotic system was rearranged. Since scripts of naskh became 

geometrically standardised and easily readable for administrative and religious texts, the 

Kufic came to be increasingly ornamental. Kufic variants, alongside al-khatt al-mansub, 

were revitalised as a symbolic and decorative pattern. New Kufic scripts stressed visual 

and aesthetic shape rather than readability, including intricate woven, floriated, 

zoomorphic, and geometric designs (Schimmel, 1970). This experimentation was 

particularly common for architecture, metal, fabric, and other types of materials in which 



41 
 

the writing’s communicative role was primarily symbolic or aesthetic rather than 

informational. Stylised Kufic might display Koranic verses, religious phrases, or religious 

figures’ names as a running epigraph or it might shape religious content in the form of 

complicated visual puzzles. Since the legible scripts of naskh turned into markers of 

balance, moral standing, and textual content, Kufic design’s resurgence rediscovered the 

plasticity of Arabic writing and reminded spectators of the divine secret.  

After the beautification of scripts by Ibn al-Bawwab, the third master was Abul-

Majd Jamal al-Din Yaqut. About his life, few details are definite, and many stuff are 

legends. As a youth, he was taken to Baghdad as a slave, where he served al-Mustasim 

Billah (r. 1242-58), the last caliph Abbasid, hence getting the nickname al-Mustasimi. 

Yaqut practised calligraphy in Baghdad under master Safi al-Din Abd al-Mumin al-

Urmawi (d.1294), and like Ibn Muqla, became the Abbasid chancery’s secretary. After 

Hulagu (r. 1256-1265), in 1258, took Baghdad, Yaqut stayed in the city, where his art 

flourished under new state support (Bloom, 2001, p. 109). Like his predecessor, Ibn al-

Bawwab, he was the librarian and worked in Baghdad’s Madrasa al-Mustansiriyya under 

Ibn al-Fuwati (d. 1323). Yaqut became well-known for his script, exemplary teaching, 

prodigious output, and way of trimming the pen.  

The manuscripts of his work, unlike the reproduction of Ibn Muqlah’s Koran by 

Ibn al-Bawab, rarely endeavoured to rightly age their paper or reiterate the master’s 

illumination (Roxburgh, 2003, pp. 42-43) (Fig. 6). Yaqut educated many scribes on the 

suitable utilisation of al-aqlam al-sittah. Six of his trainees perfected his technique and 



42 
 

style to the degree that they could sign works in their master’s name (Ahmad ibn Mir 

Munshi, 1959, p. 60). Specifically, Yaqut is recognised for inventing a new way of 

trimming the reed pen. He was able to slow the flow of ink by cutting the reed at a 

slightly curved angle (Welch, 1979, p. 30). This new pen gave greater elegance and 

variation in tracing the line’s width. 

Yaqut trimmed the qalam at a slightly curved angle. Thus, he changed the 

writing rule, since writing is dependent on the pen. Accordingly, his script 

is preferable to that of Ibn Bawwab for its delicacy and gracefulness, and 

not for the cause of the primary and fundamental rules; the writing’s 

essence is identical to that Ibn Muqla invented from the dot, alif, and the 

circle (Ahmad ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 58). 

Ascertaining Yaqut’s works from extant specimens is difficult. His reputation 

means many individual examples and manuscripts in diverse scripts carry his signature, 

original and otherwise. Nearly every museum or major collection apparently has a piece 

on hand. The system of proportioned script, after Yaqut, came to be established as the 

Arabic calligraphic tradition’s centerpiece. Yaqut’s apprentices conveyed his scribal 

innovations and technical to subsequent generations and his style was extensively copied. 



43 
 

 

 

Figure 5. Ibn al-Bawwab, 1000-1001, Sura 112 (الاخلاص), (الفلق ) 113 and 114  (الناس) from a Koran, written 

in Naskh and Rayhan, Ink, colours and gold on paper, Baghdad. Retrieved from Chester Beatty Library.  

 

 



44 
 

 

 

Figure 6. Yaqut, 1286, Sura 23 (المومنون):17-1 from a single-volume Koran manuscript, written in rayhan, 

Baghdad. 



45 
 

1.3. The Iranian System of Scripts 

 

The tradition of Arabic calligraphy formalised the visual conventions of writing in 

the direction of religious, communicative, and artistic purposes. Scribal changes were 

political and the ongoing negotiation’s result. On the one hand, sudden reforms in writing 

were interpreted as a threat to the right preservation of the Koranic text. On the other 

hand, the calligraphic beauty and aesthetic writing offered a visual technique for the 

Koranic celebration. With the formalisation of calligraphic tradition, the Iranian 

calligraphers explored calligraphy’s symbolic role for religious and artistic goals. Their 

complicated designs turned into markers of wonder and authority in grand Korans, 

artistic display panels, and mosques. The development of calligraphy in Iran was 

energetic, such that every new generation perfected and mastered the older traditions and 

practises and periodically revitalised and revolutionised the established styles. 

Calligraphic artists continued to outrun their predecessors and achieve new heights until 

the 19th century. 

1.3.1. Calligraphy under the Mongol and Turkoman Dynasties 

In the early 13th century, the Mongol invasions disturbed the eastern Islamic 

lands’ political and economic infrastructure, and the year that the caliphate was 

overthrown by the Mongols is often taken as a landmark. Nevertheless, in spite of the 

devastations wrought, many cultural and social norms persisted, and after these heathen 

warriors’ conversion, Islam again appeared as the official religion across west Asia. This 



46 
 

was the era of Persianate culture and Mongol prestige (Morgan, 2004, pp. 131-6), and the 

Persian speaking lands, under the domination of Mongol10 and Turkoman11 dynasties, set 

the basis and standards in calligraphic tradition like other arts. The Six Pens (round 

styles) continued to be the main scripts for writing, and the Korans produced during this 

period are some of the best recognised. One of the important innovations of the time was 

the expansion of calligraphy to other areas and media, including stucco and tile. The 

increasing dominance of the Persian language and literature also caused the development 

of hanging scripts, ta‘liq (تعلیق), and nasta‘liq   (نستعلیق). 

The seat of the caliphate Abbasids, Baghdad, remained the main centre of 

calligraphy, particularly for manuscripts, commonly written utilising thuluth, naskh, 

muhaqqaq and rayhani and frequently elaborated with illustration and illumination. The 

round scripts canonised by Yaqut stayed the principal styles in Iraq as well as Iran, and 

Haydar’s work, the counterpart of Ahmad al-Suhrawardi, indicates how calligraphic 

 
10 Perhaps it was during the reign of IlKhans that books’ illuminated pages were for the first time 

ornamented with abstract decorative motifs. This may have been because of Chinese influence on 

painting, and forasmuch as handwriting was considered to be a part of painting, it was certain to be 

affected thereby. During this period, the illuminated manuscripts indicate geometrical compositions of 

striking charm and beauty, the favourite colours being blue and gold. The employ of gold dust was a 

special attribute of the book illuminations produced by followers of Mani. There is unquestionably that 

the Iranian artists never obliviated their national legacy and utilised the background colours chiefly blue 

and gold, in sharp contrast to other colours in the foreground with sensibility and proficiency (Sharif, 

1966, p. 1181).  

11 In the early 15th century, under the backing of the Timurid sovereign, the revival of Ilkhanid traditions 

expanded to the arts, including calligraphy, and the calligraphic masters adopted the scripts canonised by 

Yaqut. The Timurid princes were very creative, celebrated devotees and skillful administrators of Fine 

Arts. It was during the Timurid rule that calligraphic art found its full development, and this art underwent 

a revolutionary transformation, and the nasta‘liq script was invented.  

 



47 
 

artists adapted these scripts to architecture (fig. 7). Qadi Ahmad, the Safavid chronicler, 

included a brief biography of Seyed Haydar amongst the Yaqut’s six followers. Haydar 

was a Sufi and a well-known instructor of calligraphy, who educated the viziers Taj al-

Din Ali Shah (d. 1324) and Rashid al-Din’s son Ghiyath al-Din Mohammad (d. 1336). He 

was famous as gunda nivis, described as the writer in large characters or the majuscule 

writer, an apt epithet as the two surviving works autographed by Haydar are striking 

inscriptions engraved in the stucco overlay of buildings in central Iran. (Ahmad ibn Mir 

Munshi, 1959, p. 61). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7. Haydar, 1310, details of the inscriptions on the stucco mihrab in the Jāmeh Mosque 

of Isfahan. The texts contain several hadith, including one on the authority of the Prophet’s 

son-in-law Imam Ali about the 8 blessings that accrue to the Prophet’s descendants. The 

inscriptions carved on 3 levels in different sizes of thuluth script on a ground of foliage 

arabesque exemplify the epigraphic style. They indicate how the calligraphers’ complicated 

designs were performed on several levels and concave surfaces by artist stucco carvers. 



48 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8. Ahmad al-Suhrawardi, 1307-8, colophon page of a Koran, penned in 

Muhaqqaq and Kufic, Ink, colours, and gold on paper, 51.3 x 36.83 cm, Baghdad, 

Retrieved from (Schimmel & Rivolta, 1992, p. 16). 

 



49 
 

While Yaqut and his followers in Iran and Iraq were refining the Six Pens (round 

scripts), calligraphers in the same area were also developing ta‘liq and nasta‘liq. Almost 

all art historians credit Khwaja Taj al-Din Salmani, who worked in the court atelier under 

the Sultan Abu Sa‘īd Gurkan (r. 1451-69), with the invention of ta‘liq, and Mir Ali 

Tabrizi, his contemporary, with the invention of nasta‘liq (Faza’ilī, 1983, p. 453; Ahmad 

Munshi Qummi, 1974; Sharif, 1966. pp. 1182). However, the extant examples show that 

these styles had been formed much sooner and that these prominent scribes, just like their 

predecessors, strived only to refine and standardise scripts that had developed over a long 

period (Faza‘ilī, 1983, p. 445). In Iran, both hanging styles evolved and then expanded to 

Turkey and India. They were seldom employed for writing Arabic and came to be never 

prevalent in the Arabian lands. Ta‘liq, which literally means ‘suspended’ or ‘hanging’ 

script, was the conventional chancery handwriting employed at this time. A highly 

stylised style, it is typically said to be shaped from the scripts naskh, tawqi, and riqa 

(Ahmad ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 84). Ta‘liq, with these scripts, shares many traits but is 

more stylised. It carries extreme contrasts between expansion and compression, 

connected letters, curvilinear elements, and extraneous loops, all peculiarities that make it 

intricate and hard for the beginner to decipher (Fig. 9). This script was employed seldom 

for manuscripts, occasionally for calligraphic specimens and poetry, and commonly for 

official documents.  

By the late 13th century, ta‘liq script had attained a definitive style, often named 

ta‘liq -i Qadim ( تعلیق قدیم) or ta‘liq -i asl (تعلیق اصل) (Fazā‘ilī, 1983, p. 403), probably 



50 
 

resulted to some extent from the burgeoning need of Ilkhanid bureaucracy to standardise 

written Iranian. To write faster, secretaries simplified the script by increasing the 

unconventional ligatures and removing the pointing of many letters, traits that made it 

arduous to read the script as well as to change the text. The size of some letters was 

reduced, whilst others were penned in new forms or with thinner strokes. This new script 

recognised as shikasta ta‘liq  (شکسته تعلیق) (broken ta‘liq) to distinguish it from the older 

script, was systematically used from the late 14th century (Ibid, p. 398).   

After the invention of the ta‘liq by Khwaja Taj al-Din Salmani, this script was 

perfected by the chief secretary under Abu Sa‘īd, Khwaja Abd al-Hayy Astarabadi 

(Ahmad Munshi Qummi, 1974, pp. 42-43). In his writing, there exist two ravish 

(varieties), the first variety (a more flowing script) is identified by extreme elegance and 

movement. In this model, orders and charters of the Abu Sa‘īd were penned. Thus, too, 

wrote the calligraphers of Khorasan, including Maulana Darwish, Mir-Mansur, and 

Khwaja Jan Jibra‘il. The second is ascertained by firmness, taste, maturity, and solidity, 

and it was utilised in the orders of Aqqoyunlu Sultans such as Hasan-bek, Sultan Yaqub, 

and others. The Azarbayjan and Iraq’s secretaries, and especially Maulana Idris and 

Mohammad Tamimi followed that ravish (Ahmad ibn Mir Munshi, 1959, p. 84). Ta‘liq, 

from the 15th century, became the main chancery script utilised in Iran and the eastern 

Islamic lands. Calligraphers in the Ottoman chancery attempted to convert ta‘liq into a 

literary writing style, but this endeavour was short-run, and ta‘liq stayed mainly the script 

for inscribing documents, whilst nasta‘liq, appeared as the literary script for writing 



51 
 

Persian, especially poems. The name nasta‘liq is a contraction of the naskh-i ta‘liq (  نسخ

 .meaning a suspended or hanging naskh ,(تعلیق

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. Abulfazl Sawji, 1184 A.H., written in ta‘liq. Retrieved from (Aghdashloo, 2011). 

 



52 
 

Nasta‘liq is especially appropriate for inscribing mystical epics or love lyrics. It is, 

like naskh, readable and can be penned compactly and rapidly, but it is more beautiful 

and graceful. This script slopes from the upper right to the lower left, and in it, most 

strokes are round, with just one-third (⅓) to one-sixth (⅙) of the strokes straight. 

Therefore, the calligrapher’s pen moves more easily and freely than in naskh. Letters and 

words penned in nasta‘liq, like naskh, have determined dimensions that are ascertained 

with the nokte formed by pressing the pen’s nib on the paper. In this script, letters and 

words are inscribed so compactly that there is slight space for pointing and other 

diacritical signs are often overlooked unless required to avoid obscurity. Moreover, in 

nasta‘liq script words are often penned separately and without joined, except in 

calligraphic specimens and epigraphs. The nasta‘liq’s beauty and grace lie in its balanced 

distribution of short and tall, open and closed, thick and thin, in the combinations and the 

artful forming of letters, and in the consistency and symmetry with which letters and 

words are placed alongside. 

1.3.2. Calligraphy under the Safavid 

 

The Safavids were a religious sovereignty based upon Shiism that continued for 

almost two centuries. With the imposition of Shiism as the state-enforced dogma on the 

whole of society, a new dimension of socio-cultural identity began to take root. 

Notwithstanding the expansive ethnical and linguistic variety within the Safavid realm, 

the state-supported Shiite credo with a Persian interpretation and the Arabic theological 

semblance demonstrated to be significantly enduring. This alter influenced the election of 



53 
 

texts penned, as new poems and devotions to the Shiite imams came to be introduced into 

the traditional index of the Koran and hadiths. 

The rhythmic and fluid eastern script of nasta‘liq canonised by calligraphic master 

Sultan Ali Mashhadi12 became the dominant style in the west of Iran, as artists tended to 

work in the Safavid monarchical kitabkhaneh (scriptorium). Shah Mahmud Nishapuri (d. 

1564) (He is the third of the trio, along with Mir-Ali and Sultan-Ali) was the most 

renowned scribe employed there. The influence of master Mir Imad al-Hassani Qazvini 

(assassinated 1615), who was recognised for his crisp and unique writing style, in later 

centuries extended to Ottoman Turkey, where nasta‘liq’s practitioners still follow his 

specimens precisely. He became the most noteworthy calligrapher at Shah Abbas’s court 

and the chief competitor of Ali Riza Abbasi, a designer of epigraphs. His creative 

compositions were immensely known and popular both the duration of his lifetime and 

after his demise, and his calligraphic specimens, as those of his predecessor, master Mir 

Ali Haravi, were gathered diligently. He is most celebrated for his quatrains inscribed in 

diagonal structure canonised by Mir Ali Haravi (1476-1544), but with a heavier, bolder 

line and an excessive contrast between thin and thick strokes (Fazā‘ilī, 1983, pp. 522-

532) (Fig. 10). In Iran from the mid-15th century, the nasta‘liq script was preferred for 

 
12 Nasta‘liq found its classical shape under Sultan Ali Mashhadi, a pupil of Azhar. He spent most of his 

career in Herat working in the Timurid court (Isfahani, 1990, p. 127). After retirement in 1514, he wrote a 

verse treatise about calligraphy. It comprises both autobiographical and practical information and shows 

the close association between the practice and religious discipline of calligraphy. He penned some of the 

best manuscripts of the late 15th century (Faza‘ilī, 1983, pp. 462-467), including a copy of Attar 

Nishabouri’s Manteq al-Tayr (Conference of the Birds). 

 



54 
 

fine transcribes of literary productions, and for calligraphic exemplars, which were often 

gathered in albums. Practitioners refined the presentation of these calligraphic 

compositions, utilising finer paper, often brightly coloured, and highly polished, as well 

as coloured inks, and often placing their planned compositions into ornamented 

margins13. 

Calligraphic artists also streamlined the style of nasta‘liq, and developed a script 

entitled shikasta nasta‘liq ( شکسته نستعلیق) (broken nasta‘liq), commonly shortened to 

shikasta (Ibid, p. 451). In this new script, calligraphers are permitted to make more 

unauthorised connections than in nasta‘liq, and these connections distinguish shikasta 

nasta‘liq from all other scripts. In other styles, a non-connecting letter causes the 

calligrapher to end his pen stroke before the word’s end. Hence, the calligrapher may 

require more pen strokes to add diacritics or write a single word. But calligrapher, in 

shikasta, may even inscribe more than one word in a single pen stroke, for unauthorised 

 
13 In addition to developing the traditional scripts (both hanging and round styles), calligraphers in Iran 

also elaborated other techniques of coalescing pictures with these scripts in what can be known as 

pictorial writing, and the outcomes often blur the differentiation between painting and calligraphy. 

Besides their instant visual impact, these works often contain puns and riddles, both visual and verbal, 

and occasionally even an amalgamation of the two. One form was zoomorphic calligraphy. In Iran, 

Zoomorphic compositions, known since at least the 15th century, gained particular popularity, as 

calligraphers dexterously shaped letters, words, and phrases into the form of human faces, animals, and 

birds. Micrography was a second form of pictorial writing, the technique of employing words penned in a 

small script to shape an image. Since medieval times, it has been utilised in both Hebrew and Arabic 

manuscripts. The first specimens form geometric figures and objects, also calligraphers in this period 

went one step further and arranged the letters and words penned in the ghubar (dust) (غبار) script to spell 

out a larger phrase. In a third technique known as gulzar (full of flowers) (گلزار), artists substituted the 

tiny words utilised in micrography to embellish a large word or phrase with flowers. In Iran, the technique 

has been employed since at least the early 16th century. 

 



55 
 

connections are allowed both within a word and between words. These unauthorised 

connections signify that calligraphers can inscribe shikasta quicker than other styles. In 

this script, vertical letters come to be shrunken, and the combination of short verticals and 

extra ligatures forms an uncommonly dense script. To increase rapidity, calligraphers, 

when writing smooth out the curves, bumps, and teeth. Shikasta nasta‘liq script is the 

latest accomplishment of the creative and innovative Iranian calligraphers that were 

formed over the time of the Safavid rule and acquired a definitive style during the period 

17th and 18th centuries. One of the first trailblazers was Mohammad Shafi Haravi 

Husayni (d. 1670-1), and another was Murtadaquli Khan Shamlu (d. 1688-9) (Isfahani, 

1990, p. 179). But with the emergence of Abdul Majid Taliqani (d. I773), this style 

reached the height of perfection and beauty and there was a change in calligraphy. In 

spite of various 19th-century endeavours to streamline it, alongside contemporary prose, 

it stayed the script of decrees and documents, whilst nasta‘liq kept its superiority as the 

principal calligraphic style. Shikasta nasta‘liq is still a favourite by Iranians, and a fine 

page of Shikasta script, when performed by a classical master or by a contemporary 

practitioner, often brings to mind one of modern graphic art, just as a page of glorious 

initial Kufic has an iconic quality to it (Schimmel & Rivolta, 1992, pp. 47-50) (Fig. 11). 



56 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10. Mir Imad, 1608, Leaf from a poem by Amir Khusrou Dehlavi, penned in nasta‘liq, 25.57 x 

19.05 cm. Ink, colours and gold on paper. Iran, Isfahan. Retrieved from (Schimmel & Rivolta, 1992, p. 

42). 

 



57 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11. Abdul Majid Taliqani, 1760-61, written in shikasta nasta‘liq, Ink on paper, 24.13 x 11.43 cm. 

Iran. Retrieved from (Ibid, p. 50). 

 

 



58 
 

1.3.3. Calligraphy under the Qajar 

 

The Qajar sovereigns were well-informed in the traditional Persian arts and 

literature, and during their rule, many beautiful books were produced, usually penned in a 

compact and elegant nasta‘liq sumptuously decorated. However, few specimens have 

been published, especially in the West, because traditionally this period has been taken as 

one of downturn and decline. Now even as the arts of this period are being reexamined, 

most Western studies focus on architecture, figural painting, or other arts. Today, this 

situation is being rectified to some extent in Iran, and various centres of Islamic and 

calligraphy are producing comprehensive investigations on 19th-century calligraphic 

masters, including Mirza Mohammad Riza Kalhur (1829-92). Kalhur was the most 

significant calligrapher of the 19th century, credited for revitalising the nasta‘liq style 

perfected by Mir Imad al-Hassani. Mir Imad’s heirs in the 17th and early 18th centuries 

had developed a more elongated nasta‘liq style with greater spaces between the words, 

while Kalhur revived the more compacted tradition,  inscribing words on a smaller 

measure in a single movement, making shorter connections and strokes, and piling letters 

and words together to get a thicker structure (Fig. 12). The most renowned of his trainees 

was Mirza Zayn al-Abidin Sharifi Qazvini, famous as the Malik al-Khattatin (the king of 

calligraphers) (ملک الخطاطین). In terms of spreading Kalhur’s calligraphic art and style, his 

most significant pupil was Seyed Morteza Barghani, who taught his master’s style to his 

two sons, Hassan and Hossein Mirkhani. These calligraphers, who are regarded as 

Kalhur’s apprentices by an intermediary, endeavoured to teach contemporary 



59 
 

calligraphers by founding the Anjuman-i Khushnivisan-i Iran (Society of Iranian 

Calligraphers). 

In the 19th century, nasta‘liq was also adopted for lithographed books. At this 

time, Iranian society was taking the first steps toward modernisation, and calligraphy was 

included in applied arts and was accompanied by these evolutions, pursuing new 

tendencies vis-à-vis the requirements of contemporary society in the previous century. 

Kalhur was fully aware of the changes he had begun. He understood his time well, and 

because he wrote as a calligrapher for lithographic newspapers, he recognised the definite 

replacement of printing overwriting. Kalhur was a practical thinker and was aware of his 

path and purpose and tried to combine writing and calligraphy with printing to prevent its 

decline. He is the last great calligrapher of the Qajar era and the indirect initiator of the 

next age. The period, after a relatively long introduction of forty years, entered the age of 

modernity. After Kalhur, a new era began with Imad al-Kitab (1861-1936) that continues 

up to this time (today, our traditional calligraphy has been influenced more by Imad al-

Kitab than by Kalhur). This calligrapher is mentioned as the perfecter of the Kalhur style. 

Without being Kalhur’s direct pupil, he practised from his printed books, learned his 

manner with great loyalty and obsession, and passed it on to others without interfering 

too much with this method (Fig. 13). Imad al-Kitab experienced the troubled and critical 

period of the Constitutional Revolution, and not only calligraphers but also painters, 

writers, and intellectuals contributed to this experience. He is one of the artists who 

encountered problems when confronted with tradition and modernity that had not 



60 
 

previously - and not so severely - disturbed their minds and work processes. Generally, 

our contemporary calligraphy begins with Imad al-Kitab, and he is the last link in the 

chain of old masters of calligraphy who connected this art to contemporary calligraphers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12. Page of mashq by Mohammad Riza Kalhur, undated, 13.5 x 21 cm. Retrieved from Ali Jamasb 

Collection, Tehran. 



61 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13. Imad al-Kitab, undated, written in nasta‘liq, Retrieved from (Aghdashloo, 2011). 

 

 

 

 



62 
 

1. 4. The Art of Calligraphy: Siyah Mashq 

Siyah mashq (black writing), refers to the calligraphic introductory practise sheets 

performed by traditional scribes and calligraphers. An inseparable part of the system 

whereby calligraphers moved from internship to master status, the repeating, copying, 

and combinations of letters and words were intended to reinforce the hand and instill the 

discipline and concentration required to transform into a master calligrapher. The practise 

permitted the calligrapher to ascertain the measure of the script to be utilised, to try out 

the reed pen, to consider whether the ink was of the proper consistency, and to plan the 

overall visual influence of the composition. Also, it enabled him to improve the forms of 

the letters and control any stiffness and unsteadiness in the hand. The typical outcome 

was a dark, hard-worked sheet with little ground becoming visible through. This process 

is similar to a painter who executes sketches before beginning on a painting’s final 

version. These practise sheets were not restricted to the Persianate territory but also are 

found in the West of the Islamic universe and Ottoman Turkey. In Arabic, they are 

referred to as musawwada ( دَة سَوَّ  and in Turkish they are called karalama ,(blackened) (م 

 ,a verbal noun from the Ottoman Turkish (kara, “black”). Siyah mashq ,(قره لامه)

furthermore, were not confined to one specific script but are found in a broad range of 

them. In Iran, nasta‘liq and shikasta scripts are in more numbers found partly due to the 

prevalence of these two styles at the time siyah mashq appeared as an art form and also to 

their distinctive visual characteristics that perfectly matched the compositional requisites 

of siyah mashq. Such characteristics included the unique balance between the individual 



63 
 

letters’ thinness and thickness and the flexibility of these styles for moving freely over 

and beyond the baseline. Of course, Mashq is an integral part of training calligraphy. 

Usually, teaching was done in very small groups, one-on-one, or teacher-to-student. The 

master or teacher would inscribe the sarmashq (model) while the pupil watched. The 

pupil would practise the mashq and take it to the master for correction. He would cover 

page after page, or lawha (wooden slate) after lawha with practises, which either had to 

be thrown away once both sides of the paper were completely covered or again and again 

washed off from the lawha14. Then, the pupil would move on to learn how to shape letters 

and words by writing and studying compound exercises. After these were completed 

successfully, the teacher issued the pupil an ijaza (diploma) authorising him/her to work 

as a professional master or scribe. This process took between three and ten years. Unlike 

the Ottoman Empire, Iran had no tradition of getting ijazas as finished artworks with fine 

calligraphy and elaborate illumination. Mufradat, which were the first group of beginner 

calligraphy lessons, included single letters and then letters in pairs that were considered 

for teaching shape, proportion, and control and are characterised by their linear and 

simple horizontal formats. In a page from the Mufradat album by Yaqut al-Mustasimi, the 

top panel includes a single line displaying the letter sin (س) in muhaqqaq script in 

combination with other letters in alphabetic order. The panel beneath shows the letter jim 

 in combination with other alphabetical letters. The handwriting is surrounded by (ج)

golden cloud forms on a red background and is framed with a decorative margin, which 

 
14 Calligraphers usually practised on paper or on wooden slates. When completely covered, the slates 

were washed and reutilised, since the ink used was soluble in water. 



64 
 

was possibly added later. Mufradat albums like this one indicate the physical shape of a 

chain of transfer from master to pupil, which stretches from past times to today (Safwat, 

1996, p. 13) (fig. 14). Such pages were typically illuminated and incorporated into 

albums. These were assembled by masters who were at the height of their professions and 

imply that calligraphic artists, no matter how well-known or advanced, saw themselves to 

be continually learning. Thus, these albums demonstrate both the master’s skill and his 

continual seeking of perfection (Ibid, p. 40).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 14.  Yaqut Mustasimi, 13th century, page from a mufradat album, Baghdad. Upper part 16.8 x 24.9 

cm., lower part 27.8 x 36.7 cm. Retrieved from Nasser D Khalili Collection. 



65 
 

 

The symbiotic relationship between calligraphy and mysticism has been extensively 

studied by scholars, especially Annemarie Schimmel.  Also, many calligraphers and 

scribes were faithful Sufis for whom accomplishing mashq was equivalent to meditating 

on divine glory and beauty. As the late 16th-century poet and master calligrapher Baba 

Shah Isfahani stated, mashq is a contemplative practise and a vehicle by which the 

luminous sparks of the actual beloved’s beauty emerge in the scribe’s vision (Baba Shah, 

as cited in Ernst, 1992, p. 284). True mystical focus is at the heart of executing mashq. 

This undivided concentration is akin to the Sufi mystics’ mesmerising meditation as they 

reiterate the name of Allah in the dhikr or remembrance ritual, and the rhythmic 

reiteration of the letters on the page is a visual similar to the mystics’ metrical repetition 

of the name of Allah. In the calligraphy and painting treatises of the 16th and 17th 

centuries and in the prefaces of the album, we gain a wealth of information and 

awareness about siyah mashq. These sources help us to better understand such works and 

set them within their historical and cultural contexts. Baba Shah discusses in his treatise 

Adab al-Mashq (آداب المشق) at length the discipline, rigor required and spiritual 

commitment in doing mashq. He says there are 3 levels of competence in the practicse of 

calligraphy. All steps are equally essential, and each needs to be mastered in order. The 

first is mashq-i nazari (visual mashq), in which the pupil studies the master’s handwriting 

and watches its spiritual features. The second is mashq-i qalami (pen practise), which 

requires transcribing from a master’s handwriting. The apprentice commences by copying 

mufradat (isolated letters) in the master’s pen so that he comprehends and learns the 



66 
 

shape of every letter or word in the style wherein it was inscribed. After that, he may be 

given short compositions. In pen practise, it is of utmost significance that the pupil pays 

no attention to inscribing that conflicts with the specimen to be copied. The student must 

consider the elements of the master’s pattern and seek help in hemmat (concentration) 

from the calligraphic masters’ departed spirits. This will take at least a year. Eventually, it 

is possible to endeavour the third step, mashq-i khayali (imaginative practise). 

Imaginative practise goes beyond copying and entails that the calligrapher utilises his 

imagination as the background against which the shapes of beauty emerge. In imaginative 

practise, the calligrapher exclusively uses his own nature’s power to write every structure 

that seems to him. The benefit of this kind of practise is that it makes the calligrapher a 

master of tasarruf (spontaneity). The first extant artistic pages of siyah mashq were 

formed by Mir Imad in the late 16th century (fig. 15).  

Siyah mashq was introduced as an art form in Iran just after Mir Imad Hassani made 

a trip in 1594-95 to the Ottoman Empire and encountered the karalama (black 

scribblings) in the provincial cities of Aleppo, Baghdad, and Damascus. Siyah mashq had 

served just a practical goal in Iran before this. Turkish Karalama has a characteristic 

musical quality. The alphabetical characters can be interpreted as the musical notes’ 

visual manifestations flowing into infinity, with superimposed and interlaced lines. 

Ottoman calligraphic artists saved, signed, and illuminated their karalama, recognising 

them as independent works of art long before their Iranian counterparts gave the same 

status to siyah mashq (fig. 16). Besides Mir Imad’s journey to the Ottoman Empire, what 



67 
 

seems to have acted as a stimulus for the transformation of the function and meaning of 

siyah mashq in late 16th and 17th centuries Iran was a more general change in taste 

amongst supporters of art and a widening of the patronage base (Babaie et al., 2004). 

Artists increasingly became independent from royal support, and the change in economic 

conditions accompanied by the emigration of artists to the Ottoman Empire and India 

caused the decline of manuscripts and the prosperity of single-page calligraphy, 

drawings, and paintings (Welch, 1976, pp. 1-16 and 196-200). Moreover, in 1587 when 

Abbas I came to the throne, the Kizilbash nobility, who had established their own 

bibliothecas in the provinces, dominated the support of the arts of the book that 

traditionally had been centred at the royal court. Though some artists stayed in Qazvin, 

many moved to the provinces, where they gained ready patronage among the Kizilbash. 

For instance, Farhad Khan Karamanlu, the ruler of Azerbaijan and later of Fars, was an 

outstanding Kizilbash patron whose library and workshop included the renowned 

calligraphers Ali Reza Abbasi and Mir Emad (Babaie et al., 2004, p. 114-16). The advent 

of a new class of supporters who were able to purchase individual pages caused artists to 

adjust to the requirements and needs of these clients. It is possible that the emergence and 

expansion of single-page artworks have an incentive for the presentation of siyah mashq 

in the area of the commodity. In the 18th century, a group of siyah mashq pages by Mir 

Imad was included in a renowned album, now in St. Petersburg’s Academy of Sciences, 

that contains Persian and Indian calligraphic pages, drawings, and paintings dating from 

the 16th to the 18th century. In style and colour, the siyah mashq folios’ illuminated 

margins visually complement those of the other pages in the album. The elegance and 



68 
 

beauty of the mashq folios in this album lie in the letters’ purity and balance and the 

compositions’ clarity. The repetition and arrangement of letters and words create a sense 

of rhythm on the page. Characters appear upside down or overlap, and many of these 

pages from any direction can be observed and do not pursue a linear sequence. In these 

pages, the siyah mashq’s form and technique triumph over text, the content having 

negligible meaning. These works of art have a remarkable abstract attribute; the bold 

shapes of the individual calligraphic characters, and their arrangement on the page are 

what prepare the medium of connection between the calligrapher and audience. In many 

cases, the nokte above or below letters are removed, so as not to distract from the forms 

of the letters. These specimens of siyah mashq are the most personal and candid artistic 

expression of the calligrapher and indicate his direct imprint or presence on the page as 

he struggles with perfecting the letters’ shapes and experiments with novel compositional 

characters. They represent an alliance between the artist and his work and can be seen as 

the expression of his very moral essence (fig. 17).  



69 
 

 

Figure 15. Mir Imad, datable before 1600, practise sheet with the bismillah, the Fatiha, and a Persian 

quatrain, Qazvin. 

This one contains the bismillah (invocation to Allah) ( می بسم الله الرحمن الرح ), in the top centre, followed by 

the Fatiha, the Koran’s opening sura. Penned across this and upside-down is an Iranian quatrain about 

love, followed by the autograph of the calligrapher Imad al-Hasani at the dar al-saltanat ( دارالسلطنة) 

capital Qazvin. In this practise sheet, Mir Emad worked on repeating forms of nasta‘liq script. For 

example, in the bismillah, he extended the sin (س) in bism (بسم) and the connector between ha ( ح) and ya 

) in al-rahim (ی) می الرح ) to create a balanced pattern. Also, this calligrapher worked on the form of nun (ن), 

repeating the letter several times with minor differences in the word alladhina ( نی الذ ) in the penultimate 

line until he gained a perfect shape. Likewise, he repeated the initial penstroke qaz ( قز) and the final 

penstroke in ( نی  ) in qazvin ( نی قزو ) at the end of his signature like a coda around the medial waw (و). Such 

repetitive strokes shaped the backbone for calligraphic works, wherein an artist like Mir Emad could 

repeat the same form seemingly effortlessly. 



70 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 16. Page of pen exercises (karalama) by Shayk Hamdullah, Turkey. Retrieved 

from The Walters Art Museum. 

  

After a long hiatus, in the early 1800s, the art of siyah mashq reappeared in Iran. 

The second ruler of the Qajar dynasty, Fath Ali Shah (r. 1789-1834) was one of its most 

enthusiastic practitioners. Like many princes and rulers, he learned calligraphy at a young 

age and later became a practitioner of remarkable ability, electing Mir Imad as his model. 

The mid and late 19th century witnessed an increase further in the popularity of siyah 

mashq. Finished this art form pages were worked in unprecedented numbers and were 

exchanged both in courtly circles and in society’s lower echelons. These artworks were so 

valuable that the fourth Qajar ruler, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848-96) prepared mashq 

pages for his ministers and court officials as gifts of pishkash (gratitude) for services 

rendered (Lambton, 1994). The Shah is also renowned for sending illuminated pages of 

calligraphy to foreign rulers as diplomatic gifts. However, during this period, Mirza 



71 
 

Ghulam Riza Isfahani (1829-86), known as Khushnivis was the artist most responsible for 

revitalising artistic mashq, and popularising it beyond court circles (fig. 18). He was a 

master of nasta‘liq in the Mir Imad’s style and dedicated most of his life to training 

members of the royal family and young calligraphers. Due to increased demand, many 

outstanding calligraphic artists produced single-page calligraphies and mashq pages 

during the late Qajar period. The large number of existing examples is an indication of 

this proliferation. Mashq pages, like other single-page handwritings, were often written 

for commemorative goals and given as gifts at official occasions, major holidays, 

diplomatic meetings, and after military victories. Numerous extant pages of the art form 

by prominent calligraphers including the Mirza Ghulam Riza, the Vesal family’s 

members of Shiraz (fig. 19), Darwish Abdul Majid Taliqani (d. 1773), Mirza Kuchak 

Khan (d. 1813), Asadollah Shirazi (d. 1889), Mohammad Riza Kalhur (d. 92), Ali Akbar 

Gulistaneh (d. 1901), Mohammad Kazim (d. 1916), Imad al-Kitab (d. 1936), etc., attest to 

the popularity of siyah mashq in this period. However, it is not certain, whether these 

works were ordered directly or produced as luxury objects for forthcoming sale to 

enthusiastic and interested individuals; both forms of making were probably prevalent. 

Most siyah mashq indicate a lineage back to great calligraphic masters such as Mir Ali 

Haravi, Mir Imad al-Hassani, Abdul Majid Taliqani, and Ahmad Nayrizi. In fact, in the 

second half of the 19th century, Mir Imad’s mashq pages were so valued that 

professionally they were photographed and utilised as sar mashq (models) for training. 

The originals’ mechanical duplication via photography made them accessible to a greater 

number of interested calligraphers. In the 19th century, the increase in popularity of siyah 



72 
 

mashq was in part because of the active role of the court Qajar as the arbiter of taste. 

Kings and courtiers not only collected the pages of siyah mashq but also as official gifts 

distributed them; others followed suit. These works were perceived as valued collectibles 

and gifts of the most intimate and personal nature. Inscriptions on them indicate that their 

exchange was intended as a gesture of deepest loyalty and friendship. The request for 

these pages was not restricted to the ruling elite of the late 19th century but also extended 

to those who were more casually in contact with the Qajar court. These works were no 

longer merely a courtly prerogative, but were now available in the bazaar and looked for 

by enthusiasts. Jakob Polak, Naser al-Din Shah’s court physician, stated that pages by 

renowned calligraphers were in great request and that collectors who were able to 

recognise the hand of prominent masters were willing to pay exorbitant fees to buy such 

works of art (Polak, 1976, p. 266). He adds that foreigners also collected and admired 

these works. Though Polak does not specifically mention siyah mashq, his observation in 

general is an indication of the popularity of single-page scripts. The study of siyah 

mashq’s history reveals its change from a practical means for master and aspiring artists 

to an artistic tool of representing the spiritual commitment and sure hand of a recognised 

calligrapher such as Mir Imad, and, eventually, to a commodity treasured as a potential 

gift or collectible object. Other explanations for the increase in siyah mashq pages’ 

proliferation and production in this period may be connected with the process of 

modernisation. Iran, in the 19th century, became a pawn in the hands of the two 

superpowers, Russia and Western Europe. Threatened by alien intervention and constant 

encroachment on its boundaries, the country was compelled to experiment with concepts 



73 
 

of modernity to protect itself. The broad array of Western innovations and ideas 

introduced to Iran during this time included lithography and photography, both 

technologies of reproduction that had a lasting impression on the arts. In fact, the art of 

siyah mashq left a lasting mark on subsequent Iranian calligraphy by strengthening the 

idea of irregularity as a valued characteristic. Regularity was traditionally one of the 

calligraphic artist’s prime aims. Generally, Calligraphic examples followed linear formats 

(horizontal, vertical, or diagonal); compositions were very systematic, structured, and 

occasionally compartmentalised; and letters seldom overlapped or appeared at different 

angles or upside-down.  

The art of siyah mashq affected the compositional quality of the later scripts, 

especially that of the shikasta style, which was developed in the 17th century in Iran and 

reached its peak in the 18th and 19th. Although siyah mashq may not have influenced the 

forms of the letters in this calligraphic style, it certainly affected the compositional 

qualities of the script, and letters and words fluidly rise and fall, emphasising artistic 

whim, delicate grace, and movement. Also, siyah mashq may have inspired the 

popularisation of conventions of irregularity, such as varuneh-nivisi (reverse writing) (fig. 

20); two-sided writing, wherein one needs to rotate the work to read the text; the 

utilisation of an unprecedented range of papers and coloured inks; and the calligraphic 

representations of animals and humans__ all of which indicate the reality that forward-

looking Iranian calligraphic artists enjoyed extraordinary freedoms and constantly 

exceeded the bounds of traditional canons. Today, most traditional calligraphers reside in 



74 
 

Iran and regularly create artistic mashq pages alongside other types of finished 

calligraphy. Contemporary calligraphic artists who work in the traditional mode, 

including Ali Akbar Kaveh (b. 1894), Ghulam Hossein Amirkhani (b. 1939), Mohammad 

Ehsaei (b. 1939), Jalil Rasouli (b. 1941), Kaykhosraw Khoroush (b. 1942), and all 

graduates of the Society of Iranian Calligraphers, have tried for years to keep alive the art 

of calligraphy in Iran, instructing numerous apprentices in the traditional canon. 

 Parallels to this art form also exist in modern and contemporary Iranian art. Artists 

have constantly drawn inspiration from Iran’s rich artistic heritage, especially calligraphy. 

As pioneers of modernist art in the 1960s and '70s, artists such as Parviz Tanavoli, 

Hossein Zenderoudi, and Mohammad Ehsaei celebrate the letters’s versatile shapes of the 

Arabic alphabet. In their works, often called naqqashi khatt (calligraphic painting), the 

letters and words are transformed beyond recognition and are reduced to sheer shapes. As 

in the pages of siyah mashq, the calligraphy in these artworks is also abstract and mostly 

without literal meaning. The structures are rhythmic and show in kaleidoscopic colours in 

a diversity of techniques, such as oil on canvas or wood, a medium not traditionally 

utilised for calligraphy. In Ayn + Ayn by Zenderoudi (fig. 21), the artist, in horizontal 

rows, reiterates ad infinitum the wide loop of the form of the ayn (ع). The painting 

captures the method scribes manipulate the reed pen as they endeavour to produce the 

desired thickness and shape of the letter. The outcome is a rhythmic structure with sharp 

contrast between the brown and black ink and the exposed canvas. Mohammad Ehsaei’s 

work, active since the 1970s, also investigates the pure forms of alphabetical characters. 



75 
 

He is a calligrapher instructed in the traditional method; his calligraphic paintings create 

compositions that look to past tradition, as well as to the future. In his Mijmar-i 

Gulvazheha (مجمر گلواژه ها), the forms of the letters like the carpet’s warp and weft are 

closely intertwined, shaping a circle that has an undefined outer boundary and culminates 

at the centre (fig. 22). In the same way, Pouran Jinchi also hints at siyah mashq in her 

utilisation of letters in nasta‘liq as her means of expression. With the accuracy and 

discipline of a traditional calligrapher, Jinchi renders these calligraphic elements on a 

ground of heavily incised scribbles and creates compositions with rich textures. The 

painter transforms the letters to the point where they are unrecognisable through an 

ingenious way of layering and juxtaposing shapes and colours. Her complete immersion 

is evident in the artistic process in the way she layers, writes, inscribes, and etches the 

markings and letters on the surface of the canvas and deconstructs the words and verses 

she employs: reducing them, breaking them down, and afterward representing them in a 

significantly innovative way (fig. 23). Studying the trajectory of siyah mashq and its 

transformation throughout history, we witness a new art form arise and grow, an art form 

increasingly valued for its compositional and aesthetic qualities. Siyah mashq reflects the 

desire and need of the calligrapher to supersede the canon by guriz (improvising) and 

permitting his spirit to roam on the page more freely. These works, both traditional and 

contemporary, are testimony to the creativity and ingenuity of Iranian artists, and to the 

Arabic alphabetical characters’ visual appeal and versatility and the limitless possibilities 

they present. 



76 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 17. Siyah mashq page by Mir Imad, 23.4 x 36.3 cm. From the St. Petersburg muraqqa. Retrieved 

from (the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg). 



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Figure 18. Ghulam Riza Isfahani, 1870-71, page of siyah mashq, penned in nasta‘liq script, 38 x 24.6 cm. Retrieved 

from the Nasser D Khalili Collection. 



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Figure 19. Page of mashq by Mohammad Shafi Vesal, 1842, Shiraz. Private collection, Tehran. 



79 
 

 

 

Figure. 20. Composition in naskh by Abu al-Qasim Shirazi, 1229 (1813-14), 30.3 x 20.7 cm. 

Retrieved from the Nasser D Khalili Collection. 



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Figure 21. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1970, Ayn + Ayn, 195 x 130 cm, gouache on paper. Retrieved from 

collection of Fereydoun Ave, Tehran. 



81 
 

 

 

 

 

Figure 22. Mohammad Ehsaei, 1999, Mijmar-i Gulvazheha. 80 x 80 cm, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. 

Personal photography. 

 



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Figure 23. Pouran Jinchi, Untitled, 1997, ink, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 in. Retrieved from 

https://www.pouranjinchi.com/ 

 

 

https://www.pouranjinchi.com/


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1.5. Summary 

Writing developed alongside Islam as a medium for imparting and sharing the holy 

Koranic words, and also examined an immense area of visual traditions regarding the 

usages of form, colour, and situation. Some of these creativities and innovations visually 

praise the gracefulness and godhead of the sacred Koranic text. Other evolutions of 

scribal responded to the administrative requisites. Iranian scribal system organised the 

implementation of Arabic script styles. The six pens and the Iranian chancellery scripts 

shaped a semiotic system wherein visual form helped the applicative and communicative 

capacity of writing. Scripts ascertain national, local, and linguistic boundaries, both 

geographical boundaries with other Islamic nations and broader cultural boundaries 

disassociating the Islamic world from the writing styles of foreign languages. Besides the 

continuity of symbolism in the Islamic tradition, letters and words have gained a new 

symbolism of identity and nationality. The transmogrification and emendation of 

calligraphic forms keep going in contemporary times. Alongside traditional practises, 

contemporary and modern calligraphic art has found its fields of application and 

alphabetical communication conditions. Modern calligraphic compositions are exhibited 

in museums and art galleries, and elect pieces have achieved the standing of style 

masterworks. Creative calligraphic productions respond to the requirements of 

international art bazaars and spread among aesthetic spheres. The letters of modern and 

contemporary Islamic calligraphic art display the examination of artists, who employ 

methods of Western aesthetics to gain new semantic and display forms. The letters 



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suggest an assortment of symbols, and by including these pictorial symbols in a 

composition, artists place scripts in connection with new structures of aesthetic and 

symbolic interpretation. The creative presentation of letters and words reflects the 

continuous changeability of written meaning and the visual potentialities of newly 

penned shapes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Chapter 2. A Historical Overview: Iranian Modernism 

The second chapter aims to investigate contemporary Iranian art by pursuing the 

history of the country’s socio-cultural, political, and artistic evolutions during the 

previous decades. This chapter will study subject matters such as modernity, nationalism, 

and religious-Islamic identity in the socio-political and artistic context of Iranian society. 

At the beginning of the 20th century, many Iranian avant-garde artists and intellectuals 

endeavoured to construct their new identity by emphasising their national and ancient 

history versus the modern history of the West. Undoubtedly the genesis of a new identity 

was correlated to the evolution of the modern and contemporary nation-state. Even 

though modernisation started in the Safavid era, it is relatively belated in analogy to the 

West. While renovation in Iran was a late commencement, it accelerated and had 

widespread effects due to Iran’s geographical as a continental crossroad spot. Iranian 

society has long been pliable in taking new opinions and ideas but has preserved rich and 

characteristic traditions. Along with cultural and industrial influences, the ancient history 

and civilisation of Iran were regarded via the lens of Western scholars and historians. 

Thus, Iranian society commenced perceiving the West as the embodiment of modernity, 

whereas the West knew Iran as a land of genuine culture and natural resources, deserving 

of investigation, a land carrying a very diverse history and culture with a highly complex 

ideology. Nevertheless, it is not feasible to perceive these evolutions without examining 

the historical and political past that have made them possible. 

 



86 
 

2.1. The West Influence: Iranian Art and Artists 

 

Two principal factors that led to the West’s and East’s distinctive influences on Iranian 

artists and arts in the late Safavid era are very noteworthy. First, during the Shah Abbas I 

period (r. 1588-1629), political and economic communications with Europe and India 

were increased, and foreign representatives and traders were welcomed in Iran (Canby, 

1999, p. 96). Second, in the Shah Abbas II time (r. 1642-1666), artists were dispatched to 

the West to get to know about European painting (Falk, 1972, p. 19). Thus, the base of 

modern and contemporary arts in Iran was formed under the influence of 18th and 19th-

century European schools. For instance, European techniques and styles of painting, oil 

painting on canvas, and lacquerware were introduced to Iranian artists at the end of the 

Safavid period (Canby, 1999, p. 176). At the same time, besides decorating and 

illustrating palaces and mansions walls, artists did easel paintings and drawings in the 

European style that were not considered for producing a book. 

2.2. Iranian Society Encounters Modernist Values 

 

The first contact with modernity goes to the Qajar period, particularly in the late 

19th and early 20th centuries. Western influence weakened the brittle connection between 

the Qajar state15 and Iranian society in two ways. First, economic influence gradually 

 
15 The Qajars were able to reunify Iran, ending the economic turmoils and civil wars of the 18th century 

(Keddie, 2003, p. 37). Nevertheless, the sense of tranquillity during the Qajar’s rule was weak at best. 
Most of their strength was focussed on the capital Tehran, whilst landholders and aristocrats wielded 

considerable control and showed to be a powerful force. In addition, Shiite clergy became self-reliant 

without state patronage. The instability and insecurity provided a new level of independence for the 



87 
 

made the dispersed regional mercantile interests merge into one cross-regional traditional 

middle class. The second is ideological penetration via introducing new concepts and 

ideas, and new occupations to form the new middle class identified as the intelligentsia 

(Abrahamian, 1982, p. 50). Simultaneously, the first broad acceptance of Western 

worldviews and artistic methods was prevalent amongst artists (Keshmirshekan, 2009, p. 

10). The photographic camera was also brought from abroad into Iran in 1842, and since 

then, photography appeared as a political means for recording facts and events. These 

images afterward became a pictorial source for artists to explore their legacy. 

The texts that describe the lifestyle and times of the Qajar period show us Iranian 

society in the late 19th century in change, adapting to foreign views and modern 

technology. In the time of Naser al-Din Shah (1831–96), the importation of European 

examples, such as clothes, prints, and paintings accelerated – a process previously 

commenced by his father Mohammad Shah (1808–48) and his great grandfather Abbas 

Mirza (1789–1833)16. His reign coincided with the continuous relationship with 

 
clerics who enjoyed autonomy. The Qajars, despite these difficulties, attempted to modernise projects and 

alterations that aided the focus on their state and power. However, the late 18th and early 19th centuries 

carried new challenges that preceding dynasties had not confronted. The colonialism’s rising tide occurred 

in the new universe order because European powers became increasingly forceful and world bazaars 

became even more interconnected by capitalist endeavours. Furthermore, enlightenment ideas reduced 

religious influence and led to a gradual shift towards a discourse of sovereignty and citizenship. Though 

never formally colonised, Iran was doubtless not detached from these massive global changes. 

16 After the war between Iran and Russia and the defeats of the Iranians, Abbas Mirza made changes in 

the innovation process by summarizing the causes of the failures. The outcome has been the renovation of 

the army - the entry of some factories, the arrival of the printing industry, the foundation of schools’ new 

styles, and the sending of students out of the country to get science and art. However, a considerable part 

of this innovation resulted in the emergence of journals and newspapers such as Kagaz Akhbar under the 

editorship of Mirza Saleh Shirazi, Vaqai-i Etefaqiyeh under the editorship of Amir Kabir and Qanun under 

the editorship of Mirza Malkum Khan Nazim al- Dowlah.    



88 
 

European authorities and a large crowd of foreign commuters visiting what Westerns had 

presumed as the outlandish Orient (stein, 2013, p. 23). The modernisation was hastened 

with the premiership of Mirza Mohammad Taqi Khan Farahani (1807-1852), famed as 

Amir Kabir. During this time, many students were dispatched abroad and, after returning, 

were employed. The founding of the Dar al-funun (Tehran Polytechnic School), the 

earliest modern academy of its kind by Amir Kabir in 1851, was a noticeable movement 

in Iran’s educative system. European educators (chiefly French, Italian, and Austrian) 

instructed students in the spheres of engineering, medicine, music, foreign languages, and 

military sciences (Keddie, 1991, p. 182). Also, the school held classes inclusive of 

lithographic printing and photography.  

2.3. Kamal al-Molk as an inspiration for Modern Iranian Art 

 

Whereas the Western art tradition over the centuries had been transformed, and the 

artist appeared as the creative power and the focus of cultural and artistic identity, it was 

not the case in Iran. Iranian artists did not inherit anything similar to the Western legacy 

of evolutions in artistic styles. Hence, such artists were attracted by the former times of 

the West and assumed themselves incongruous with contemporary art in Europe. 

When modernity introduced figurative art into Iran, artists embraced the 

representation of nature as a replacement for idealising it (Daftari, 2002, pp. 39-48). 

Thus, artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries were more entranced in the naturalistic 

 
 



89 
 

styles of the distant past than the more abstract art of contemporary Europe. The most 

prominent naturalistic artist, Muhammad Ghaffari, known as Kamal al-Molk (1848-

1940), was the last painter of the Qajar court. The Academy of Fine Arts, Madreseh 

sanaye mostazrafeh, was established in 1911 by Kamal al-Molk (Pakbaz, 2011, p. 167). 

He radically altered Iranian art, and although he was not a modernist, the stimulus of 

Iranian modern and contemporary art. The distinctive feature of Kamal al-Molk was that 

he separated from the traditional Iranian painting techniques and even ostensibly from the 

customary practices of seeing his milieu. He was basically affected by European painting 

in such a manner that cannot be seen in the artworks of other painters of that time and 

pursued a style of nearly photographic realism, which does not surrender to the principles 

of perspective. During this time, when imitating the Western lifestyle and ideas was very 

popular, he did so in the context of visual art by introducing Western practises of seeing 

and depicting reality and emancipating himself from his predecessors’ non-realistic 

techniques and styles. Nevertheless, his paintings were more imaginative and less 

naturalistic than is commonly presumed (Daftari, 2002, p.43). After Kamal-al-Molk’s 

retiral in 1927 from the School of Applied Arts and Crafts, his influence endured in the 

painting and sculpture style of his students and adherents, up to the 1940s; some artists 

still practise it today. The influence of the Kamal al-Molk school was fundamental in the 

early advancement of Iranian art in the 20th century. 



90 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 24. Kamal al-Molk, 1889, the spring hall of Golestan Palace, oil on canvas, 52,5 x 65 cm, 

Retrieved from (Afsharmohajer, 2005, p. 236). 

 

 

2.4. Early Pahlavi: Revivalism and Modernity 

 

From the end 19th century to the Pahlavi regime, Intellectuals and politicians in 

Iran concentrated on state modernisation. Since the beginning of the 20th century, when 

the modern Iranian state emerged under Riza Shah (r. 1921–41), there has been a 



91 
 

hierarchical structure to control apparatuses that fostered a specific national identity 

(Eimen, 2013, p. 85). When Riza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, came to 

power in 1925, the opening of art schools and the granting of scholarships to students to 

continue their studies in Europe continued. Riza Shah supported traditional and modern 

arts such as calligraphy and painting. His accomplishments could be summarised under 

three rubrics: constructing the foundation of a modern government, claiming autonomy 

from alien domination, and beginning sociological-cultural renovation (Lenczowski, 

1979, p. xvi). The time of Riza Shah witnessed the forming of a new-found order. He 

consolidated his authority by reinforcing his help on three principles: the new military, 

the government bureaucracy, and the court patronage. For the first time following the 

Safavid dynasty, the state controlled the community with extensive means of domination, 

administration, and regulation. By consolidating his power, he was able to start an 

ambitious programme of political, social, and cultural reforms and successfully executed 

many of the innovations and changes that unsuccessfully had been presented during the 

past century by reformers such as Abbas Mirza, Sepahsalar, Amir Kabir, Malkum Khan, 

and the Constitutional Revolution’s Democrats (Abrahamian, 1982, pp. 135-136). When 

this nationalist, modernist, and traditionalist ruler came to power, a new political 

programme was set on the agenda for Iran.   

Reza Shah’s renovation policy affected a variety of social life in Iran. The artistic 

and architectural legacy was considered an indicator of the nation’s history and 

civilisation and became a research topic by Iranian intelligentsia and Western scholars 



92 
 

invited to Iran. Through their commentaries, the ancient past was aligned with the aims 

and values of the new nation. The antiquity roots already had been recognised by Western 

archaeologists and historians; what continued was to gather the findings for the 

nationalist objectives and racial identification (Rizvi, 2007, p.46). Government policy 

was a determined factor in bringing into existence a united nation. Thereby, fundamental 

modifications were seen in various fields, including the disarmament and settlement of 

the tribes, the establishment of a modern structure of bureaucracy and military, the 

construction of rails, roads, and harbor facilities, the introduction of Western attiring, the 

commencements of industrial development, and the presentation the European 

educational and legal method (Hambly, 1991). This procedure stimulated Iranian society 

to adapt itself to Western life. However, convincing people to alter their beliefs and 

lifestyle was not effortless. In many instances, the regime had to force the people to 

comply with the new laws. One of the main attendants was the Anjoman-i Asar-i Melli 

(Society for National Heritage) (1922-1978). Supporting cultural and artistic 

publications, formulating cultural policies, preserving monuments, supervising 

archeological diggings, and implementing construction projects and memorials of Iranian 

poets are contained in the society’s statement (Diba, 2013, p.49). During the Pahlavi time, 

the Persian language was promulgated as a means for bringing into existence a national 

body and instilling cultural awareness as well as for the cultural resistance against the 

broad culture of Arabs (Vaziri, 1993, p. 197; Keshmirshekan 2013, p. 12). Due to the 

importance of the Persian language, the regime even established the Farhangestan-i 

zaban-i farsi (Persian Language Academy). This strove to eliminate alien loanwords from 



93 
 

the Persian language and substitute them with Persian words. Another endeavour of the 

regime was to glorify the Shahnameh17 as an everlasting section of national culture. 

The government unconditionally announced its secular nature through Western 

materialistic means; by intermeddling in the people’s lives about street clothes, the 

unveiling and education of women; introducing innovations such as European-style 

names and the non-Islamic almanac; and announcements and lawmaking that made it 

clear that females and religious minorities were considered as full citizens on an equality 

with males (Hambly, 1991, p.233). These reforms introduced the concepts of modern 

society to Iranians and promoted nationalism as one of the inspirations of the West. 

Interestingly, politicians did not pressure artists to modernise. However, the alterations in 

socio-culturalism caused considerable changes in art. In addition, the Westerners who 

held jobs in universities and the artists who came back from the West had the most 

impact, and the art arena occupied a new procedure under the influence of modernisation. 

Madreseh Sanaye Qadimeh (the School of Traditional Arts) (1929), the University 

of Tehran (1934), and the Faculty of Fine Arts (1939) were established. By founding 

these academies and adopting Western paradigms and approaches to learning and 

teaching, the state acquainted Iranian society with Western culture. The French 

 
17 Shahnameh (the Book of Kings), is a long saga poem written by Abu al-Qasim Ferdowsi (940–1020 

CE). This monumental poetry of some 50,000 verses was finished in 1010 and dedicated to Sultan 

Mahmud Ghaznavi. The manuscript encompasses the entire of the legendary and, from the time of 

Alexander onward, Iran’s semi-legendary history. The poem commences with the first king Gayomart and 

continues through to the Arab conquest.  

 



94 
 

archaeologist and first dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University André 

Godard was taken into employment by Merat to build the bases of a faculty of art 

modeled after the École des Beaux-Arts. The faculty was a combination of Iranian and 

foreign masters, and students became acquainted with Western methods and styles in 

both thematic and technical aspects under their supervision (Mujabi, 1998, p. 7). These 

changes cumulatively affected Iranian artists, enabling them to conform new visual 

languages to the altering context. The data presented by Western academics aided artists 

in creating a new Iranian identity. 

2.5. The Perspective of Orientalism 

 

One reflection of Orientalism could be seen in the acceptance of Western ideas 

about the East. European culture produced and controlled the Orient at the ideological 

and sociopolitical levels (Mackenzie, 1995, p.9). As Said stated, ‘The sensation of the 

power of the West over the Orient is considered a scientific truth’ (Said, 2003, p.46). 

Iranian society in the 20th century endured socio-cultural alter because of the 

government’s intentions, which caused it to embrace Western principles and educational 

and legal systems. The effect of these changes assured most Iranians that the West was 

more developed and modern than the East. They thought that to have better lifeforms 

should imitate Western styles in all fields.  

Western orientalists highlighted the ancient national elements and the resulting 

curiosity and interest in the distant past awakened pre-Islamic awareness among 



95 
 

Iranians18 (Vaziri,1993, p.3). Iranian scholars and historians were profoundly impacted by 

Western achieves and have made very little endeavour to expand their systematised study, 

whether about Iran or foreign nations (Ibid, p. 152). Therefore, they took Western 

methods to study their past and contemporary histories. Iranian art and architecture books 

were primarily produced in the West and were derived from archaeological data and art 

objects of that time. Previously in the 19th century, such material objects had been 

exhibited in European fairs and were recorded in companion pamphlets. As a result of 

archaeological discoveries of the early 20th century, Iran’s history was identified as an 

antiquated and effectual one whose findings were deserving of regard and study, and 

Persian art with a background of more than 2,500 years, was shown as a monolithic 

whole (Rizvi, 2007, p. 45). The texts of Western investigators shaped the ancient history 

of Iran and introduced Iran as one of the initial nations that have a major role in the 

history of humanity culture and civilisation. 

2.6. Modernism and Its Connection with Iranian Politics and Culture 

 

Eastern countries, including Turkey and Iran, accelerated the influence of the West 

by adjusting to Western principles and applying them in their societies. But these states 

 
18 Iranian art’s historiography, first carried through art historians such as Arthur Upham Pope (1881-1969) 

and Ernst Herzfeld (1879-1948) from the early 1920s, conformed to the secularist and nationalist 

viewpoints of Reza Shah’s government and Iranian intellectuals, who were trying to find their genuine 

identity. At this time, Iran’s Islamic history, unlike that of other areas in the Middle East, was seen as part 

of a continual story of a native people who had undergone the multiple cultures’ onslaught, from the 

Arabs to the Mongols, but nevertheless somehow kept their unique cultural sensibility and aesthetic. 

 



96 
 

did not become acquainted with the meaning and concept of modern society similar to the 

Western nations19. In Iran, after the entry of Western thoughts, a discussion arose about 

how to imitate or restrict its capacity. Amongst intellectuals and academics, some, in the 

beginning, became persuaded that the only possible way to salvation was to follow the 

West, leave behind the former times, and elusion any native creations in this process of 

enculturation. The most conspicuous and convincing reality of the modern and 

contemporary Middle East is the transition from traditional society through advancement 

and social reform. As William Millward states, ‘just like Middle Easterners, Iranian 

society is also struggling with the complicated forces of transition and is forming a new 

order in connection with its values. Often unknown and varied forces of modernism have 

excited a broad range of reactions. In the face of these forces, an extensive variety of 

responses may be observed. One perspective maintains that if Iranian society aims to take 

any of the basic structures of the West, it has got to go the whole way and adopt its set of 

values as well. The opposite position says that whatever is alien is wrong and should be 

opposed uncompromisingly. Between such comments lies a reaction that tends to adopt 

the new structures, but a notable facet has been added to this acceptance: We employ the 

 
19 The idea of modernity, as Marshal Berman believes, ‘in the first phase, from roughly the beginning of 

the 16th century to the late 18th, people are starting to experience modern life and have little perception 

of a modern society in which to share their hopes and trials. The second phase commences with the grand 

revolutionary wave of the 1790s, such as the French Revolution, and a great modern community suddenly 

emerges, which imposes a feeling of modernity on every aspect of life. Finally, in the 20th century, the 

process of modernisation affected world culture, acquiring spectacular success in thought and art. On the 

other hand, the concept of modernity, realised in many disjointed ways, loses its capacity to give meaning 

to people’s lives. Consequently, today we find ourselves in a time that has missed contact with the roots of 

its modernity (Berman, 1982, pp. 16-17).’ 

 



97 
 

foreign forms, but we maintain our values, traditions, and heritage and show the new 

structure with our identity (Millward, 1971, pp. 2-3).’ Such remarks are usually seen 

amongst Iranians of different levels of modernity and education and typically can be 

attributed to sensitivity to externalities, nonetheless, raising some relevant questions and 

were inescapable that preoccupied the minds of Iranian artists. Therefore, it was not 

surprising that numerous artists who had taken the structure of modernism for their 

practices were preoccupied with the intellectual challenges of their society over the 

matter of cultural identity. 

2.7. New Currents 

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, contemporary artists such as Ahmad Esfandiari, 

Mahmud Javadipour, and Jalil Ziapour, through their articles, lectures, and exhibitions 

had exerted substantial influence on Iran’s modern art. The first group exhibitions of 

modern art were held at the foreign cultural institutes, including the Franco-Iranian 

Cultural Institute and the Irano-Russian Cultural Society (Ahmadi, 2012, pp. 366-371). 

Later, outstanding artists, such as Javad Hamidi and Hossien Kazemi, displayed their 

artworks in private galleries, such as the Apadana and Saba. Meanwhile, Jalil Ziapour, 

Gholamhossien Gharib, and other leaders in art published magazines including Khorus 

Jangi20, the Kavir, Panjeh Khorus to expose Iranian society to modern art. The 

 
20 European surrealists first affected Iranian art and culture through literary works, chiefly via Sadegh 

Hedayat’s writings. Surrealist concepts and practices progressively arrived from literature to visual arts 

during the 1940s and 1950s. This matter occurred primarily via the endeavors of the Khorus Jangi 

(Fighting Cock), which was the title given to an avant-garde group of artists and writers, as well as to the 

magazine inside of which they published their critical and innovative works. Each issue was displayed 



98 
 

endeavours of the art movement towards modernity were not going unchallenged. 

Modern art got little consideration in the early stages and rarely any official patronage. 

Following the 1953 coup d’état, whereby Mosaddeq’s government was ousted, the 

regime entered a legitimacy crisis, and most intellectuals became critical of the political 

structure. During the 1960s, while the suppression of political dissenters continued, the 

regime addressed cultural affairs and provided space for cultural and artistic activities21. 

Holding biennials and awarding prizes, opening communication with international 

galleries and associations, recruiting foreign instructors, converting the old educational 

programs into modern ones, and founding the Hunarkadeh-ye hunar-haye tazini,22 each 

had a significant role in the advancement of Iranian painting during the 1960s. 

 
with the figure of the Fighting Cock designed by Jalil Ziapour. There was a break when the magazine was 

discontinued by Government coercion. Ziapour abandoned Khorus Jangi in this situation and commenced 

an alternative magazine entitled Kavir (The Desert). This also was prevented by the state, and Ziapour 

carried on beginning yet another magazine, called Panjeh Khorus (The Cock’s Claw). Khorus Jangi was 

resuscitated in 1951, by Gholamhossein Gharib and another group of writers and artists. The second 

series includes numerous articles about contemporary art, and most significantly the Manifesto Sallākh-e 

Bolbol (The Slaughterer of the Nightingale). The lively burgeoning of the Khorus Jangi at the initiate of 

the 1950s was temporary, but it helped notably to the appearance of a surrealist visual shape that had 

before been in evolution for some decades in literary forms.   

21 One of the purposes of the cultural revolution was to formalise modern art. The Fine Arts Department 

employed many modernist artists, and some foreign associations played a part in the formation of a 

motivated and active art movement.  Some chief players in this were the Goethe Institute, the Cultural 

Associations of Iran-America and the Iran-Italy, the Sirus Gallery in Paris, artistic clubs, several 

museums, active galleries including Talar-i Qandriz, Saba, Litu, Mes, Borghese, Zarvan, Hunar-i Jadid, 

Saman, and Zand. 

22 The college was founded in 1961 with the aim of training applied arts experts. Several modernist 

designers, sculptors, and painters who had an essential role in the growth of modern and contemporary 

visual art in Iran were educated in this institution under the supervision of Iranian and foreign educators. 

Varied disciplines including interior architecture, painting, graphic design, decorative painting, and 

sculpture with fundamental stress on applied arts were trained in this college. Here, pupils were 

encouraged to pursue symbols, idioms, and folklore sources of inspiration to acquaint themselves with the 

decorative legacy of Iran through diverse courses. 



99 
 

2.7.1. The Tehran Biennials (1958-1966) 

 

The Tehran Biennial commenced with the backing of the General Administration 

of Fine Art, established under the surveillance of the Ministry of Culture in 1951. The 

earliest Biennial was on 14th April 1958, and the fifth one occurred on 21st June 1966 

(Mohajer, 1998). The Biennials commenced when the regime and parts of the artistic 

community had specific aims. Therefore, the organisers were aligned with the interests 

and goals of the regime. The First exhibition took place through the collaboration of 

Marcos Grigorian (1925–2007) and was placed in the Abyaz Palace, part of the Golestan 

complex. Almost 60 artworks by 49 artists were displayed for four months (Yarshater & 

Grigorian, 1958). The numeral of awards enhanced over the following periods, inclusive 

of a scholarship to Europa at the Fourth Biennial. The number of partakers would alter to 

over a hundred, and the juries also would change. The fifth exhibition in 1966 showed a 

fundamental change in the direction of Regional Cooperation by underemphasising 

national representation and including Turkey and Pakistan as equal partners. Also, the 

place changed to the Ethnography Museum (Emami, 2014, p. 215), and attendance was 

confined to just 37 artists by invitation. This biennial took place to help Iranian managers 

and artists attendance in international art exhibitions, introduce modern art to the 

community, and make a unique national school. Biennial selection as a form for depicting 

artworks in society indicated the influence of Western ideas on the displaying of works 

internally and externally of the country. 



100 
 

The discontinuation of the national exhibitions was because of numerous factors, 

inclusive of the increase in substitute exhibit spaces and the accessibility of other 

Universal platforms for artists. Furthermore, the significance of the Ministry of Fine Arts 

diminished, and Queen Farah Pahlavi commenced to play a noticeable part. After that, 

another biennial will not occur for 27 years, and artists displayed their artworks at some 

festivals guided by Western cultural offices, the Farah Foundation, and private galleries. 

In the meantime, the regime and artists aimed to expand the effect of visual culture and 

art in society. The first Biennial after Islamic Revolution took place in 1991. The content 

of subsequent Biennials was essentially dissimilar from before the revolution. 

Nevertheless, there kept likenesses between the attitude to these occurrences in the 

Pahlavi regime and the Islamic government. For instance, artists continued to partake in 

foreign Biennials after the revolution under the surveillance of the Islamic government, 

and the artworks exhibited in such festivals reflected the ideology of the new regime, one 

that had Islamic principles at its essence. This is analogous to the attendance of artists on 

the universal scene during the Pahlavi regime, which aimed to demonstrate the 

modernisation of Iranian society. In both, the objective of participation in Biennials and 

art fairs was to promulgate the regime’s intentions and values. 

2.8. Iranian Modernism: 1941–79 

The early years of the rule of Mohammed Riza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941–1979) were 

along with the striving towards independence from occupying powers that commenced in 

1941 and eventually terminated in 1947. The sovereign established his power and in the 



101 
 

early 1960s initiated a series of reforms labelled the White Revolution, which aimed to 

redistribute the nation’s resources and wealth (Pahlavi, 1967) but eventually led to 

opposition and revolution. The accelerated velocity of modernisation, consumerism, the 

expansion of education, and dissatisfaction with Westernization affected all spheres of 

endeavour, including the arts (Al-i Ahmad, 1984). International politics, the Cold War, 

and the advent of nationalism all over the world also influenced art and cultural 

advancement in Iran. The Iranian state attempted to bring from abroad the appearance of 

modernity but did not incorporate one of the essential principles of modernity, that is, the 

democratic government system. They modernised some social and cultural policies but 

never forfeited traditional manners of thinking in the political aspect. In other words, 

society was confined within the bygone social systems while endeavouring to acquire 

modernity, which led to discord and eventual breaks in socio-political procedures. The 

regime’s objectives were to maintain hegemony over the nation.  Even though 

Mohammed Riza Shah strived to modernise the country through Western contact, he was 

aware of the hazards of false emulation and surrender to foreign powers. Consequently, 

his modernisation plan was aligned with a national narrative that viewed the far past and 

stressed genuine Iranian tradition from the earliest days of the Persian Empire (Pahlavi, 

1960, p. 171). The appearance of groups of modernist artists in the form of elitist 

intellectuals came to be the outcome of the development of the middle class at this time. 

As Ervand Abrahamian states, following White Revolution, the middle class developed 

rapidly. Hence, the label intelligentsia, previously equivalent to the waged middle class, 

became more distinguished and specifically attributed to intellectuals, academics, writers, 



102 
 

journalists, and artists (Abrahamian, 2008, p. 138). During these years, accompanied by 

the Ministry of Culture and Arts, which chiefly executed plans on traditional art and 

architecture, the Farah Foundation prepared a suitable area for more varied activities in 

diverse artistic fields; through the patronage of contemporary artists, the assemblage of 

worthwhile artworks, the reconstruction of old homes and historical places, and directing 

various cultural festivals and events. These policies not only prepared conditions for more 

interactive communications with the West but also attempted to create a new national 

identity by regaining traditional values (Mousavi-Aghdam, 2014, pp. 137-8). With a more 

moderate perspective on tradition and modernity, she promulgated Iran’s modern art 

without destroying or ignoring artefacts after Islam. Despite the fact that the queen’s 

reformist approach resulted in many positive changes in culture and art, she failed to 

form a suitable solution to the challenges facing the country, because the intellectual 

space was previously contaminated by the hardliners’ ideological doctrines from both the 

government and its opponents. Private initiatives in the late 1960s flourished, and 

informal art galleries and clubs blossomed; amongst these were Talar-e Qandriz23 and 

Rasht 29. Studios of artists and Cafes became places for the exchange of thoughts and 

 
23 This group of artists, during its activity from 1964 to 1977, headed by Ruyin Pakbaz, Mohammad Riza 

Jawdat, and Mansur Qandriz, held art exhibitions, organised discussion sessions, published magazines 

and books, and translated and wrote articles on art history, art criticism, and aesthetics (Afsharmohajer, 

2005). Also, they exhibited reproductions of modernist works of art along with the relevant pamphlets, 

considering their mission to teach both the public and intellectuals. However, although the gallery came to 

be a place for gathering various groups, it did not aid in narrowing the gap between artists and literary 

characters. The purpose of founding the Talar was to create a national art. Nevertheless, despite all these 

endeavors, the Talar-e Iran’s trajectory did not result in the formation of national art, and the group had 

terminated its activities by the dawn of the revolution. 

 



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ideas as well as debates centralised on local modernism and critiques of academic styles 

(Diba, 2013, p. 55). The voices of prominent leftist writers were heard. The treatise 

Occidentosis was inscribed by Jalal Al-i Ahmad (1923- 1969), which openly challenged 

the mores of the West. As a result, the discourse against Iranian society’s Westernisation 

arose among intellectuals (Al-i Ahmad, 1984). At this time, Ali Shariati (1933–1977) also 

addressed the same issue with a new revivalist attitude that considered Islamic identity 

the basis of Iranian culture. He said that to achieve genuine identity, Iranians must first 

know what led to their historical breaks and restriction of the more positive facets of 

national culture (Shariati, 2015). These intellectuals considered Western culture as their 

point of reference and reacted to it with the ways of thought originating from the West 

itself. Though the discourse of Westernization was chiefly about social and political 

matters, in the context of art, the matter of artistic identity and genuineness by reference 

to pictorial approaches and traditional materials was the principal worry in the 1960s. 

With revolutionary passion boiling over, the national identity was intensely disputed and 

eventually reconstructed. This change was fostered by a reshaping of every field, from 

the political to the cultural and definitely the educational. Identity politics was literally 

imposed on Iran during the formation of the Islamic Republic (Eimen, 2013, p. 90). 

Following the revolution, the art of the former regime was affected by distinctive currents 

following the revolution’s mainstream. In addition to inculcating the Islamic spirit into 

the people, the regime aimed to develop a revolutionary spirit in society’s cultural and 

artistic life (Hunter, 1992, p. 92). Anyway, the 1979 event suddenly ended the official 

cultural and artistic approaches of the Pahlavi rule, which were in regard to the 



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promulgation of modernism and nationalism. These policies were challenged by the 

Islamic government as elements of the previous regime policy.  

 

2.9. Summary 

 

In the 20th century, Iran incurred massive transformations, coups, and conflicts, 

and the sovereigns who governed during those times employed various readings of 

modernity. In investigating the socio-political viewpoints that Iranian society adopted to 

form its genuine identity, the intellectual and cultural movements of 1940, 1950, and 

1960 are essential because, during these decades, social and economic advancements 

supplied a context for cultural events that resulted in notable productivity in literature and 

art. Governmental policies and social currents affected the formation, continuity, and 

decline of modern art. Iranian artists in this atmosphere depicted a form of modernist art 

via their reading of the history of modern art and aesthetics. Likewise, the idea of 

authentic and national art formed, endeavouring to demonstrate Iranian identity by 

combining modernist principles and local elements. In the process of adapting to Western 

artistic models, Iranian contemporary art has included principles of so-called world 

contemporary art whilst pursuing to reflect the events and issues of its contemporaneity. 

The artists’ products clearly reflected the opposition between global forms, concepts, and 

aesthetics against local desires and values. 

Iranian modernism was complex and aimed to create a new identity for a society 

that had been militarily, politically, and culturally marginalised. Iranian art has withstood 



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three significant transformations since the 1940s: The first structural change occurred 

with the nascence of Iranian modernism. The second change transpired with the 

appearance of the Saqqa-khaneh movement (1961–62). Since the modernists paid more 

attention to European-American techniques and styles, the Saqqa-khaneh members had a 

propensity for themes of Iranian-Islamic iconography and Islamic calligraphy in modern 

Western methods. However, all the artists did not practice in the way of the movement 

and investigated the figurative styles of Iranian painting from the 17th to the 19th century 

and the image potentialities of ancient times Iranian art. At the same time, some painters 

took inspiration from Iranian landscapes, and others remained in their utilisation of 

abstraction and transformation of Western modernist conventions. On the other hand, the 

new generation of modern and contemporary artists came to have artistic ripeness in the 

time of the Islamic Republic. The artistic productions of this generation have shown 

themselves involved in the semiotics of society. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Chapter 3. The Saqqa-khaneh Movement in Iran 

 

Within a few years, Iranian artists absorbed fifty years of Western modernism, and 

this period of engagement was discontinued at its peak in 1979. The term national art 

during the 1940s and ’50s was frequently declared by both cultural managers and artists 

and even efforts were made by modernist artists to produce this form of art (Balaghi & 

Gumpert, 2002). To put it another way, when modernism was embraced by Iranian artists, 

many of those tried to see Western modern art from an Iranian perspective. The artistic 

products are amalgamations of Western methods with Iranian themes, resembling their 

prototypes in the early Pahlavi era. At that time, the decline of the conventional manners 

of representation, either naturalistic painting or miniature, caused modernist painters to 

refuse these modes and seek new ideas and concepts in native folk arts. The state’s 

patronage and sponsorship of other private and foreign institutes fostered the art’s active 

development in the 1960s. At that time, the state cultural institutions were the artistic 

activities’ major leaders. They attempted to form, through the support of movements and 

individual artists, a formal art that would structure the foundation of a kind of national 

school of art (Godarzi, 2001, p. 108). During this decade, gradually this sort of art was 

comprehensively supported and propagated by governmental backing. If we regard the 

circumstances of the choice of artists’ artworks, awarding of prizes, and the statements 

written in formal exhibitions, including the Tehran Biennials, sponsored by the state, this 

process could be readily recognised. thus, these external factors should be regarded in the 

emergence of the Saqqa-khaneh movement which could also be a primary type of Iranian 



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formal art and was approved by the cultural organisers. Eventually, Iranian painting with 

the Saqqa-khaneh movement gained its genuine visual language.  

This movement came into being amid the country’s renovation in an endeavor to 

connect the traditional culture of Iran with visual arts’ modern and contemporary facets 

and especially with Western contemporary paintings. Abiding by Iranian tradition was not 

the primary engine driving Saqqa-khaneh art, nor was it to emulate Western art. New 

viewpoints, visual forms, and compositions of art employed by the movement’s artists as 

the expression of their beliefs, visions, and emotions in the process of artistic creation 

arise from the contemporary cultures of Iran. The Saqqa-khaneh movement’s 

practitioners have taken Iranian ethnic literary and artistic traditions further than their 

actual context, presenting a style that combines Western and Iranian artistic conventions. 

The movement artists’ works exemplify and testify to a time in the history of modern 

Iranian art. These artists sought inspiration from pictorial elements and mores of local 

culture and aimed to be specific and meanwhile pay attention to the discourses of 

contemporary modernism. This approach provided a context in which Iranian art was 

understandable. 

Any discussion of modern art in Iran must encompass consideration of facets of 

the emergence of Iranian modern art that are related to the role of the past. The 

rediscovery of popular art forms, including votive objects, printing blocks, stamps, and 

everyday utensils, that conveyed powerful local and universal messages, both exhilarated 

and empowered artists of Saqqa-khaneh and provided the inspiration necessary to release 



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them from the conventions of Iranian traditional art and academic painting. The scholar 

Peter Lamborn Wilson has written eloquently, “Popular Shiism provided a complicated 

imagery representing a vast, profound and multi-dimensional legacy: a visual, auditory, 

and intellectual symbolism virtually shared by every Iranian.” Saqqa-khaneh artists 

deeply delved into popular culture to shape individual and unique styles in a dazzling 

show of vitality and creativity. 

3.1. The Term Saqqa-khaneh 

 

In fact, distributing water amongst people has been the principal cause for the 

construction of watering holes in Islamic lands. The water distributor is named Saqqa and 

the water storage place is called Saqqa-khaneh. In the past, words such as Sangab were 

also employed in addition to Saqqa-khaneh. Sangab was a large stone vessel and used for 

drinking or ablution. The Sangabs were the undeveloped form of Saqqa-khaneh that were 

installed in some public places and passages and were held by philanthropists for 

drinking water storage. Though building a place for quenching the thirst of passersby has 

been one of the reasons for the construction of the Saqqa-khaneh, there are various 

functions behind the idea of this unique architecture. These functions, however, may have 

been added over time to this architectural element and institutionalised. By contrast, 

recently, because of lifestyle changes and technological advances, many of these 

functions have undergone a major change, so that except for the Iranian cities’ old 

texture, Saqqa-khaneh is not regarded as an architectural element. The chief task of the 

Saqqa-khaneh was to provide water. Nonetheless, according to studies, other functions 



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can be considered for this place, including social, religious, cultural, and artistic. The 

Persian word Saqqa-khaneh refers to the public freshwater fountains constructed in 

honour of a historic episode, in which the religious Shiite leader Imam Hussein and his 

loyal companions were denied drinking water during the tragedy of Karbala in 680 AD. 

In the cities’ older districts, each Saqqa-khaneh in the traditional form comprised an 

inconspicuous and small niche inside which fitted out with a water tank, bowl, mirror, 

religious images, trays to which candlesticks were connected, and some other objects 

(Yarshater, 1979, p. 368). In the outside part, small locks and pieces of cloth were tied to 

the metal grille for votive reasons, all instilling a holy atmosphere.  

3.2. The Formation of the Saqqa-khaneh Movement 

 

For the first time, the title Saqqa-khaneh was employed by the journalist and art 

critic Karim Emami at Tehran College of Decorative Arts. At first, the title was applied to 

the artists’ works, both in sculpture and painting, who used some elements of Shiite 

votive in their modern artwork (Pakbaz & Emdadian, 2001). Gradually, it was employed 

in diverse forms of painting and sculpture that utilised traditional ornamental elements. 

Sculptor and art historian Parviz Tanavoli (b. 1937), One of the principal begetters of the 

Saqqa-khaneh movement, describes the commencing of the movement. Tanavoli narrates 

how someday in the late 1950s, he and Zenderoudi (b. 1937) went to the Shah Abd al-

Aziim Shrine and found and were absorbed by some printed religious images, and 

talismanic seals. He declared at that time they were seeking indigenous raw materials to 

be employed in their works. The simplicity and repetition of forms, and bright colours 



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fascinated them. According to Tanavoli, the first specimens of Saqqa-khaneh’s works 

were the sketches Zenderoudi prepared on the basis of those materials (Tanavoli, as cited 

in Maleki., 2010, p. 65). However, from Imami’s viewpoint, the official formation of the 

Saqqaa-khaneh movement was in 1962, when the paintings of Zenderoudi were exhibited 

at Tehran’s third Biennial, and fascinated viewers: compositions of geometric shapes or 

simplified figures, filled throughout with signs, words, and numbers in subdued colours 

(Emami, 1977, pp. 2-3). In these works, exterior lines of figures were formed in 

geometric order with the alphabetic lettering in the background penned meticulously and 

the circles, rectangles, and squares coloured in tones of green, black, mild blue, red, and 

yellow ochre. These colours made up a set of Shiite mourning colours. He says that the 

atmosphere of the works was religious and a spectator of Zenderoudi’s paintings would 

be evoked images of Shiite assemblies and shrines (Fig. 25). 

In the first discussion of this movement, Karim Emami stated that script was 

employed in conjunction with popular art’s abstracted forms in the creation of the Saqqa-

khaneh visual language. Two tendencies, from the early 1960s, appeared in the way 

artists utilised text: Saqqa-khaneh avant-garde artists employed it as a means to form an 

aboriginal semi-abstract style in amalgamation with other shapes; calligrapher painters 

exclusively concentrated on the writing, whether the medium was traditional, such as ink 

on paper, or modern, such as oil on canvas. The differentiation is critical. The works of 

calligrapher painters did occasionally tend towards abstraction, which reflected an 

existing lack of readability in the script.  



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The Saqqa-khaneh movements’ artists looked to products of popular culture and 

rituals for inspiration. These roots, in their view, needed to be linked to contemporary 

styles and merged to create a national and esthetic expression. These artists found that the 

modernist form and an expression of distinguished individualism shaped a crucial 

component of the identity of the artist. This individual visual experience of an artist 

contains signs or icons from his background. The general understanding of the artists of 

the movement was according to the opinion that they could attain a modern-traditional 

fusion that contained an Iranian nature and identity. By exploring the artistic movements 

and tendencies of Western art, the artists were looking for universal credibility between 

modernism and the inherited features that Iranian art demonstrated in its time. Searching 

the different sources of Iranian traditional arts and crafts rewarded the Saqqa-khaneh 

artists with the capability to create distinctive and innovative works. As stated by Emami, 

the Saqqa-khaneh artists attained sources through which they could analyse, examine, 

and incorporate those forms, textures, and colours. These elements of Iranian-Islamic art 

were employed in various forms and structural combinations by the Saqqa-khaneh artists 

due to their flexible potential for artistic performance. During their examination, many 

shapes of traditional arts were utilised, inclusive of figures from the ethnic craft; ancient 

pottery patterns; talismanic shapes, and magical seals; elements and themes of Qajar art; 

Assyrian carvings and bas-reliefs, Achaemenian and Sasanian epigraphs or inscriptions, 

and Persian painting, calligraphy, and poetry. Generally, these artists focussed on formal 

pictorial traditions that overall could create a traditional and occasionally religious 

atmosphere instead of specific subjects and content. However, apart from the curiosity in 



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the representational facet of images, the artist’s consideration to the subject matter can be 

observed in the artworks of some artists (even though entirely rarely). Also, these cases 

can be emphasised as pictorial features of the group members’ works, such as the 

constant presence of ornamentation with the utilisation of various figural motifs and 

decorative elements and the multiplicity of forms in different parts of the paintings. Other 

characteristics to be stated comprise the employ of Persian classical painting’s colouring 

system and Iranian popular art’s colour schemes including green, black, red, vermilion, 

turquoise, lapis lazuli, and gold. Furthermore, these artists chiefly employed calligraphic 

elements in different forms, sometimes as a main element and occasionally as ornamental 

elements that exist in  most parts of the works. Sadeq Tabrizi, one of the members of the 

Saqqa-khaneh, believes that the movement artists separately commenced their artistic 

careers. Each of the members in various ways was enthralled with different traditional 

sources, though probably they were conscious of each other's activities due to their 

contact with artistic clubs such as the Kaboud Atelier and also, the College of Decorative 

Arts. He adds that when the artists gathered and their works were displayed together, a 

relationship emerged between their works of art, though the works had been separately 

formed and none of them could be regarded as following in the steps of the other 

(Tabrizi, 1999, pp. 93-95). 



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Figure 25. Hossein Zenderoudi, Untitled, 1962, oil on paper fixed on wood, 100 x 154 cm. Retrieved 

from (Pakbaz & Emdadian, 2001). 



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3.3.  Inventing Iranian Modernism: The Main Pioneers of the Saqqa-khaneh 

Movement 

 

The resulting emerging style of Saqqa-khaneh artists was culturally distinctive and 

formally modern at the same time. More than narrative content or theme, it was the 

iconography, decorative qualities, and colour scheme that led to visual synchrony in the 

group. Zenderoudi and Pilaram were two of its first artists, both of whom utilised writing 

as a point of departure. As artists traditionally found calligraphy an expression of beauty, 

these practitioners challenged its privileged status and preferred instead to use more 

commonplace sources of text for their artworks, including talismanic spells. The selection 

to concentrate on ostensibly mundane texts instead of religious and literary ones was an 

act of political insubordination. It meant that the artist was more enthralled in the 

language of the masses than in that of the royal elite. Moreover, the saqqa-khaneh artists 

elected to stress the visual properties instead of the content of these texts. Their utilisation 

of basic materials such as pen, ink, and paper further turned calligraphic art into 

something usual, even banal. The considerable backing these artists acquired from the 

government helped their creative output and visibility. The unique combination of local 

contact between members, international curiosity, and national patronage helped the 

quick growth of the movement. While movement artists never wrote an official 

manifesto, there was one unifying concern by the late 1960s to introduce a national art 

shape, a kind of visual vernacular for the Iranian people. The pioneers and also prominent 

artists of the movement consisted of Hossein Zenderoudi, Parviz Tanavoli, Faramarz 



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Pilaram, Massoud Arabshahi, Mansur Qandriz, Sadeq Tabrizi, Nasser Oveisi, and Zhazeh 

Tabatabaei. 

 

3.3.1. Hossein Zenderoudi 

 

The group’s influential artist and outstanding member, Hossein Zenderoudi was 

educated first at the College of Decorative Arts and since 1961 carried on his career 

mostly in Paris. When Zenderoudi went to Paris, the movement of Letterism was yet at 

its peak. Stressing the signs, letters, and words’ visual effects, regardless of their 

meaning, letterists attempted to give them a communicative and expressive function. This 

artistic atmosphere affected Zenderoudi, and he deserted the figurative and geometric 

elements of his preceding paintings and concentrated on writing: the rhythmic repeat of 

syllables, letters, and sentences. There, he became acquainted with all the European 

painting trends of the period. He did not reject them. Although, he had commenced with 

some Shiite iconography, in diverse ways and stages he turned to employing calligraphy 

as the main element of his paintings. He was incipiently fascinated by Abstract painting 

with talismanic shapes, numbers, geometrical patterns, and calligraphic decorations, 

accompanying references to the votive Shiite iconography (Fig. 26). Zenderoudi, in those 

works, presented the paintings employing written forms as texture-producing material in 

the background for the circles, rectangles, squares, and triangles, then colouring them 

with the religious popular art’s distinctive colours: red, orange, gold, and green. The 

originality, freshness, and intuitiveness formed in his early paintings inspired by 



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talismanic shapes were unique and noteworthy. Later, he became more interested in 

calligraphy and began experimenting with mere calligraphic elements. It is apparent that 

among the begetters of the Saqqa-khaneh movement, Hossein Zenderoudi must be 

regarded as the forerunner of the calligraphic approach in employing calligraphy as the 

only compositional element.  He overlooked all the principles of calligraphy and focused 

his endeavors on exploring graphic elements’ visual nature and their signification aspects. 

His efforts for innovative writing climaxed in the origination of a sort of hyper-graphic 

space: a dynamic and abstract composition through the movement, rhythm, and merging 

of signs. To attain unified and complex structures, the artist covers the whole painting 

surface with numbers, dots, letters, or imprints of diverse signs, deftly applying radiant 

colours inside and amongst them (figs. 27 & 28). Therefore, Zenderoudi’s enchanting 

letterism was a fusion and interaction of writing and painting. Though Zenderoudi’s 

works seem to be calligraphic at first glance, they are regarded as paintings more than 

anything else. Zenderoudi, painting letters of diverse sizes, challenges words’ formal 

qualities and customises calligraphic forms to define new bounds for visual perception. 

Emphasising the figurative structures of alphabetical elements, he separates them from 

their known meanings and redefines calligraphic values in Persian art to strengthen the 

words’ aesthetic value and to channel them towards a general meaning – an entirely 

personal experience for him. Unreadability bears specific significance in his mind, 

indicating his intention to differentiate letters from manuscripts and calligraphic art. 

Zenderoudi himself was not a taught calligrapher but took benefit of the abstract trends of 

Persian calligraphy previously seen in siyah mashq practise sheets of the late 19th 



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century. With his pseudo-scripts, characters had no meaning in themselves but were 

meaningful as visual art’s organic elements and alive with cultural and artistic 

connotations. At the intersection of calligraphy and geometry, the optic art-like structures 

of alphabetical characters and the purity of calligraphic forms are found, in which the 

painter intellectually refines the script's graphic geometry. It seems that he has developed 

the calligraphic and talismanic trends into a personalised pseudo-script of signs. He stays 

away from the acquainted images because he is unconcerned about the words’ meanings 

he employed in the past. He has consistently traced things. Hence, it does not matter 

whether these things are icons or abstract signs of landscapes. 

 3.3.2. Parviz Tanavoli 

 

Parviz Tanavoli graduated from the sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Tehran 

University. He instructed in Iran and abroad after studying at the Accademia de Belle Arti 

in Carrara and then in Milan, where he was the invited sculptor at the Minneapolis School 

of Art from 1962 to '64. After coming back to Tehran, he became linked to the artistic 

movement of Saqqa-khaneh and made sculptures reminding of religious shrines and 

associated objects. Tanavoli worked with a wide range of materials, from brass, bronze, 

and clay to scrap metal, and a range of dimensions, from small–scale to large sculptures 

sizing some three meters or more in height. His most renowned subject is the sculptural 

representation of the heech (هیچ) (the Iranian word for nothing). In his primary and 

innovative composition, which was first exhibited in 1965 at the Borghese Gallery, 

plaster hands holding a metal grid were surmounted with the plastic circle encompassing 



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the word heech, formed in Iranian script (Fig. 29). In subsequent representations, sub-

elements came to be modified or even discarded. The word heech, in his most notable 

version, is placed on a chair similar to a stooping cat. The head of the cat is composed of 

the letter ha-ye du chashm (هـ), and the cat’s body comprises the initial stroke of the final 

letter cha (چ), whose down-stroke in the nasta‘liq style becomes the long curving tail of 

the cat. In his works, there is an interaction between shape and meaning (Fig. 30). In 

addition to the heech sculptures, the series of the Wall is also regarded as a notable 

accomplishment of the sculptor. These walls, in their abstract and minimalised forms, 

indeed, are the artist’s homage to inscriptions and epitaphs of the ancient monuments of 

Iran. Aesthetically, the Wall is a mass of pure bronze that resembles minimalist cubes 

with compacted unreadable writings in various calligraphic forms (fig. 31). Walls are 

amongst the oldest architectural elements that have taken various forms all over history, 

and in a classic sense, are expressive surfaces with decorative and aesthetic significance 

further than a dividing fence and remind us of the mosques’ domes or any other holy 

space when they come to be ornamented with inscriptions. Therefore, the walls of 

Tanavoli in our minds become symbols, signifying Iranian or global cultural heritage and 

ancient wisdom. These monolithic works, even though, are noticeably resembling 

American minimalist artists’ sculptures of the 1960s, evoke an Eastern treasure-trove due 

to the calligraphic work and also the allusion to historical epitaphs. 

 

 



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Figure 26. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1962, K+L+32+H+4, Felt-tip pen, crayon, coloured ink, and metallic 

paint on board, 225.9 x 148.7 cm. 

This painting, executed after the artist moved to Paris, represents the amalgam of personal, religious, and 

national mythologies that characterises his practise. Its dense decoration reflects the astrological talismans 

and patterns of vernacular prints found in the bazaars of Tehran, as well as sacred calligraphy and Shiite 

iconography. Zenderoudi’s painting K+L+32+H+4 is more of an enigma due to its title (like many other 

of his primeval works) than its composition. The cubic form on the right side, accompanied by luminous 

embodies over it, is possibly referring to an altar, as on the left, the raised hands are likely alluding to a 

genealogical of the martyrized Shiite imams. In his cryptic and symbolic approach to art, Zenderoudi 

placed the letters K, L, and H for Karbala, light, and Hossein. They are shown in Roman letters and 

numbers, maybe because in spite of his nationalistic and religious trends, he addressed the non-Iranian 

spectators, and this meretricious trend does indicate an attribute of the Saqqa-khaneh. Zenderoudi style 

possesses Western art’s syntax, and also it expresses the attendance of Western audiences. Shiva Balaghi 

says, “Zenderoudi founded a quite developed syntax taking out private mythology from religion, 

divination, augury, superstition, coded signs, and numerology (Balaghi & Gumpert, 2002).’’ Zenderoudi’s 

works and particularly the early ones are formed with such frightening emptiness that the onlooker is 

conquered, if not with religious passion, then pictorially. 



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Figure 27. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1970, DAL+DAL+DAL, Acrylic on canvas, 124 x 212 cm. 

Zenderoudi’s compositions pay tribute to centuries of Persian religious illustration and utilise a systematic 

replication of letter forms that finds its origin in the Sufi numerologists’ mystical practise, who believed 

in the spiritual importance of singular letters and employ these principles into extremely complicated 

talismanic charts. His methodical compositions, while not accurately pursuing the axioms or grammar of 

numerology, capture conceptual and aesthetic qualities of its mysterious nature. The works he produced in 

the 1970s marked a shift toward a more avant-garde, measured, and technical approach to calligraphy. 

The early works’ crowded iconography is replaced by a more concentration on singular and recurring 

letter forms, which display a formal refinement missing from their previous counterparts. This work 

(DAL+DAL+DAL) also indicates a conceptual change from the more overtly traditional subjects and 

more toward a pure, patterned aesthetic that stresses the meditative and visual elements of letter depiction 

over their linguistic connotation. Zenderoudi, spontaneous but measured, spur-of-the-moment yet 

technical, manipulates Iranian calligraphy with ease and boasts a visual scope that honestly and diligently 

captures the prominent elements of traditional religious aesthetics popular in Iran. His canvases, rendered 

using vibrant and rich colours, replicate the votive art’s textural and tonal qualities so prevalent in the 

Iranian urban landscape. 



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Figure 28. Hossein Zenderoudi, 1973, SAT+HE+SAT, Acrylic and Mineral Pigment on Canvas, 142 x 212 

cm.   This work consists of several horizontal colour surfaces covered with letters and words of diverse 

sizes. The creative utilisation of twisting lines of calligraphic characters is regarded as a modern graphic 

element that, combined with the resulting rhythm, evokes a sense of depth. The text is purposefully free 

from lingual barriers and illegible. Zenderoudi is inspired by Persian traditions of imagery in forming 

dense spaces. The employ of dense spaces, as Persian art’s essence, is evident in carpet design, mural 

painting, and ornamental tiling of architectural designs. 



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Figure 29. Parviz Tanavoli, 1965, Heech and Hands, 82 x 80 x 8 cm, Plexiglas, wood, plaster, copper, 

neon light and oil paint, Retrieved from Manijeh Collection. 



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Figure 30. Parviz Tanavoli, 2007, Heech and Chair VII, 26.5 x 17 x 11 cm, Bronze. Retrieved from   

https://www.tanavoli.com//works/sculptures/bronze/heech-and-chair-vii/ 



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Figure 31. Parviz Tanavoli, 2001, The Wall and the Window, 30.5 x 14.5 x 7.5 cm. Bronze. Retrieved 

from      https://www.tanavoli.com//works/sculptures/bronze/the-wall-and-the-window 

 

 



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3.3.3. Faramarz Pilaram 

Faramarz Pilaram (1938-1983) graduated from the College of Decorative Arts and 

was among the Iranian artists’ first group who focussed on Iranian legacy and 

mythological motifs. And at one stage, his artistic development ran similar to 

Zenderoudi’s, enclosing geometrical forms, letters, and words inspired by votive Shiite 

iconography (fig. 32). This artist, whose employment of old seals was a characteristic of 

his artistic career’s first part, utilised these in his paintings as a connective texture for 

geometric compositions. In the ensuing stage, Pilaram experimented with diverse styles 

and techniques in which calligraphy, particularly the nasta‘liq and shikasta scripts, 

played the principal part (fig. 33). He created a number of expressionist calligraphic 

paintings and colourful shikasta-like tableaus, during the late 1960s and the early '70s, 

which can be interrelated with some traditional epigraphs. In Pilaram’s artworks, 

calligraphy not only finds a traditional position, but its abstract character is integrated 

with other organising elements of the work. In this way, the interpenetration of lines and 

their continuous change, the crossing of colors and the sinking of knots and straight, 

round, and spiral shapes on one hand, and various volumes on the other hand, creates 

unity - which is the ultimate quality of a style. Pilaram, in some works, which are part of 

the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art collection, demonstrated musical compositions 

using calligraphic forms. Rhythmical words, in these paintings, play visual motions in a 

symphonious space. In actuality, the indigenous arts’ homogeneous quality consciously 

appears with harmonious symmetries in his paintings. 



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Figure 32. Faramarz Pilaram, ca. 1960–1965, Untitled, ink, metallic paint and acrylic on paper, 199×130 

cm, Retrieved from https://www.artnet.com/ 



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Figure 33. Faramarz Pilaram, 1977, Untitled, oil and gold leaf on canvas, 199×130 cm, from 

https://tehranauction.com/ 



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3.3.4. Massoud Arabshahi 

Massoud Arabshahi (1935-2019), who also graduated from the College of 

Decorative Arts, went further back for inspiration to the art of pre-Islamic Persia, 

specifically the motifs of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Achaemenian inscriptions and 

epitaphs. Inspired by the Avesta Zoroastrian texts, his drawings look like ancient cities’ 

archaeological maps (Issa, 2001, p. 20). He was the Saqqa-khaneh group’s only member 

who did not use religious folk art, and his dissimilar viewpoint and spirit distinguish him 

from others. Nevertheless, his early and even later works match up to some prominent of 

the movement’s aesthetic characteristics. Specifically, one can mention the perpetual 

attendance of varied motifs and adornments, the employ of Iranian folk art’s colour 

schemes, and the multiplicity of elements in different parts of the tableau. Also, the close 

connection with the shapes of Islamic architecture and handicrafts can be observed in the 

forms and colours that he utilised in these paintings (Fig. 34). 

3.3.5. Mansur Qandriz 

Mansur Qandriz (1935-1965) was another student at the College of Decorative 

Arts who utilised mystical symbols and signs to amalgamate modern and traditional 

elements in his abstract designs. He was a painter’s semi-abstract who employed stylised 

Persian motifs and emphasised tribal shapes, archaic metalwork, and Iranian textiles 

through the utilisation of limited colours (fig. 35). He was an artist who obsessively tried 

to develop and define an Iranian style in different phases of his artistic development 

(Pakbaz, 1974, p.33). His early figurative paintings (before joining the Saqqa-khaneh 



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movement) indicate the influence of Persian paintings, Matisse, and Picasso. Then during 

his Saqqa-khaneh period, employing traditional designs and textiles, Qandriz developed a 

semi-abstract personalised style, indicated through geometric motifs and stylised figures, 

including humans, horses, birds, swords, fish, the sun, etc. Qandriz, through painting, 

delicately juxtaposed tradition and modernity and actively participated in contemporary 

discussions relating to Iranian art, in particular, the emergence of cultural identity and the 

regeneration of the common pictorial legacy. 

3.3.6. Sadeq Tabrizi 

The works of Sadeq Tabrizi (1939 -2017) were inspired by symbolic objects found 

in folk art, such as old locks and keys, penmanship sheets, engraved metal bowls, old-

fashioned seals, pages of manuscripts, bits of semi-precious stone or colored glass, blue 

beads ..., (Yarshater, 1979, p. 370), also utilise Persian miniatures, Qajar figures, and 

popular and religious forms of Qahveh-khaneh (coffee-house) painting (figs. 36 & 37). 

One can see, in his paintings, the rhythmic repetition of traditional patterns and 

calligraphic forms. By emphasising the Iranian painting’s pictorial tradition in a creative 

confrontation with Western modernism, Tabrizi has presented new expressions of the 

combination of tradition and modernity in his tableaus. To acquire Iranian modernism, he 

explored the components of archaic Iranian art and literature, and in studying his 

homeland’s indigenous arts, he instituted a connection between familiar motifs and 

nostalgic themes in Iranian tradition and perspectives based on modernism. The 

integration of calligraphy and figural motifs, by overstating the proportions of the forms 



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originated from Iranian miniature in his works, indicates that Tabrizi enthusiastically 

aimed to discover new horizons in the arena of contemporary Iranian painting and, with 

ceaseless experimentation, put himself on a route that was amazingly new at that period. 

3.3.7. Nasser Oveisi 

Figural motifs inspired mainly by Persian miniatures, ceramics, kalamkari (printing 

patterns on fabric), and calligraphic forms are featured in the works of Nasser Oveisi (b. 

1934). His works are closely related to Persian painting and traditional book illustrations, 

but he brought them to a contemporary sensitivity. Actually, Oveisi can be considered a 

postmodern artist who combines traditional and modern sources to create his 

masterpieces. While he creates complicated designs, the subject matters of his paintings 

are simple and few. They comprise human and animal (horses and birds) figures and 

painted pottery influenced by archaic Persian pottery. Oveisi’s women, single or in 

groups, with joined eyebrows and large oblong eyes, are remindful of the Qajar large-

scale paintings’ portraits, and the figures of males, whether lovers, polo players, or heroes 

on horseback, recall some standard kinds of Iranian figurative tradition and Persian 

painting forms. However, in all cases, the figures’ different sections are illuminated 

chiefly with calligraphic forms (fig. 38). 

 

 

 



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3.3.8. Zhazeh Tabatabaei 

Zhazeh Tabatabai (1931-2008), who was one of the pioneers of modern and 

contemporary art in Iran, in the late 1950s, began with the Qajar patterns, but he 

suspended midway between the distorted representation and the more serious 

personalities (Emami, 1971, p. 357).” Tabatabai, a prolific sculptor, and painter, has 

endeavored various styles; nevertheless, he is known best for Persian patterns’ bold re-

statements such as Qajar women, decorative shapes, imaginative scenes, and calligraphic 

forms (fig. 39). He skillfully transformed what was innately devoid of artistic quality and 

characteristics into authentic, sumptuous art. His Intellectual independence and 

abstaining from conventional clichés, spheres, styles, and persuadings in Iranian 

modernism turned him into an independent artist with a unique style. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 34. Massoud Arabshahi, 1979, Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 124×135 cm, Retrieved 

from https://tehranauction.com/ 



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Figure 35. Mansur Qandriz, early 1960s, Untitled, oil on sack, 158×110 cm, Retrieved from 

https://tehranauction.com/ 

 

https://tehranauction.com/


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Figure 36. Sadeq Tabrizi, circa 1980s, Saqqa-Khaneh, mixed media on canvas, 70×100 cm, 

Retrieved from https://tehranauction.com/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Figure 37. Sadeq Tabrizi, 2008, Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 96 cm. Retrieved from 

https://tehranauction.com/ 

Figure 38. Nasser Oveisi, 2010, Untitled, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas, 80×203 cm, Retrieved from 

https://tehranauction.com/ 



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Figure 39. Zhazeh Tabatabaei, 1964, Untitled, 140×93 cm, oil on canvas, Retrieved from 

https://tehranauction.com/ 



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3.4. Summary 

The Saqqa-khaneh movement is the noteworthiest product of the interactivity of 

the national, traditional, and religious elements with the structure of modern art. This 

movement, because of its dual nature, has invariably played a consequential part in the 

popularisation of modern and contemporary art in Iran. What binds group members is 

that their works are composed of symbols and signs that indicate the golden attributes and 

the golden eras of the Iranian civilisation, both pre-Islamic and Islamic. Besides the 

expansive internal realisation that they acquired, their artworks were successful in 

receiving international recognition as well, because it was regarded as constituting a good 

way of representing Iranian art, or more vastly Middle Eastern. Artists such as 

Zenderoudi, Pilaram, Arabshahi, and Qandriz considered the apparent closeness and 

resemblance between traditional decorative art’s stylised aspect and abstract art. Diverse 

abstract shapes were created wherein geometrical forms and the decorative elements of 

Iranian-Islamic and calligraphy were elected and then spread across the entire space of 

the paintings chiefly in symmetrical structures. And other artists, inclusive of Oveisi, 

Tabrizi, and Tabatabai, drew their inspiration from the Iranian painting’s figurative 

tradition (from antiquated manuscripts to the artworks of the Qajar period). They 

endeavoured to employ these to present contemporary modern art via a multiplicity of 

figural motifs in a decorative mode with free utilisation of calligraphic elements in their 

compositions. 



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The Saqqa-khaneh movement, in contemporary times, has continued through the 

movement’s artists and other artists who were affected by it in various ways. There has 

not been any analogous movement in Iranian art nationally since the Saqqa-khaneh 

movement. Particularly after the Islamic revolution and following Iran’s social, cultural, 

and political transformations, art was also entirely affected. One of the effects of the 

revolution on movements like Saqqa-khaneh (non-adherence to the Islamic revolution 

and its ideals and whose works with their modernist attributes as formal art had been 

significantly backed by the Pahlavi regime) was that the group members mostly 

immigrated out of the country, and those who remained had no chance or possibility to 

present their artworks. One can witness in the last decades that the predominant 

preoccupation of contemporary artists is to identify what comprises the particular features 

of Iranian art, and it is in this continuous search that the Saqqa-khaneh movement’s 

essence still survives. This movement has gained a nationwide significance in 

contemporary Iranian society and culture, leading to an increasing number of 

practitioners, collectors, and a presence of calligraphic painting-inspired advertising and 

design. Moreover, it has gradually found a position in the global art world.  

 

 

 

 



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Chapter 4. Aspects of Contemporary Islamic Calligraphy 

 

In this chapter, due to the abundance of data concerning contemporary Islamic 

calligraphy, I have examined to identify some of the various directions in which artists 

are practising today. In this regard, I have divided the topic into three general parts. The 

first covers the continuity of traditional calligraphic styles in contemporary times. The 

second part deals with the employ of Arabic script in typography, computer graphics, and 

printing. And finally, a third part treats new tendencies in calligraphic art. In the first and 

third parts, I have endeavored to select a few practitioners as exemplary of the various 

career patterns that have been followed by contemporary modern artists, as well as 

learners and investigators of calligraphy. My aim here is not to be comprehensive but 

elective, and I have knowingly drawn my examples from over the lands of Islamic and 

non-Islamic to illustrate the dynamic and alive role that Islamic calligraphy plays 

throughout the globe today. The artists examined here display notable uses of alphabetical 

characters while exploring relationships amongst culture, tradition, and modernity. Each 

examined artwork has formed in specific contexts based on the artists’ cultural 

communication and personal experiences. Contrasting works of art by modern artists 

facilitate an understanding of the role of letter forms within these works as well as in the 

artistic period’s larger context. The incorporation of the letters and words within their 

works does not be at variance with tradition, modernity, or contemporaneity. Their works 

are suitable for my study due to the fact they have developed deep, contemplative, and 

creative standards to merge the Arabic-Farsi letters or their calligraphic forms’ abstract as 



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influential components for their artworks. These specimens indicate some of the ways 

that contemporary artists incorporate Islamic calligraphy into their artworks. They show 

the many media that practitioners are utilising to emphasise different facets of writing, 

from its talismanic attributes to its formal and semantic qualities. 

4.1. Traditional Calligraphy Styles 

 

One of the prominent scholars of the early 20th century was Mehdi Bayani (1906-

1968), a trailblazer in the sphere of librarianship, manuscripts, and calligraphy in Iran. He 

took a doctorate in Persian language and literature in 1945 from Tehran University. 

Bayani was the director and establisher of Iran’s first national library and was appointed 

in 1956 as head of the Royal Library, as well as he taught courses in calligraphy and 

founded Anjuman-i himayat-i khatt va khatatan (انجمن حمایت خط و خطاطان) (a society for 

the backing of calligraphic arts and calligraphers). Besides catalogs of Iran’s major 

collections, he compiled Ahval va athar-i khushnivisan (احوال و آثار خوشنویسان), a huge 

biographical book of calligraphic masters. This dictionary is an essential beginning point 

for studying Iranian calligraphy and calligraphers. It is an eminent accomplishment 

compiled in pre-computer time by hand based on a personal investigation of the major 

collections. However, some of the data requires updating and approval. The most 

outstanding contemporary writer of Iranian calligraphy is Habiballah Fazā’ilī (1922-

1997). He was one of the few scribes who were skilled in writing all types of Islamic 

calligraphy, especially thuluth, and naskh. Atlas khat ( اطلس خط) (reproduces many 

examples by well-known calligraphers), and Ta’lim-i khatt (تعلیم خط) (introduces the 



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complete teaching of all sorts of calligraphy methods and the required instruments for 

this art) are his two important works. Both are considered significant reference books in 

the field of calligraphy. 

Reza Mafi (1943–1982), was one of the most influential artists in contemporary 

Iranian art and came from a background of calligraphy and religious conservatism. He 

applied his remarkable calligraphic abilities in works ranging from decorative to political. 

Mafi is most famed for his calligraphic paintings that utilise various scripts:  illuminated 

manuscript pages’ trompe l’oeil evocations, the bismillah bird (a popular religious form 

in the late 19th century), and works in relief utilising brilliant colours that draw upon 

medieval ceramic tile work. Mafi’s familiarity and good knowledge of Persian literature 

were reflected in the poetry and text choice and were one of his work’s strengths. Though 

he was considered an experimental and progressive artist who worked with various 

materials, he endeavoured to stay faithful to the calligraphy’s traditional mood in facets 

such as the election of colours. Mafi, in creating works, did not hesitate to employ new 

and diverse materials and techniques, and he always attempted novel experiences and 

achieved the theme of the work by amalgamating different materials. This Iranian artist 

paid attention to both tradition and modernism. Although his works of art are aware of 

and affected by traditional arts, obtaining new shapes was an inviolable principle for him. 

His works’ visual expression is not one-dimensional and monotonous, and one of the 

significant attributes of his works was his attitude’s multi-dimensionality in the sphere of 

calligraphic art. This characteristic differentiated him from his contemporary 



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calligraphers and painters. Mafi, during his short life, created many calligraphic works, a 

remarkable number of which are black and white. One of the interesting points that can 

be seen in his Siyah mashqs is the new and innovative forms that exist amongst them. He 

penned on canvas without utilising a brush, with a reed pen and ink, and he was skilled in 

different calligraphic styles including nasta‘liq, shikasta,  thuluth, ta‘liq, and riqa. Other 

calligraphers have moved a further step toward abstraction, creating works with pseudo-

scripts that resemble writing but are not readable. Nasrallah Afjaei (b. 1933), for 

example, is a full-fledged master in the sphere of traditional Iranian calligraphy and is 

regarded as one of the most outstanding artists in this field in the last few decades 

because of his consistency and continuity in producing modern calligraphic works.  

Afjaei has retained his loyalty to calligraphy and if he has employed the materials 

of painting in producing his new works, he has utilised burnt and warm monochromatic 

forms. Rhythm is the feature of his works, and he pursues the same traditional pattern of 

black practises in his works of art and also gives space to the word while maintaining its 

meaning. His works have an eye-catching performance and solid payment. Afjai seeks to 

play with various methods and forms of calligraphy and its diverse items, which gives a 

spell-like appearance to his works of art and evokes on a monochrome background the 

composition of freedom - from a distance. The diversity of his calligraphic paintings in 

the last decade has concentrated on providing inspiring works of familiar and simple 

forms in nature and humans. In this new composition, the semantic facet of the writing 

gives its place to symbolic decorative shapes, and he, who is more interested in 



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redefining the ornamental aspect in his works, tries to reread an abstract narrative from 

Siyah mashq writing in Iranian calligraphy. What differentiates his art from this old 

tradition is that the goal of writing in his works, unlike in the past, is not to read the text 

but to represent the form in a new context. From this point of view, the audience for his 

works is inclusive, i.e., there is no need to be acquainted with the poetry, reading, and 

comprehension of the written meaning. Afjahi’s works, on the other hand, contrary to 

many calligraphic artists, lack the Islamic attitude’s geometric foundation and are closer 

to organic shapes. Hence, the order dominating his works is an order originating from 

nature instead of the abstraction governing Islamic art. 

 In the period after the revolution in 1979 and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s 

relative isolation, today, the works of scholars of calligraphy and calligraphers are not 

widely known. In turn, Iranian scholars have not gained access to the outsiders’ works, 

and the sphere has become rather introspective. Over the last few years, there has not 

been much intention to promulgate calligraphy internationally via the state-owned sector. 

Apart from the Fajr International Visual Arts Festival (the yearly celebration of the 

Islamic revolution); and calligraphy expos (conventionally, these exhibitions take place in 

public art centres under the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the Iranian 

Academy of the Arts) are the sole major events; everything is within the framework of 

the government’s cultural policies.  

A completely different scenario is related to Turkey. The adoption of Latin script 

in 1928 by the Republic of Turkey broke the long-lasting tradition of employing the 



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Arabic script for daily affairs. Arabic script and language kept going to be utilised for 

religious intents, and there has been a resuscitation in its calligraphic potential recently. 

In Turkey, the recognised authority on calligraphic art is M. Ugur Derman (b. 1935). He 

is a skilled calligrapher (especially in the traditional scripts of ta‘liq and nasta‘liq). 

Derman has composed much about the history of calligraphy24, and in recognition of his 

accomplishments, he was appointed as an honourary professor at Istanbul’s Mimar Sinan 

University in 1996, previously the Academy of Fine Arts, wherein formal calligraphy 

instruction in 1936 was reinstituted. He represents the standpoint of Turk and argues 

during the past five centuries, the best calligraphy produced in the Islamic lands was 

accomplished in Istanbul. In spite of the forsaking of Arabic writing and the period of 

stagnation that followed, Derman believes that the system has been capable of surviving 

thanks to the traditional master-apprentice system. In Turkey, such a system has made the 

new generation fascinated by calligraphy’s aesthetic merits. This system utilised today to 

instruct calligraphy is well described by an American calligrapher, Mohammad Zakariya 

(b. 1942), who went to Istanbul (there he practised thuluth and naskh under Hasan 

Chelebi) to improve his proficiency in the subject in 1984. He took his diploma in 1988 

in thuluth and naskh scripts and continued studies with Ali Alparslan in ta‘liq and 

nasta‘liq, getting the second diploma in 1997. The training of Zakariya indicates that the 

traditional Turkish system of transcribing, followed by M. Ugur Derman under the master 

 
24 Derman is the author of three books (Türk Hat Sanatının Şaheserleri; The Art of Calligraphy in the 

Islamic Heritage, trans. Mohamed Zakariya and Mohamed Asfour; Letters in Gold: Ottoman calligraphy 

from the Sakip Sabanci Collection, Istanbul) and more than three hundred articles on calligraphy. 

 



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Necmeddin Okyay persists today. He, who studied under the auspices of the Research 

Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) in Turkey, has become one of the 

most prominent representatives of Islamic calligraphy in the America nowadays. Besides 

translating many works of Derman, Zakariya has written concise overviews of 

calligraphic art’s state and history, which include specimens scribed by him of various 

styles based on historical samples (Zakariya, 1979). 

These contemporary writers’ and calligraphers’ work indicates how Turkish styles 

continue to prevail nowadays. This is true not only in the Islamic world but also in 

Europe and America. In academic circles of the West, perhaps Wijdan Ali, a practising 

artist, and a Jordanian royal family member, is the most recognised contemporary 

commentator on Islamic calligraphic art. She earned her doctorate in Islamic art from 

London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Her book, Modern Islamic Art: 

Development and Continuity, calls the Arabic letters’ aesthetic interrogation in circles of 

modern and contemporary the “School of Calligraphic Art (Ali, 1997).” Ali knowingly 

selected this label to distinguish the modern school from traditional styles and the term 

Hurufiyyeh, which she literally translates as letterism. The book concludes with research 

of diverse subdivisions, subject matters, and the contemporary calligraphic art 

movement’s styles, as well as key movement artists’ biographies. During her 

investigation, Ali commenced collecting noteworthy pieces and helped establish the 

Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in 1980. One of the main focuses of the gallery is 

collecting, preserving, and displaying contemporary calligraphic art. 



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4.2. Islamic Calligraphy: Print and Typography  

 

In the 19th century, printing on a wide scale was introduced as a part of the stream 

towards modernisation and the renewal of intellectual and literary culture in Islamic 

lands. The late acceptance of print by Islamic societies is often ascribed to Islamic 

conservatism and the new technology’s cultural clash with Muslim beliefs and attitudes. 

The employment of print changed Islamic practises of writing. Nevertheless, the new 

technology simply did not replace scribal production’s traditional methods. Beside the 

new technology, the scribal and calligraphic methods continue to operate. Printed texts 

were considered for getting extensive audiences, and typographic letters and words began 

to emphasise the clarity of design for the aim of readability. In response, calligraphic 

practises stressed writing’s aesthetic design as a means of artistic expression and religious 

reflection. The traditional scripts kept their association with the Koranic preservation, and 

hand-crafted written work presented qualities of spiritual insight and ethical character. 

The calligraphic composition presented an aesthetic discourse that operates alongside and 

reflects upon the printed text’ standardisation. These various writing styles’ messages 

were read not only in the content of letters and words but also in the kind and appearance 

of the letter. Designers expanded modern forms of Islamic script and attempted to 

incorporate them within an international information economy. They tried to convey each 

message in a way that fits the specific textual part it plays and the requirements of a 

particular customer. Letters, as a result, became supple, and their forms altered in reaction 



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to the function and state of the text. Visually, modern printed Arabic’s fundamental 

structure reflected the Arabic tradition’s handwritten script. 

4.3. Calligraphic art 

 

Besides refinement of traditional styles, contemporary artists are seeking to extend 

the materials and media utilised for writing and the ways to integrate them into artistic 

compositions. Generally, these works vary from traditional calligraphy because the 

message is subordinate to the artwork’s formal qualities. Writing can be the only 

constituent, but artists often employ it as part of a composition. Some practitioners are 

also converting written shapes into pseudo-scripts, purposed to indicate the talismanic 

and not the semantic attributes of writing. I selected an example of a group of artists, 3 

Iranians and 5 Arabs, whose art, inspired by modern and contemporary trends is rooted in 

the Islamic art of calligraphy. Amongst the many Iranian and international artists whose 

works inspired me, I choose Mohammad Ehsaei, Shirin Neshat, Farhad Moshiri, Ahmed 

Moustafa, Madiha Umar, Etel Adnan, Dia Azzawi, and Rachid Koraichi. Their techniques 

and the way they look at their subject matter and bring together past and present is 

inspirational. For instance, their approach to history and contemporary time and 

representing them simultaneously can be seen in the utilization of traditional art 

techniques such as painting and sculpture along with newer media like photography, 

video, and installation. 

 



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4.3.1. Contemporary Iranian artist: Mohammad Ehsaei 

One of the most noteworthy pioneers in what is currently known as calligraphic 

painting art in the Middle East, specifically Iran is calligrapher/instructor Mohammad 

Ehsaei (b. 1939). Even though his works before Iran’s Islamic Revolution were aligned 

with the modernisation movement, they did not get sufficient international regard. 

Ehsaei’s art, inspired by modern and contemporary trends was rooted in Islamic art of 

calligraphy and hence was still considered traditional and too religious. By selecting 

abstract subjects like ayat, thoughts, and words, his artworks express the metaphysical 

tradition, which aims to the audiences’ awareness and the spirit’s incarnation of vision. 

Inspired by Islamic art’s traditional geometrical motifs, Persian hanging scripts, and their 

proportional system, Ehsaei created forms and compositions that carried the 

construction’s freedom as well as the liberation of making different variations, therefore 

introducing a new approach to the implementation of Iranian calligraphic art. He boldly 

embraced Iran’s modernist movement of the 1960s and benefited from many taken 

components of traditional scripts and constructed his art more expressive, lighter, and 

dynamic. Ehsaei, as a trendsetter, was able to form a framework to break away from the 

calligraphic expression’s established techniques. Utilising his unconstrained liberty, he 

was able to try new and various paint materials and work with new mediums. Ehsaei in 

recent decades has continually attempted to display a pictorial narrative of Persian 

alphabetical characters’ combination with abstract application and energetic and lively 

textures. His thoughts’ origin is his knowledge of former times and his in-depth 



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comprehension of Oriental ontology. Even so, he passed the principles and rules of the 

calligraphy tradition and carries a modernist approach to employing calligraphy in the 

area of painting. The precise calculation of the potentialities of letters, the powerful 

aesthetic forms’ extraction, and the lines’ energy in his artworks rely upon his loyalty to 

the traditions of calligraphy and his approach from calligraphy to painting. He adheres to 

the tradition of Iranian art in both its meaning and form and its method, which comprises 

practise, hard work, and reiteration for coming to have the utmost accurateness, 

proportion, and solidity of the structure. Not only has he dominated calligraphic art with 

years of endeavour, but he also utilises this breathtaking practise in designing all his 

calligraphic paintings.  

The specimens of his early compositions comprise entwined letters and words in one of 

the primary colours of blue, green, or red that emerge from a black background (fig. 40). 

The mastery of Ehsaei is embodied in his understanding of an extensive range of 

potentials of colour, form, and composition regarding the letters’ prolongation, deviation, 

and overlapping. His cursive calligraphy has an imposing fluidity that glorifies 

symmetrical iteration. Often in the compositions and the backgrounds, the filled and 

empty spaces are visually of equal value, balancing one another and encouraging the 

audience not to stop on a specific component of the composition. Also, this technique is 

amalgamated with an exclusive interlacing style, with rich graphical nodes, that carry a 

rhythmic and intricate quality. The interlacing letters’ consistency and repetition invite the 

spectator to move on and insight into the rhythmic flow and the whole composition’s 



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regularity, adding modern abstraction to his calligraphic paintings. He combines all the 

characters’ distinctive shapes with the whole’s fluidity and integrates the rhythmic 

qualities of the signs devoid of sequestering them. Ehsaei, with a long history in the art of 

graphics, is well conscious of the impact of calligraphy on the attention of the viewer and 

the charm of words in the visual works’ text, as well as he is aware of the unique nature 

of Iranian calligraphy in its capacity to express human emotions and feelings. His role in 

the validation of contemporary calligraphy is irrefutable. The basis of Ehsaei’s work are 

qualities including independence, contrast, elegance, and character of letters and words’ 

character, the background of which turns back to Mir Emad and is a specimen of the 

manifestation of Iranian ingenuity in the sphere of visual beauty. By embellishing all 

these virtues, he was able to delineate a perfect scale for the onlooker and a lofty level of 

quality for artistic creation. The expressions Allah (الله) and La ilaha ila Allah )لااله الا الله) 

in one of the most significant periods of his work have been reduplicated many times 

(figs. 41, 42 & 43). The presence of Allah’s names ( یالاسماءالحسن ) in the works of Ehsaei 

commenced almost in 1975 and persists up to the present time. Visual representation of 

mysticism and pure spirituality is an important subject stressed in this collection. The 

most important contemplative effect of these works is the quick, active, and energetic pen 

strokes, which both recall the painting style of abstract expressionism and evoke the 

tradition of Siyah mashq (black practise) in Iranian calligraphy. Ehsaei, in fact, has 

depicted an in-depth and thought-provoking subject matter in a configuration that 

fluctuates between calligraphy and painting. Over the years, he has developed a 

particularised procedure for creating precise constructions of his calligraphic painting 



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style. He has a special method of converting the procedures and traditional cursive scripts 

into his accurate visual signature, leading to an abstract form of self-expression, which 

best assists his artistic language devoid of negating calligraphic sacred art’s original 

premise. His unique methods of measurement and division used in his inscribing process, 

his approach to organising and dividing space and its utilisation in the construction of 

calligraphic characters, and his innovative notions of ratio, proportion, symmetry, and 

balance revolutionised Iran’s traditional techniques of calligraphy. Ehsaei employed 

many traditional geometric tenets and concepts of the repeating unit in Iranian and 

Islamic drawing and formed new comprehensive compositions that thereby perfected the 

endeavours of his preceding masters. To properly evaluate the extent of his success, many 

of his calligraphic paintings can also be contemplated as works of modern gestural. 

However, his calculated rhythm and movement constantly invite the onlooker to ponder 

the spiritual. The mastery of Ehsaei, his regard for formal bases, and his loyalty to rich 

traditional attributes of Islamic and Iranian calligraphy, bring on a distinguishable and 

exclusive style that encompasses modernist variety and perpetually experimenting with 

new innovations. 



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Figure 40. Mohammad Ehsaei, 2007, He is the Merciful, mixed media on canvas, 347 x 202 cm. 

Retrieved from https://mohammadehsaei.com/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 41. Mohammad Ehsaei, 1998, Allah, mixed media on card, 70 x 50 cm.  

Retrieved from https://www.artnet.com/ 



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Figure 42. Mohammad Ehsaei, 2019, Allah, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 cm.  Retrieved from 

https://www.artnet.com/ 

 



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Figure 43. Mohammad Ehsaei, 2019, Yazdan, oil and gold leaf on canvas, 175 x 175 cm. 

Retrieved from https://tehranauction.com/ 

 

 

 

 



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4.3.2. Contemporary Iranian artist: Shirin Neshat 

Shirin Neshat (b. 1957), with significant audiovisual productions, is one of the 

most characteristic artists of contemporary Iranian art. She went to the United States in 

1975 to continue her study, but the ambiguities and vicissitudes that arose out of Iran’s 

Islamic Revolution and the subsequent hardships caused by the Iran and Iraq war (1980-

88) convinced Neshat to stay in America (Ho, 2015). She was able to visit Iran only in 

1990. The result of this visit and other following visits is the Woman of Allah series. 

Woman of Allah indicates an artist who grapples with the contradictory and changing 

ideologies and principles that have been associated with the Iranian woman’s figure, both 

by the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West. The main tension in the series 

must be the texts inscribed by herself on the images after had been taken by other 

photographers (fig. 44). Basically, these texts are from four contemporary Iranian women 

writers and poets: Forugh Farrokhzad (1935–67), Simin Behbahani (1927-2014), Tahereh 

Saffarzadeh (1936–2008), and Moniru Ravanipur (b. 1954) (Vitali, 2004). There has been 

a lot of discussion on whether one needs to read the written contents in the images, 

whether it is feasible, and if the deed of reading these writings is important. Neshat has 

stated that she does not anticipate non-Iranian spectators to read the images, as their 

comprehension of them would be inadequate: “I don’t believe it matters that the written 

texts can’t be understood in the West. Most of it is inscribed within the framework of the 

Islamic religion, history of feminism, and politics in Iran, so it will not have the identical 

meaning for somebody who is not from Iran as it does for an Iranian (Neshat, 1997).” She 



156 
 

stated in a 2004 meeting with Scott MacDonald, a film scholar, “Iranians could both read 

and comprehend the meaning of the poems and are very acquainted with the history and 

position of the authors in regard to Iran – something that is impossible for Westerners to 

translate (MacDonald & Neshat, 2004, p. 630).” Neshat, furthermore, sets up a duality 

within her viewers: those who can read Farsi and those who cannot, which indicates that 

some can and will be able to read the writings, but most will not, hence creating multiple 

exegeses depending on the audience’s background. In spite of her expressed assurance to 

those who can understand the meaning of the Persian texts in photographs, the writings 

are fragmented and incomplete, as the demarcations of skin and clothes cut them off. 

There are blunders in the texts indicated in the images as well. However, I do not think 

that the texts are only decorative or not meant to be read because of these fractures and 

mistakes. Their imperfections, on the contrary, are aimed at a dialogue between the 

audience and the subject because she has always acknowledged that Iranians can identify 

and read written texts. The texts are indeed extremely readable and penned in obvious 

handwriting (Firat, 2006, p. 212). The point should also be made that she did inscribe the 

laborious writing and ornamental motifs inspired by North African and South Asian 

tattooing and henna. Technically, the photographs are of differing quality and mainly 

cannot be specified by the kind of aesthetic capability that an impactful tradition of black 

and white American photographers has applied since Edward Weston (1886-1958) and 

Ansel Adams (1902-1984). Neshat’s writing, while meticulously accomplished, compares 

unfavourably with the master calligraphers’ works of Persian and Arabic. Likewise, the 

ornamental designs are elegantly drawn but do not resist some of the complicated 



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achievements of henna artists (Dadi, 2008, p. 137); Nevertheless, of far greater 

importance is the reality that the texts, penned with much accuracy and patience by 

Neshat, are totally illegible for the immediate principal audience of the images, the 

Western onlooker. Neshat determinedly refuses to present translations accompanied by 

her photographs, such that understanding the poetry is certainly impossible for a foreign 

reader. Calligraphy doubles as adornment in these compositions, but it also functions as 

an undecipherable text, repeating the cliches of Eastern inscrutability (Ibid, p. 142). Thus, 

the texts are not overall calligraphic, which means they are not merely aesthetically 

pleasant. If the writings are not purely calligraphic, then texts must convey a message that 

aims to be heard and communicated. The interruptions, therefore, may be expressive of 

the women’s subaltern voices in Iran, As Neshat has said, “the woman, coerced to 

conceal behind the hijab, has no way to express her ideas and emotions (Neshat, 1997).” 

The series has four main signs: women (the female figure, a very challenging issue in 

Islamic culture because it indicates ideas of sexuality, shame, and sin), texts (poems by 

Iranian women writers – penned directly on the images), chadors (the veil, which has 

been regarded as both a symbol of suppression and emancipation – resistance to counter 

Western influence), and weapons (a symbol of violence), all of which form the 

representation of women in Iran after the post-revolutionary.  

The image itself has an area encompassing four frames, and if the image is like a 

window of the globe, then the frame displays these representations of women in Iran. The 

reality that all the images show veiled women means public spaces open for unrelated 



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men because women do not usually hijab in private spaces (Naficy, 2003, p. 146). 

Furthermore, the writing on the images makes a break that opens these spaces to greater 

possibilities for the representation of women. Neshat complicates the calligraphy’s visual 

tradition in a very similar way. Here she imposes the calligraphic writing’s aesthetics onto 

the photographic image, and the corporeality of the words opens up a scriptural aesthetic 

space on the visual surface. The images, as such, show a viewing position that fluctuates 

between seeing and reading the image. This combining of ways of viewing is one of the 

main characteristics of Islamic calligraphic practise.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 44. Shirin Neshat, 1996, Speechless, Photo by Larry Barns. Retrieved from (MacDonald 

& Neshat, 2004).   



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4.3.3. Contemporary Iranian artist: Farhad Moshiri 

One of the second generations of modern and contemporary Iranian artists who 

have experimented with painting with Iranian calligraphy is Farhad Moshiri (b. 1955). 

Over the last two decades, Moshiri’s art has followed a growing path that tends to include 

calligraphic shapes and abstract-creative structures (fig. 45). Referring to decorative 

motifs and visual elements of Iranian folk culture, he has constantly pursued the pop-art 

approach in his paintings. This approach in many of his works, with a correct 

comprehension of the forms of old pottery and the nasta‘liq script’s geometry and 

rhythm, offers a different narrative of Iranian neo-traditionalist artists in the field of 

painting. His well-known jars evoke the connection between tradition and modernity in 

current Iran, crammed with the visual remains of the times past hinting at more profound 

social matters. The artist plays with the texture of his works to attain a new form of art. 

To achieve the highly textured surfaces on his paintings, he folds, rolls up, and crushes 

the canvases so that the nearly dried pigments crackle and flake, a process that alludes to 

his constant theme of devotion and admiration to Iran’s golden age (fig. 46). The works 

of Moshiri addressing simple issues search for common and popular attitudes of the 

spectators and strive to display them in a critical view of the antiquities or the recreation 

of daily images. Following the efforts of the audience to find and redefine the underlying 

layers of his images, all kinds of childlike, ethnic, and cultural nostalgia bring to mind 

and call the onlooker to a soft, occasionally critical, and warning challenge between the 



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notions of culture and identity. The border between worth and art, copy and reproduction, 

originality and reiteration, is another sphere called for in his artworks.  

 

Figure 45. Farhad Moshiri, 2009, Golden Allah, acrylic, crystal and gold leaf on canvas laid down on 

panel, 256 × 116.5 cm, Retrieved from https://tehranauction.com/ 



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Figure 46. Farhad Moshiri, 2005, Ya Abolfazl, mixed media on canvas, 141×111 cm, Retrieved 

from https://tehranauction.com/ 

 

 

 

 

https://tehranauction.com/


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4.3.4. Contemporary Egyptian artist: Ahmed Moustafa 

 

A good specimen of how artists have turned traditional Islamic scripts into art can 

be witnessed in the works of Egyptian calligrapher Ahmed Moustafa (b. 1943). He 

trained as a printmaker and painter and received his doctorate from Saint Martin’s 

College of Art and Design in 1989. Many of his works include prominent Koranic verses 

about the power and omnipotence of God. While traditional calligraphers had copied the 

Koran’s entire text or major parts, he focuses on verses and passages. Moustafa, at first, 

transcribed these straightly over the flat surface and played with diverse writing forms 

silk screened in various colours. For specimen, his Scriptorial Fugue shows the letters of 

the word God (الله) by overlapping the thuluth script letters of black, gold, and green (fig. 

47). In his Perspective of the Bismillah, he penned the Koran’s opening line (  بسم الله الرحمن

 in square Kufic words in a rectangular panel that remembers the stucco specimens (الرحیم 

from the 14th-century shrines that inspired designers (fig. 48). His The Heart of Sincerity 

is Inspired by the letters from Sura al-Ikhlas ( الإخلاص سورة  ) and designed to the form of 

two tomes’ compositions leaning on each other (fig. 49). Moustafa, in the 1980s, took a 

new path and depicted 3-D geometrical shapes on a flat surface. For example, Still Life of 

Qur’anic Solids, watercolor and oil on handcrafted paper accomplished in 1987, displays 

spheres, pyramids, and cubes written with Koran (al-Qamar:49) put on a floor consisting 

of repeated triangles in square Kufic with Koran (al-Imran:2) (fig. 50). Others represent 

the same geometrical shapes’ interior view. God is the Light of Heaven and Earth, 

worked in the same year and media, and has the Koran (al-Nur:35) inscribed on the 



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rectangular box’s walls open above to reveal the sky. The spaces and three-dimensional 

forms are aimed to strengthen the meaning intrinsic to the Koranic writings: The power 

and solidity of Allah in the first case, and his divine revelation’s power in the second (fig. 

51). His other works, such as The Attributes of Divine Perfection, combine penned solid 

and ground and various texts written in diverse scripts. Besides the Throne Verse (   ةیآ

یالکرس ) inscribed in the background in square Kufic script, it is inspired by the holy Koran 

(al-Isra:110), a verse that alludes to the God’s names ( یالاسماءالحسن ) (fig, 52). Moustafa set 

these divine attributes in a cut-away cube. Cubic motifs have become one of his favorite 

shapes, indicating multiplicity in unity. 

 

 

Figure 47. Ahmad Moustafa, 1975-6, Scriptorial Fugue, silk screen edition, 110 x 80cm. Retrieved from  

https://fenoon.com/artwork/artwork/original-artwork/scriptorial-fugue/ 



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Figure 48. Ahmad Moustafa, 1977-78, Perspective of the Bismillah, silk screen, 110 x 75cm, Retrieved 

from https://fenoon.com/artwork/gallery/artwork/silk-screen-prints/perspective-of-the-bismillah/ 



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Figure 49. Ahmad Moustafa, 1977, The Heart of Sincerity, inspired by the detached letter shapes of Surah 

112, Silk screen print. 80 x 110 cm. Retrieved from  https://fenoon.com/artwork/artwork/original-

artwork/the-heart-of-sincerity/ 

Figure 50. Ahmad Moustafa, 1987, Still Life of Qur’anic Solids, Oil and watercolour on hand made paper, 

76 x 125 cm. Retrieved from  https://fenoon.com/artwork/artwork/original-artwork/still-life-of-quranic-

solids/ 



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Figure 51. Ahmad Moustafa, 1987, God is the Light of Heaven and Earth, Oil and watercolour on hand 

made paper, 76 x 125 cm. Retrieved from  https://fenoon.com/artwork/gallery/artwork/silk-screen-

prints/god-is-the-light-of-heaven-and-earth/ 

Figure 52. Ahmad Moustafa, 2013, Naming Infinity – 100 minus One (triptych), Oil and watercolor on 

paper, each 192.5cm x 149 cm. Retrieved from   https://fenoon.com/artwork/gallery/artwork/original-

artwork/naming-infinity-100-minus-one-triptych/ 

 

https://fenoon.com/artwork/gallery/artwork/silk-screen-prints/god-is-the-light-of-heaven-and-earth/
https://fenoon.com/artwork/gallery/artwork/silk-screen-prints/god-is-the-light-of-heaven-and-earth/


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4.3.5. Contemporary Iraqi artist: Madiha Umar 

The utilisation of abstracted letters began in modern and contemporary Islamic art 

with Iraqi painter Madiha Umar (1908-2005), who examined the connection of Arabic 

calligraphy with the West’s abstract art. She graduated from Beirut’s Training School of 

Teachers attended later Istanbul’s Sultaniyya School, and then studied painting at 

London’s Maria Grey Training College (Ali, 1997). After returning to Baghdad, Umar 

joined the women’s teacher training school and was appointed to be the head of the Arts 

and Painting Department. Later she relocated to Washington, D. C. in 1942 and took a 

course in art criticism at George Washington University and then studied painting and 

sculpture at the Corcoran School of Art. There, Umar encountered Nabia Abbott’s 

calligraphy book, which shows the evolution of Arabic characters, and thus, she paid 

attention to the abstracted shapes of letters and commenced examining them. She shared 

with Richard Ettinghausen her first specimens of calligraphic painting, who encouraged 

Umar to keep exploring in the same direction, employing Arabic calligraphic shapes in 

modern compositions because nobody had done it yet (Oweis, 2008). Umar followed his 

advice and continued experimenting with letter characters as her paintings’ main element. 

At the Georgetown Public Library in 1949, she displayed 22 of her artworks, marking the 

first exhibition of modern and contemporary Arabic calligraphic art in a Western city. In 

addition, wrote a pronouncement labelled Arabic Calligraphy: An Element of Inspiration 

in Abstract Art, (Puerta Vílchez, 2010, p. 7) wherein she characterised her approach to the 

analysis of Arabic letter forms and their relationship to the abstract art of the West. 



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Umar’s analysis and description of the alphabetical characters documented their historical 

transformation to their present forms (Shabout, 2007). Her treatment with letter form is 

contrary to a traditional calligraphic practise, which emphasises the words and their 

related content; instead, she changes and uses the letter form as her composition’s crucial 

graphical element, wherein the letter is an intertwined element in the work of art, giving a 

peaceful harmony to unitizing all compositional components. Madiah Umar’s philosophy 

highlights the attributes inherited from scripts, organically abstracting the form of the 

letters and bringing them to life as vibrant elements. Her examinations showed that the 

Arabic script in its essence has both symbolic expression and abstract meaning and thus 

should not be considered only as a combination of geometrical shapes (fig. 53). She 

understood the Arabic letters’ graphic qualities and their dynamic features, hence, 

managed to employ them abstractly, stressing their symbolic meaning accompanied by 

specific ideas. Her paintings strive to glorify the form of Arabic letters and words beyond 

a geometrical, fixed structure, which not only fills the canvas but also interacts with her 

compositions’ other elements. She was the first Arab artist to fully allocate her work to 

combining Arabic calligraphic forms in an abstract style. Umar uses calligraphic motifs 

as the major element of her painting, employing the Arabic letter forms as images that 

carry multiple meanings and interpretations. In her paintings, the letters are not 

decorative elements, but rather, she considers them as living entities that centrally 

interplay with other constituents in the composition. Throughout her career, Umar created 

many paintings that contributed to the range of visual culture and heightened Arab 

modern and contemporary art, whilst affecting artists’ many generations to utilise Arabic 



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calligraphy in their works. As a modern artist, she attempts to modernise her own artistic 

language by emphasising her cultural roots, generally by abstracting the alphabetical 

elements and words of her aboriginal language. She believes that each letter carries a 

specific meaning as an abstract image, and via their dissimilarities in expression these 

letters come to be a source of inspiration: the letter ya (ی), “Y,” has an energetic and 

vigorous character that conveys many meanings; the letter ayn (ع), which in English has 

no equivalent, is a vital, powerful letter that in Arabic has two different meanings — it is 

the eye via which people see as well as a spring of water; the letter lam (ل), “L,” indicates 

musical and delicate movements (Daghir, 1990; Puerta Vílchez, 2007, p. 315). Umar’s 

abstract paintings, from this perspective, take Arabic alphabetical characters as their 

basis, intending to convert their simple shapes into expressive images of thought. She 

perceives the letters, comprehending them as both images and text, creating works that 

possess powerful semiotic language. Hence, her approach visualises the letters as both 

living entities and abstract signs.  

 

 

 



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Figure 53. Madiha Umar, 1963, Untitled, oil on canvas, 80.5 x 99 cm, Retrieved from   

https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/madiha-umar/ 

 

4.3.6. Contemporary Lebanese artist: Etel Adnan 

The works of art by Lebanese poet and painter Etel Adnan (1925–2021) are most 

closely related to the idea of writing and the book. She, since 1964, has been constructing 

artist’s book by folding Japanese paper rolls similar to an accordion and ornamenting the 

pages with poetry and words in Arabic writing along with watercolour paintings (fig. 54). 

Ordinarily, the verse or word is penned in black above diverse coloured blocks in an 

amalgamation of visual art and literature that calls to mind the accordian book’s Japanese 

tradition but with Arabic writing. In these versions, she has reiterated the word God (الله), 

https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/madiha-umar/


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written in a clearly ordinary hand that varies from specimen to specimen. The roughness 

of the handwriting is heightened by the nearly childish scribble of the coloured ground 

(fig. 55). While calligraphers attempted to reiterate the same shape without change, 

Adnan takes pleasure in the dissimilarities, emphasising the plainly modern concept of 

individual expression. Adnan, explaining her philosophy and practise, noted that she was 

striving to find the visual potentials of manipulating letters and words given the plasticity 

of Arabic writing. According to her own words, her script was very imperfect. It was 

deliberately not calligraphic and ignored the classical legacy based on the standardisation 

of script styles and the perfection of formulated pen strokes. Instead, she desired the 

fluidity that comes from inscribing and the experience of leafing through the pages of a 

book to convert those paintings and written words which they are a part, into a sort of 

musical score that every individual, including their creator, interpreted into her/his inner 

language. Wijdan Ali calls this calligraffiti, a label she created for a script devoid of the 

principles of proportions, with rough forms nearing graffiti scribbling (Ali, 1997, pp. 

167-8). Nevertheless, as graffiti in the New York subway system has transformed into art, 

here, too, conventional Arabic writing has become a medium that, like Chinese 

calligraphy, depicts the motion intrinsic in writing. 



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Figure 54. Etel Adnan, 2012, Sarjoun Boulos, Markab Nouh, ink and watercolour on Japanese book, 60 

pages, 27 x 540 cm. Retrieved from Galerie Claude Lemand 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 55. Etel Adnan, 1998, Zikr, Ink on Japanese book, open 24 x 540. Retrieved from Galerie Claude 

Lemand. 



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4.3.7. Contemporary Iraqi artist: Dia Azzawi 

Dia Azzawi (b. 1939), an Iraqi artist, studied archeology at the University of 

Baghdad and later followed art courses at the Institute of Fine Arts. The Iraqi Cultural 

Centre in London appointed him as an art consultant in 1976. At the centre, Azzawi was 

able to introduce Iraqi and Arab art to British society by setting up exhibitions. However, 

due to the events and political instability in his country, he was forced to leave Iraq, and 

he, in response, turned himself into a leader of Iraqi art and promoted Iraqi art. His point 

of view as an artist was stirred toward legacy because of his research in archaeology. 

Furthermore, because of Azzawi’s profound relationship with the histories and cultures of 

Iraq, his works derive from various inspirations and sources, including arabesque motifs, 

folk patterns, and Babylonian and Assyrian figures. Therefore, his works of art become 

points of junction amongst Arabic literature, Arabs’ contemporary conditions, and Arabic-

Islamic and Iraqi heritages. He is particularly known for utilising Arabic calligraphic 

characters, and even poems to engage the viewer’s attention (poetry invites audiences to 

engage with the literary content of a work and its allusions, and on the other compels the 

viewer to step back and see the painting as a visual work). In spite of living abroad, 

Azzawi has formed his individual figurative style, mainly inspired by Iraq’s historical and 

cultural legacy, and hence, he is never restricted by time or distance. He believes that just 

his artistic history can help him in creating his unique identity. Thus, he meticulously 

selects visual elements, interweaving them while hinting at their cultural and symbolic 

connotations, permitting substitute meanings to be understood and interpreted by his 



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subjects. Azzawi, at the same time, believes in the importance of being inspired by his 

legacy, as it enriches and clarifies the present because heritage is extensive, not limited or 

separated from the present time. Moreover, as a contemporary Arab artist, because of 

political events, Azzawi developed an exhaustive epistemological understanding of his 

legacy and was passionate about creating his own identity, and hence, he boldly 

experimented with Arabic alphabetical characters. He views the letter forms as graphic 

bodies with political and cultural signification, amalgamating letters with other 

decorative and figurative elements within his paintings, especially in his early career. 

However, the letter is just one component of his works. Letters are not dominant in his 

works, as he wants to integrate them with other characters in his compositions and 

perceive letters as both sign and form. The alphabetical characters have historical roots; 

thus, they are naturally found within the area of visual culture and project various states 

of visuality to their audiences. Azzawi comprehended the Arabic letters’ energies and 

properties that reach out to the globe, as he recognised the letters’ visual language that 

reflects visual culture, in which visual indications can substitute text. In this context, his 

works indicate that such notions of visual communication are insufficient in the Arab 

nations’ cultures. Azzawi is not only searching for inspiration from his country’s heritage 

via visual culture but also is adding and enhancing new artefacts to our visual universe. 

Specifically, his utilisation of letters, words, or poems within his works is a follow-up to 

illustrated poems, i.e., traditional Islamic miniatures, and he is developing Iraqi heritage 

and culture’s modern visual poem as a means for linking letters and words with painting. 

He wanted to create a connection between alphabetical elements and other visual shapes, 



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i.e., a dialogue between visual arts and writing. Therefore, reading Azzawi’s works is an 

act that capacitates us to recognise the Arabic letters’ symbolic language that he 

simplifies and clarifies with his figurative style. Consequently, we can read his concepts 

and ideas and generate many reactions and feelings to his artistic endeavour to reflect his 

pride and cultural identity, as a modern Iraqi artist (figs. 56 & 57). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 56. Dia al-Azzawi, 1986, Object: Oriental scene, mixed media on cardboard, 51 x 41 x 1.20 cm. 

Retrieved from https://www.britishmuseum.org/ 

https://www.britishmuseum.org/


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Figure 57. Dia al-Azzawi, 1981, Ijlal li Iraq, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm. Retrieved from 

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6061410  

   

 

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6061410


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4.3.8. Contemporary Algerian artist: Rachid Koraichi 

 

Much of Rachid Koraichi’s work also includes typically magic squares and pseudo-

writing characters. Though many of his elements are inspired by writing, they cannot be 

read in any language. He was born in 1947 in Algeria, studied in Paris, and currently lives 

in Tunisia and is thus aware of North Africa’s long artistic tradition. This artist 

incorporates popular talismans and symbols in his works, much of which comprises local 

craft traditions, from smithing and pottery to weaving. Some of his work is inspired 

politically. Often, his lithographs and prints revolve around the writings of popular poets, 

including Palestinian author Mahmoud Darwish, whose poem ‘Beirut’ was inscribed 

Israeli siege of the city in 1982, or Mohammed Dib, whose work covers the breadth of 

20th-century Algerian history, concentrating on Algeria’s war for independence. Koraichi 

never in their entirety writes the poems, instead electing fragments that he reverses, 

reorients, or repeats, frequently in mirror reverse. Also, his works of art are Sufi-inspired, 

and he credits his family with stimulating his mystical tendencies. Koraichi prefers 

monochrome or bichrome to polychromatic, commonly contrasting gold on blue or black 

on white. In the 1990s, he worked in various media. For example, three series of 98 

amulets produced in 1994 were small polished steel arrows etched with pictograms 

(geometric shapes, numbers, scarabs, crescent moons, and a variety of letters - some look 

like Japanese or Arabic characters). Golden Barque from the series of 7 silk-screen 

banners produced between 1993 and '95, is ornamented with pseudo-Chinese elements in 

gold on a ground of dark blue. Koraichi selected the colours as symbols: gold to represent 



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sheer matter and royalty and blue to symbolise the sky. The combination of gold on 

indigo blue also remembers the Dome of the Rock’s mosaic epigraphs, our earliest 

historical evidence of the penning down of the Koran. He set some signs or symbols in a 

grid bringing to mind a magic square, recalling the same popular imagery utilised by 

Moustafa, but arranged others in the form of a barque, evoking Egyptian funerary papyri. 

Also, he plays with orientation and mirror, and like many of his texts, his signature 

underneath the banner is shown in mirror-reverse, although the date in numbers correctly 

reads. This arrangement is intentional, as he believes texts should be inscribed as if 

reflected in a mirror such that the meaning is concealed from those who do not 

understand. Therefore, the artist is a mirror and mediator that reflects divine 

transcendence. He has recently amalgamated many of these unique works of art in multi-

media installations that indicate his Sufi-inspired philosophy. Koraichi’s Le Chemin de 

Roses (Path of Roses) exhibited at the 49th Venice Biennial in 2001, entitled 

Authentic/Ex-centric and in the winter of 2002-3 presented at Cornell University’s 

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY, is a collection of embroidered silk 

banners (scroll-like), ceramic basins, and steel sculptures fixed on wooden blocks and the 

wall (figs. 58 & 59). The installation, according to the artist, was meant to recreate the 

safar (travel) of the great Islamic Sufi Maulana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi across the 

continents, both metaphorically and literally. These basins, inspired by indigenous and 

local pottery traditions and aimed to evoke those utilised for ritual ablution, are penned 

with quotations from Maulana. The 28 free-standing sculptures, measuring a meter high, 

reflect the 28 Arabic alphabetical characters. In shape, they recall the whirling darwishes 



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who dance to the music of time. He seeks to form an alphabet of memory that goes 

beyond the boundaries of time and space, wherein the sacred and indecent converge into 

one. Koraichi has abstracted writing and signs and turned the alphabetical elements into 

an ideological and aesthetic act. 

 

 

Figure 58. Rachid Koraichi, 2001, Le Chemin de Roses, embroidered silk banners, Retrieved from 

https://universes.art/en/venice-biennale/2001/authentic-ex-centric/rachid-koraichi. 

 

 



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Figure 59. Rachid Koraichi, 2001, Le Chemin de Roses, steel sculptures. Retrieved from 

https://universes.art/en/venice-biennale/2001/authentic-ex-centric/rachid-koraichi. 

 

 

 

4.4. Summary 

 

Examining the artists’ works backed by referral to their personal and career lives 

— clarifies their applications and potentialities of letters and words, converting their 

meanings into national and cultural identities. On the other hand, among the fluctuations 

of contemporary visual culture, the artworks of practitioners reflect the capabilities of the 



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alphabetical characters as a visual expression with different interpretations that display 

collective or individual experiences and demonstrate a glimpse of the artist’s culture and 

identity. The universal ideas of modern and contemporary artists present hybrid 

viewpoints of the alphabet and use the letters’ dynamics and vitality as navigation sites 

for opening dialogue with oneself and others. Forasmuch as most artists see themselves in 

an international context and thus are aware of many cultural factors and influences, their 

letters have identical attributes, in spite of being styled with Arabic script or transmitting 

Islamic text. As such, the letter forms are an extension of their contemporary 

practitioners, representing a predominant feature of their universal identity. 

Contemporary Islamic world art carries the essence of modern art, but it functions within 

a much larger context. Contemporary works of art typically operate as dots of navigation, 

enabling interplays amongst traditional and modern, local and universal, while regarding 

political, social, and personal alterations without contradiction. On the other hand, 

contemporary artists developed their own comprehensions and interpretations of letters 

within their works. They have a distinct understanding of world culture and, in response 

to contemporary Islamic art, codify their artistic languages and use Arabic letter shapes to 

reflect political, cultural, social, and personal experiences, but in connection with a larger 

framework and audience. These artists comprehend the nature of the alphabetical 

characters and incorporate them in a powerful visual method to present their viewpoints 

and experiences, thus giving us a glimpse of their contemporary hybrid identity. 

Therefore, letters within modern artwork also transmit numerous interpretations and 

allow the viewers to engage based on how they see, perceive, and read the work. 



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Conclusion 

 

Calligraphy is the sole kind of visual art invariably acclaimed by Muslims, and its 

pervasiveness is the one attribute that distinguishes Islamic art from other traditional art 

forms. In contemporary times, besides modifying traditional methods, artists are 

proceeding to develop the aesthetic borders of Islamic calligraphy, aiming to extend the 

media and materials utilised to write calligraphy and to integrate them into their artistic 

structures. Contrary to traditional calligraphy, modern calligraphic art celebrates the 

letter’s visual display, and these new artistic expressions emerge as individual creations 

and expressions rather than a replication of a Koranic message. While the aesthetics of 

traditional calligraphy were formed based on religious aims, modern aesthetics respond to 

the universal streams of a contemporary secularised globe and art markets. Modern 

aesthetics, like modern national and textual structures, are rooted in Western traditions, 

not Islamic. The base of the modern calligraphic movement in contemporary Islamic art 

is the traditional Islamic art of calligraphy. It was calligraphy’s central nature as a 

medium of Islamic art and aesthetics that caused artists to come back to the alphabet in 

pursuit of artistic identity. Islamic calligraphy is alive and energetic in the contemporary 

period. Many artists are copying and duplicating traditional scripts, many associations 

and schools are educating traditional procedures, and many scholars and academics are 

studying traditional styles. Other practitioners are moving in new innovative directions, 

substituting pen and ink on paper and parchment with various media. Some are 

converting calligraphic elements into three-dimensional shapes and creating calligraphic 



184 
 

sculptures of novel materials such as bronze and wood. Many others are supplanting the 

pen with the paintbrush, painting calligraphic motifs in watercolours, acrylics, and oils, 

getting them in collages, or employing them on other media like etching and silkscreen. 

Calligraphy is an element often integrated into multi-media structures that can be either 

abstract or symbolic. In these artworks, the balance has mainly shifted from legibility to 

visibility, meaning that calligraphy is regarded more by its formal qualities than by its 

semantics.   

Iranian contemporary artists have employed the written language in many unique 

ways that examine their potentialities and capabilities to represent philosophical, 

historical, cultural, social, and political themes. With artists using materials and media to 

extend their creative energies, such explorations have become platforms for practitioners 

to express their identities, whilst enriching our visual universe. Contemporary artists 

varyingly utilise letter shapes to create exhaustive and appealing experiences for the 

audiences whilst formulating their cultural and artistic identities. They have been affected 

by Western art philosophy and methods, through which they have strived to represent 

their national and cultural legacy while investigating new possibilities. Within this 

context, the Iranian art of today can be seen as collective, ingenious, and varied attempts 

at self-expression, influenced by the individual artist’s lifestyle, culture, and history, to 

reflect specific identities. Hence, modern Iranian artists utilise elements from their legacy 

and culture, altering and combining them based on their artistic techniques and styles to 

use them as the principal components in their artworks. In particular, the letters are used 



185 
 

not only as unique textual or visual elements but also, they are tied to contemporary 

artistic currents, and hence, the utilisation of the alphabetical characters was a powerful 

expression of a desired Iranian national identity. Therefore, in modern Iranian artworks, 

the letters are abstracted, modified, simplified, reduced, or stretched, according to the 

visions and desires of artists. The utilisation of the calligraphic elements indicates the 

artist’s realisation of the letter forms as entities powerful enough to convey textually and 

visually thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. 

Contemporary Iranian artists, like their modernist antecedents, see themselves as 

partaking in both national and international art, in a similar way formulating their artistic 

techniques, integrating the letters within their works but using the letter shapes in new 

approaches to varied mediums appropriate for contemporary procedures. They do not 

forsake their oriental traditions or origins to embrace Western ones. These artists do not 

move away from the theoretical and cultural structures of the East and assert to be 

Westernized. They belong everywhere, especially currently, in a universe that is more 

than ever global and strongly connected by developed communications. Since 

contemporary artists see themselves as universal citizens, their letters are also 

comprehensive and appeal to worldwide viewers, not only those who comprehend the 

language but also those who can find pleasure in the sheer visuality of the calligraphy. 

The present study investigates the potentialities of the Islamic calligraphic image 

for contemporary Iranian painting. This study includes different viewpoints from artists 

who moved in similar directions. Hence, the iconographical study of their works reveals 



186 
 

an awareness of a time in modern art’s history of the Islamic universe, specifically in 

Iran. In addition, examining modern calligraphic painting pioneers’ ideas and works 

allows me to build on their practise without repetition. Tracking the pioneers uncovers 

further significant contextual material that brings to light international influences and 

connections, innovations in practise, and new relationships with history, socio-political 

movements, and theory. This research indicates that representing identity with visual 

motifs presents a straight way to communicate with viewers from diverse backgrounds. 

Also, it demonstrates more tangible features of the way that people perceive their 

traditions. This research aims to inspire both traditional calligraphy and modern 

calligraphic painting practitioners to share, improve, enhance, and develop the Arabic-

Farsi alphabetical characters and their writing system. Regarding future work, I will keep 

exploring, experimenting, analyzing, creating, sharing, teaching, and learning about the 

potentialities and visual applications of Islamic calligraphy. I hope the study of 

calligraphic art from modern times and a contemporary practise can resonate in more 

research.  

 

 

 

 

 



187 
 

Appendix A: The Arabic and Persian Alphabet 

 

The Arabic and Persian writing systems are alphabetical in nature and run in texts from 

right to left and in mathematics and numbers from left to right. The Arabic alphabet 

includes 28 letters, but only 18 have distinct and basic letter forms, as some letters have 

the same shape but distinguish themselves with directional dots. Alphabetical characters 

can be arranged within historical or graphical methods. The most common way to arrange 

letters is according to their graphical similarity. In this system, letters with the same basic 

shapes are arranged one after the other and are differentiated by direction points. But, in 

the historical system, the abjad letters are grouped based on their numerical values. This 

system is less common but is still utilised, for example, to outline or number pages in 

some classical books. The Arabic language alphabet has only consonants, so short vowels 

are added above or below the letters to clarify the pronunciation. These short vowels are 

directional indicators, called vocalisation marks. The texts can be inscribed without these 

vocalisation marks, but they are necessary for transcribing the Koran because they help 

prevent ambiguity and misinterpretation. The consonants are divided into solar and lunar 

letters, each with 14 letters. These two groups of letters behave in a different manner 

when pronounced with the definite article al. With a solar letter after al, just a will be 

pronounced, not l, while with a lunar letter after, both sounds of the letters al will be 

pronounced. The standard Arabic manner of lettering employs notably different forms 

based on whether letters will connect to preceding or following letters. Except for 6 

letters that connect just from one side, most letters are connected to the adjacent letters on 



188 
 

both sides. Hence, letters constantly amalgamate and change their forms according to the 

suitable formation of words.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1. The Arabic alphabet in graphical and historical systems. 

 

1 alif 1 ا ا 

2 bāʾ 2 ب ب 

3 tāʾ 3 ج ت 

4 thāʾ 4 د ث 

5 jīm 5 ه ج 

6 ḥāʾ 6 و ح 

7 khāʾ 7 ز خ 

8 dāl 8 ح د 

 9 dhāl 9 ط ذ 

10 rāʾ 10 ی ر 

11 zāy 20 ک ز 

12 sīn 30 ل س 

13 shin 40 م ش 

14 ṣād 50 ن ص 

15 ḍād 60 س ض 

16 ṭāʾ 70 ع ط 

17 ẓāʾ 80 ف ظ 

18 ayn 90 ص ع 

19 ghayn 100 ق غ 

20 fāʾ 200 ر ف 

21 qāf 300 ش ق 

22 kāf 400 ت ک 

23 lām 500 ث ل 

24 mīm 600 خ م 

25 nūn 700 ذ ن 

26 hāʾ 800 ض ه 

27 wāw 900 ظ و 

28 yāʾ 1000 غ ی 



189 
 

Solar letters  ن -ل  –ظ  –ط  –ض  –ص  –ش  –س  –ز  –ر  –ذ  –د  –ث  –ت  

Lunar letters  ی  –و  –ه  –م  –ک  –ق  –ف  –غ    –ع  –خ  –ح  –ج  –ب  –ا  

 

Table 2. The Arabic solar and lunar letters. 

Name Transcription Final Medial Initial Independent 

alif ā ا ا ا ا 

bāʾ b  ب  بـ ـبـ ـب 

tāʾ t  ت  تـ ـتـ ـت 

thāʾ th  ث  ثـ ـثـ ـث 

jīm j ج جـ ـجـ ـج 

ḥāʾ ḥ ح حـ ـحـ ـح 

khāʾ kh خ خـ ـخـ ـخ 

dāl d د د ـد ـد 

dhāl dh ذ ذ ـذ ـذ 

rāʾ r ر ر ـر ـر 

zāʾ z ز ز ـز ـز 

sīn s  س  سـ ـسـ ـس 

shīn sh  ش  شـ ـشـ ـش 

ṣād ṣ ص صـ ـصـ ـص 

ḍād ḍ ض ضـ ـضـ ـض 

ṭāʾ ṭ  ط  ط ـ ـط ـ ـط 

ẓāʾ ẓ  ظ  ظ ـ ـظ ـ ـظ 

ayn . ع عـ ـعـ ـع 

ghayn gh غ غـ ـغـ ـغ 

fāʾ f  ف  فـ ـفـ ـف 

qāf q  ق  قـ ـقـ ـق 

kāf k  ک  کـ ـکـ ـک 

lām l  ل  لـ ـلـ ـل 

mīm m م مـ ـمـ ـم 

nūn n ن نـ ـنـ ـن 

hāʾ h  ه هـ ـهـ ـه 

wāw w/ū و و ـو ـو 

yāʾ y/ī یـ ـی ـ  ـی    ی 

lām-alif lā ال  ال  -ال -ال 

tāʾmarbūta a/at ة . -ة -ة 

 

Table 3. Chart of the 28 letters in the Arabic abjad ( when Arabic script was adapted to write Persian, 

which have sounds like p (پ) and g (ج) that are not utilized in Arabic, the abjad was increased to 32 

letters by adding extra bars or dots. For example, p (پ) is written like b ( ب) but which three dots below 

instesd of one) 



190 
 

Sign Description Visual Representation 

Fathah One stripe placed above the 

letters, denoting a short vowel 

a. 

َ- 

Kasrah  One stripe placed beneath the 

letters, denoting a short vowel 

i. 

ِ- 

Ḍammah Placed above the letters, 

denoting a short vowel u. 

ُ- 

Tanwin Fathah Dual stripes placed above the 

letters, denoting a short vowel 

an. 

ً- 

Tanwin Kasrah Dual stripes placed beneath the 

letters, denoting a short vowel 

in. 

ٍ- 

Tanwin Dammah Placed above the letters, 

denoting a short vowel un. 

ٌ- 

Sukun Placed above the letters, 

denoting a lack of a short 

vowel, indicating a kind of 

consonant enhancers. 

 ــْ

Shaddah Placed above the letters, often 

joined with any mark of the 

short vowels, denoting an 

emphasis on the consonant-

letter, as a kind of consonant 

enhancer. 

ّ- 

Hamzah Placed above the letters, 

usually joined with long vowel 

letters—alif (a), waw (u), ya 

(i), denoting a glottal stop. 

Also, when hamzah is placed 

beneath letter alif it indicates 

the vowel i, as a short glottal.  

Hamzah is accounted a letter 

when applied in a free-standing 

shape and in a bigger size. 

 ء

Maddah Placed above the letter alif 

denoting a prolonged sound, as 

it indicates the diphthong. 

 آ

Waslah Placed above the letter alif, 

with no pronunciational value. 

 ٱ

Table 4. Vocalisation marks for the Arabic writing system 



191 
 

Appendix B: Timeline 

 

The following timeline outlines major shifts and contributions with regard to the visual 

and material form of Arabic script. Entries highlight the multiple visual conventions and 

practices of inscription employed in Arabic writing. Special attention is directed toward 

movements and developments explored in the dissertation chapters. 

 

 

300-400 C.E          From the 2nd century B.C. to the 4th A.D., Nabateans travelled the 

pathways from Yemen to Petra and used written Aramaic language to 

record their documents. The Nabatean inscriptions’ epigraphic study 

traces a gradual transformation from Aramaic alphabetical characters 

of distinct shapes into cursive writing of ligatured letters. Also, written 

Nabatean, over time, incorporates all kinds of Arabic words and 

names. 

600-700 C.E.        The earliest reference to a specific Arabic script appears in the 6th 

century with the label Jazm. It originated from the Nabataean writing 

system and became the primal reference from which ensuing Arabic 

scripts formed. Jazm is an unrefined script, characterised by letters of a 

stiff angular appearance and equal proportion. Bishr Ibn Abd al-Malik 

and Harb Ibn Umayyah are credited with transmitting a similar script 

to the Hijaz and Mecca. 

 

570-632 C.E.        The Holy Koran, during the 7th century, was revealed to the Prophet 

Mohammad. Though many fragments of the Koran were documented 

in writing within the Prophet’s duration of life, because of the 

historical possibility of new revelations and additions, the verses were 

not formally collected in their entirety. When the Prophet died in 632 

C.E., the Koran’s revelation ended.  

632-650 C.E.           The Koran was memorised orally by a faithful group of huffaz. 

Nevertheless, in the military campaigns that followed the Prophet’s 

death, a number of loyal and trustworthy huffazes were killed in war. 



192 
 

Concerned about the consequences of this loss, Umar ibn Khattab 

suggested that Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, collect and collate the Koran 

as a written text. Abu Bakr requested the Prophet’s personal secretary, 

Zayd ibn Thabit, to oversee the gathering of an organised and written 

Koran. He accepts the assignment and commences collecting 

fragments inscribed (on the materials including cloth, parchment, palm 

stalks, and the camel’s shoulder bones). Each written piece is carefully 

confirmed and verified against two witnesses from dependable huffaz. 

                                  

644-656 C.E.        When Zayd had assembled a complete version, the Caliph Uthman 

permitted the formal written text to be authorised for distribution. 

Muslims refer to these texts as mushaf to differentiate them from the 

Koran’s orally recited. mushaf. Initial mushaf are transcribed in a 

number of styles, commonly called after the place wherein they were 

written. These consist of the Makki and Madini, which are called after 

Islam’s holy cities, and the Kufic script from the city of Kufa, which 

obtains popularity for its grandeur, refinement, and aesthetic balance. 

 There were two main writing styles that led to the formation of all 

other ensuing script styles, each with distinct attributes; one was called 

Muqawwar va Mudawwar (مقور و مدور), and the other, called Mabsut 

va Mustaqim (مبسوط و مستقیم). These two major characteristics governed 

the growth and development of the primary Makki and Madini styles 

and resulted in the shaping of a few scripts, the most significant of 

them were Ma‘il, Mashq, and Naskh. 

 

661-755 C.E.         The Umayyad capital, Damascus, became a centre of Arabic writing 

with the advent of Tumar and Jali scripts. Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 

685-705) mandated the official utilisation of Arabic for all government 

documents. Umayyad coins show Arabic script instead of images as an 

indication of visual dominance. The Tumar’s grand naskh script turned 

into the official script of the Umayyad state, and numerous styles 

based their relations and measurements on the height of the alif (الف) in 

the Tumar. 

 

 

 

 



193 
 

675-725 C.E.        Abul Aswad al-Du‘ali (d. 688), an Umayyad scholar, in the 7th century, 

notices that spoken Arabic’s linguistic habits are changing and 

commences an examination of Arabic grammar. Ad-Du‘ali, to address 

the matter, offers the tashkīl (diacritisation or vocalisation) system, 

wherein coloured marks indicate the vowel sounds as diacritics that do 

not exist as independent Arabic letters. In primal Arabic writing, 

however, certain letter forms could also have more than one consonant. 

So, Yahya ibn Ya‘mar and Nasr ibn Asim, innovate a system wherein 

diacritical nokte (dots) are placed below and above basic letter forms to 

differentiate consonants. Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (d. 786), an 

Abbasid scribe, facilitated the earlier diacritical marking system for 

general utilisation. He keeps nokte for distinguishing consonants but 

substitutes the tashkīl’s coloured marks with 8 new diacritical signs.   

 

750-1258 C.E.    During the Abbasid time, script development continued, fueled by the 

spread and introduction of paper across Muslim lands. a series of naskh 

styles known as al-aqlam al-sittah were commonly utilised across the 

East of the Islamic universe. The six pens became formalised as three 

pairs of scripts: Thuluth and Naskh, Muhaqqaq and Rayhani, and Tawqi 

and Riqa. Every pair included a larger ornamental variety and a smaller 

script with finer lines. The Abbasids later employed the Tawqi as the 

official autograph script of commands and administrative declarations. 

This selection visually differentiated the new dynasty from the 

Umayyads’ Tumar texts, stressing the territorial role of writing as a sign 

of religious and political unity.  

 

 

 

786 C.E.             Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (d. 786), an Abbasid scribe, facilitated the 

earlier diacritical marking system for general utilisation. He keeps nokte 

for distinguishing consonants but substitutes the tashkīl’s coloured 

marks with 8 new diacritical signs. The changes were encountered with 

resistance and at first confined to secular writings (written changes may 

have been assumed as modifying the Koran’s text). However, 

opposition decreases over time, and vocalisation marks become 

functional and helpful, especially for instructing the right Koranic 

recitation. These marks are still applied to the transcription of religious 

documents and books. 



194 
 

886-940 C.E         Ibn Muqlah (866-940) for administrative objectives, pursued 

systematising the appearance of naskh styles, and his subsequent 

reforms drastically reorganised the universe of Arabic writing. He 

applied an accurate system of geometrical reform in the writing and, 

specifically, the gathered canon of the six pens. The system came to be 

recognised as al-khatt al-mansub (الخط المنسوب) (proportioned script). 

Al-khatt al-mansub presented the Arabic script with an official 

constancy of written design and gradually became the basis of the 

Arabic calligraphic tradition. The new system proportioned the shapes 

and sizes of letters based on three parameters: nokte (dot), alif, and the 

circle. The visual integrity of a script is controlled by repeating 

identical forms amongst letters. Consequently, the script’s distinct 

styles came to be recognisable regarding their employed proportions 

and the base nokte (dot) measurement of the alif. Therefore, the alif in 

thuluth script measured 7 nokte tall; the alif in naskh measured 5, and 

the alif in muhaqqaq measured 9. Ibn Muqlah, proposing these 

standards, wanted to ease the interchange of written communication 

amongst a rapidly extending scribal community. 

 

 

 

900 C.E.                Kufic variants, alongside al-khatt al-mansub, were revitalised as a 

symbolic and decorative pattern. New Kufic scripts stressed visual and 

aesthetic shape rather than readability, including intricate woven, 

floriated, zoomorphic, and geometric designs. Stylised Kufic might 

display Koranic verses, religious phrases, or religious figures’ names 

as a running epigraph or it might shape religious content in the form of 

complicated visual puzzles. 

1022 C.E.              Ali ibn Hilal ibn al-Bawwab (d. 1022) was a scribe with an artistic look 

at the movement and rhythm that found expression in the graceful 

curves and flowing lines. Ibn al-Bawwab’s writings meticulously 

reproduce the al-khatt al-mansub’s strict proportions. He, who was 

famous for the elegance, harmony, and consistency of the script, 

perfected and beautified the calligraphic system of Ibn Muqlah and 

raised the naskh script to the position of a visual and aesthetic art 

worthy of the Koran by relying on the al-khatt al-mansub.   

 



195 
 

1298 C.E.             Yaqut practised calligraphy in Baghdad under master Safi al-Din Abd 

al-Mumin al-Urmawi (d.1294), and like Ibn Muqla, became the 

Abbasid chancery’s secretary. After Hulagu (r. 1256-1265), in 1258, 

took Baghdad, Yaqut stayed in the city, where his art flourished under 

new state support. Yaqut became well-known for his script, exemplary 

teaching, prodigious output, and way of trimming the pen. 

 

1256-1508 C.E.   In the early 13th century, the Mongol invasions disturbed the eastern 

Islamic lands’ political and economic infrastructure, and the year that 

the caliphate was overthrown by the Mongols is often taken as a 

landmark. Nevertheless, in spite of the devastations wrought, many 

cultural and social norms persisted, and after these heathen warriors’ 

conversion, Islam again appeared as the official religion across west 

Asia. This was the era of Persianate culture and Mongol prestige, and 

the Persian speaking lands, under the domination of Mongol and 

Turkoman dynasties, set the basis and standards in calligraphic 

tradition like other arts. The Six Pens (round styles) continued to be 

the main scripts for writing, and the Korans produced during this 

period are some of the best recognised. One of the important 

innovations of the time was the expansion of calligraphy to other areas 

and media, including stucco and tile. The increasing dominance of the 

Persian language and literature also caused the development of 

hanging scripts, ta‘liq ( قیتعل  ), and nasta‘liq  ( ق ینستعل ). 

 

1370 -1507 C.E.     In the early 15th century, under the backing of the Timurid sovereign, 

the revival of Ilkhanid traditions expanded to the arts, including 

calligraphy, and the calligraphic masters adopted the scripts canonised 

by Yaqut. The Timurid princes were very creative, celebrated devotees 

and skillful administrators of Fine Arts. It was during the Timurid rule 

that calligraphic art found its full development, and this art underwent 

a revolutionary transformation, and the nasta‘liq script was invented. 

 

1501-1736 C.E.    The Safavids were a religious sovereignty based upon Shiism that 

continued for almost two centuries. With the imposition of Shiism as 

the state-enforced dogma on the whole of society, a new dimension of 

socio-cultural identity began to take root. Notwithstanding the 

expansive ethnical and linguistic variety within the Safavid realm, the 

state-supported Shiite credo with a Persian interpretation and the 

Arabic theological semblance demonstrated to be significantly 



196 
 

enduring. This alter influenced the election of texts penned, as new 

poems and devotions to the Shiite imams came to be introduced into 

the traditional index of the Koran and hadiths. 

1554-1615 C.E.    The influence of master Mir Imad al-Hassani Qazvini (assassinated 

1615), who was recognised for his crisp and unique writing style, in 

later centuries extended to Ottoman Turkey, where nasta‘liq’s 

practitioners still follow his specimens precisely. He became the most 

noteworthy calligrapher at Shah Abbas’s court and the chief 

competitor of Ali Riza Abbasi, a designer of epigraphs. His creative 

compositions were immensely known and popular both the duration of 

his lifetime and after his demise, and his calligraphic specimens, as 

those of his predecessor, master Mir Ali Haravi, were gathered 

diligently. He is most celebrated for his quatrains inscribed in diagonal 

structure canonized by Mir Ali Haravi (1476-1544), but with a 

heavier, bolder line and an excessive contrast between thin and thick 

strokes 

1601-1800 C.E.      Calligraphic artists also streamlined the style of nasta‘liq, and 

developed a script entitled shikasta nasta‘liq ( قی شکسته نستعل ) (broken 

nasta‘liq), commonly shortened to shikasta. One of the first 

trailblazers was Mohammad Shafi Haravi Husayni (d. 1670-1), and 

another was Murtadaquli Khan Shamlu (d. 1688-9) (Isfahani, 1990, p. 

179). But with the emergence of Abdul Majid Taliqani (d. I773), this 

style reached the height of perfection and beauty and there was a 

change in calligraphy. 

1796-1925 C.E.    The Qajar sovereigns were well-informed in the traditional Persian arts 

and literature, and during their rule, many beautiful books were 

produced, usually penned in a compact and elegant nasta‘liq 

sumptuously decorated. However, few specimens have been 

published, especially in the West, because traditionally this period has 

been taken as one of downturn and decline. Now even as the arts of 

this period are being reexamined, most Western studies focus on 

architecture, figural painting, or other arts. Today, this situation is 

being rectified to some extent in Iran, and various centres of Islamic 

and calligraphy are producing comprehensive investigations on 19th-

century calligraphic masters. 



197 
 

1829-1892 C.E.    Mirza Mohammad Riza Kalhur (1829-92). Kalhur was the most 

significant calligrapher of the 19th century, credited for revitalising the 

nasta‘liq style perfected by Mir Imad al-Hassani. Mir Imad’s heirs in 

the 17th and early 18th centuries had developed a more elongated 

nasta‘liq style with greater spaces between the words, while Kalhur 

revived the more compacted tradition,  inscribing words on a smaller 

measure in a single movement, making shorter connections and 

strokes, and piling letters and words together to get a thicker structure. 

 In the 19th century, nasta‘liq was also adopted for lithographed books. 

At this time, Iranian society was taking the first steps toward 

modernisation, and calligraphy was included in applied arts and was 

accompanied by these evolutions, pursuing new tendencies vis-à-vis 

the requirements of contemporary society in the previous century. 

 

1851 C.E.               The founding of the Dar al-funun, the earliest modern academy of its 

kind by Amir Kabir in 1851, was a noticeable movement in Iran’s 

educative system. European educators (chiefly French, Italian, and 

Austrian) instructed students in the spheres of engineering, medicine, 

music, foreign languages, and military sciences. Also, the school held 

classes inclusive of lithographic printing and photography. 

1861-1936 C.E.    After Kalhur, a new era began with Imad al-Kitab (1861-1936) that 

continues up to this time (today, our traditional calligraphy has been 

influenced more by Imad al-Kitab than by Kalhur). Imad al-Kitab is 

mentioned as the perfecter of the Kalhur style. Without being Kalhur’s 

direct pupil, he practised from his printed books, learned his manner 

with great loyalty and obsession, and passed it on to others without 

interfering too much with this method. Imad al-Kitab experienced the 

troubled and critical period of the Constitutional Revolution, and not 

only calligraphers but also painters, writers, and intellectuals 

contributed to this experience. Generally, our contemporary 

calligraphy begins with Imad al-Kitab, and he is the last link in the 

chain of old masters of calligraphy who connected this art to 

contemporary calligraphers. 



198 
 

1905-1909 C.E.   The Constitutional Revolution, whose principal purpose was to establish 

a parliamentary government and overthrow despotism, was a 

considerable moment in the history of Iran that indicated Iranians’ 

historical consciousness of their new role in the system of modern 

nations. The revolution resulted in the foundation of the first Majlis or 

parliament on 30 Dec 1906 in Iran. 

 

1911C.E.                The Academy of Fine Arts, Madreseh sanaye mostazrafeh, was 

established in 1911 by Kamal al-Molk. The school kept its activities 

after Kamal al-Molk’s departure in 1927, but it was brought under 

closer government control until its demise following World War II. In 

1930, with the arrival of Hossein Taherzadeh Behzad, Madreseh’s 

administration was reorganised. 

1914-1918 C.E.      World War I was concurrent with the rule of Ahmad Shah Qajar, and 

Iran’s constitutional regime was going through its worst and weakest 

period. Hostile forces, in spite of the declaration of the Iranian 

government’s neutrality, entered Iran from the north and south. Due to 

Iran’s occupation by Russia and Britain, and the commencing of the 

famine of 1917-1919, at that time, many Iranians died. 

1925- 1941 C.E.     When Riza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, came to power in 

1925, the opening of art schools and the granting of scholarships to 

students to continue their studies in Europe continued. Riza Shah 

supported traditional and modern arts such as calligraphy and painting. 

His accomplishments could be summarised under three rubrics: 

constructing the foundation of a modern government, claiming 

autonomy from alien domination, and beginning sociological-cultural 

renovation. The time of Riza Shah witnessed the forming of a new-

found order. He consolidated his authority by reinforcing his help on 

three principles: the new military, the government bureaucracy, and 

the court patronage. For the first time following the Safavids dynasty, 

the state controlled the community with extensive means of 

domination, administration, and regulation. Riza Shah’s renovation 

policy affected a variety of social life in Iran. Government policy was 

a determined factor in bringing into existence a united nation. 

Thereby, fundamental modifications were seen in various fields, 

including the disarmament and settlement of the tribes, the 

establishment of a modern structure of bureaucracy and military, the 



199 
 

construction of rails, roads, and harbor facilities, the introduction of 

Western attiring, the commencements of industrial development, and 

the presentation the European educational and legal method. This 

procedure stimulated Iranian society to adapt itself to Western life. 

 

1928 C.E.              Hunaristan-i Kamal al-Molk (Kamal al-Molk Fine Arts High School 

of), established by Ismail Ashtiani; after Kamal al Molk’s resignation, 

it was re-organised and renamed Madraseh Sanaye pisha va hunar 

(School of Crafts and the Arts).    

1939-1945/6 C.E.   After the beginning of World War II, despite the declaration of Iran’s 

neutrality, after the starting of the German invasion of the Soviet 

Union, because of the expansion of Iran’s boundary with the Soviet 

Union, this neutrality was unsteady. The Allied forces decided to 

utilise Iran as a corridor to equip their forces, and thus, on August 25, 

1941, they occupied Iran. 

 

1941- 1979 C.E.     Mohammad Riza Pahlavi was the second and last king of the Pahlavi 

dynasty. After the abdication of his father Riza Shah, he became king 

in the National Council and was deposed by the revolution of 1357. 

1953 C.E.               After the 1953 coup d’état, whereby Mohammad Mosaddeq’s 

government was ousted with the backing of the British and American 

intelligence agencies, the Pahlavi’s regime confronted a crisis of 

legitimacy, and most intellectuals became critics of the political 

structure. 

1934 C.E.               The University of Tehran was established as a centre for scientific and 

cultural modernism. 

1939 C.E.                  Tehran Faculty of Fine Arts was founded under the direction of 

André Godard. Its teaching staff was drawn from French-trained 

architects and Kamal al-Molk’s students. 



200 
 

1949 C.E.                  Surrealist concepts and practices progressively arrived from 

literature to visual arts during the 1940s and 1950s. This matter 

occurred primarily via the endeavors of the Khorus Jangi, which was 

the title given to an avant-garde group of artists and writers, as well 

as to the magazine inside of which they published their critical and 

innovative works. Each issue was displayed with the figure of the 

Fighting Cock designed by Jalil Ziapour. There was a break when the 

magazine was discontinued by Government coercion. Ziapour 

abandoned Khorus Jangi in this situation and commenced an 

alternative magazine entitled Kavir. This also was prevented by the 

state, and Ziapour carried on to begin yet another magazine, called 

Panje Khorus. Khorus Jangi was resuscitated in 1951, by 

Gholamhossein Gharib and another group of writers and artists. The 

second series includes numerous articles about contemporary art, and 

most significantly the Manifesto Sallākh-e Bolbol. The lively 

burgeoning of the Khorus Jangi at the initiate of the 1950s was 

temporary, but it helped notably to the appearance of a surrealist 

visual shape that had before been in evolution for some decades in 

literary forms.   

1958-1966 C.E.      The Tehran Biennial commenced with the backing of the General 

Administration of Fine Art, established under the surveillance of the 

Ministry of Culture in 1951. The earliest Biennial was on 14th April 

1958, and the fifth one occurred on 21st June 1966. 

1960 C.E.               The Saqqa-khaneh movement came into being amid the country’s 

renovation in an endeavor to connect the traditional culture of Iran 

with visual arts’ modern and contemporary facets and especially with 

Western contemporary paintings. Abiding by Iranian tradition was 

not the primary engine driving Saqqa-khaneh art, nor was it to 

emulate Western art. New viewpoints, visual forms, and 

compositions of art employed by the movement’s artists as the 

expression of their beliefs, visions, and emotions in the process of 

artistic creation arise from the contemporary cultures of Iran. The 

Saqqa-khaneh movement’s practitioners have taken Iranian ethnic 

literary and artistic traditions further than their actual context, 

presenting a style that combines Western and Iranian artistic 



201 
 

conventions. The movement artists’ works exemplify and testify to a 

time in the history of modern Iranian art. 

1961 C.E.                Hunarkadeh-ye hunar-haye Tazini, was founded with the aim of 

training applied arts experts. Several modernist designers, sculptors, 

and painters who had an essential role in the growth of modern and 

contemporary visual art in Iran were educated in this institution 

under the supervision of Iranian and foreign educators. Varied 

disciplines including interior architecture, painting, graphic design, 

decorative painting, and sculpture with fundamental stress on applied 

arts were trained in this college. Here, pupils were encouraged to 

pursue symbols, idioms, and folklore sources of inspiration to 

acquaint themselves with the decorative legacy of Iran through 

diverse courses. 

1963 C.E.               The White Revolution (the Revolution of the Shah and the People) is 

the name of a series of social and economic changes that were 

realised in Iran during the regime of Mohammad Riza Shah Pahlavi 

and with the aid of the then prime ministers.  

1979 C.E.                 The Islamic Revolution was a political-social transformation. It was 

accomplished with the participation of diverse classes of Iranians. It 

ousted the Pahlavi regime and paved the way for the foundation of 

the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of Ruhollah 

Khomeini. 

 

1980 C.E.                Five different institutes of arts (Tehran Faculty of Decorative Arts, 

Farabi University, Tehran Faculty of Dramatic Arts, National Music 

Studio and Conservatory of Music) combined together and 

Daneshgah-ye Hunar-i Tehran (Tehran University of Art) was 

founded. 



202 
 

1980–88 C.E.            The eight-year war with Iraq caused major problems in Iran for 

many years but also increased the sense of nationalism across the 

country. During the war: panel drawing, wall painting, and poster 

design on political, religious, and epic themes flourished. 

1991 C.E.                 The First Iranian Painting Biennial was held, twelve years after the 

triumph of the Revolution. 

1997 C.E.                  In the mid-1990s, among factors that in general led to the 

development of art, we may note the role of the country’s art 

officials. Particularly, after the 1997 presidential election, the Arts 

Centre of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance was very 

active, as was the main organ of the Centre, the Tehran Museum of 

Contemporary Art. 

 

2005-Now                The start of the new radicalism in cultural enterprises and official 

politics. Though the level of the official body’s patronage and artistic 

choice has shifted in a completely different direction, institutions and 

individual artists have been able to empower and continue the path 

that they had already commenced in the previous phases. The private 

sectors, including galleries, also achieved more influence from their 

international communications and shared their artists with the 

international art scene. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



203 
 

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	Portada
	Table of Contents
	List of Figures
	RESUMEN
	ABSTRACT
	Introduction
	Chapter 1. Islamic Calligraphy
	Chapter 2. A Historical Overview: Iranian Modernism
	Chapter 3. The Saqqa-khaneh Movement in Iran
	Chapter 4. Aspects of Contemporary Islamic Calligraphy
	Conclusion
	Appendix A: The Arabic and Persian Alphabet
	Appendix B: Timeline
	References