Islamic Art and Architecture 1: Geometric Patterns

Nature creates perfect patterns and geometrical shapes: Rain drops falling on water create impeccable circles. Quartz crystals form in hexagonals, rock-salt crystals form in seven different manners: cubic, hexagonal, monoclinic, orthorhombic, rhombohedral, tetragonal, triclinic. Wave-patterns change every seventh wave. The earth is a globe, snowflakes, shellfish patterns, stars, ferns, ripples, the rainbow arc. The moon and its various shapes...

Islamic art and architecture 1: Symbols and their Meanings

The Islamic faith believes:

• Circles symbolize: infinity
• A square represents the material world: human experience
• The triangle represents human consciousness: harmony
• The hexagon: heaven
• The star radiates equally from its every point. Within the star, is contained: the circle. The star came to signify: the expansion of Islam and its unity

Divine Unity is what Islamic art seeks to express in myriads of ways in Islamic art and architecture 1 and in the ornamentation of that art and architecture. Islam seeks perfection.

Star Rosette
Alhambra Tiles - Moorish Spain

The centre of a circle is the paradigm model of all Islamic design. That point represents the one God of Islam. The unity of the circle represents the centre of Islam: Mecca, the direction which every Muslim faces, to pray. The circle has no beginning nor end. The circle is the source of all polygons. Islam focuses on looking inwards - not outwards.

Cosmology

Throughout eons of time, the pyramid builders of Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Greeks, Hindus, Buddhists and pagan religions have been fascinated in the study of astronomy and cosmology: how did the Universe form and the role of man within it?

In the legend of Muhammad's night journey to heaven, he rode a magical horse (named Buraq) which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, from where Muhammad rose to heaven, on a ladder of light.

Seven Heavens Comprise the Islamic Concept of Heaven

On each level of heaven, Muhammad met the prophets of different ages.

• In the first heaven he met Adam
• In the second heaven he met John the Baptist and Jesus
• In the third heaven he met Joseph
• In the fourth heaven he met Aaron
• In the fifth heaven he met Moses
• In the sixth heaven he met Abraham who welcomed him with: “Good Prophet, good son.”
• In the seventh he met Allah.
  Allah ordained that fifty prayers were to be said daily

This was an unrealistic amount of prayer to be done on a daily basis; Moses persuaded him to return, to reduce the amount. Muhammad returned and ten were deducted. Three times Muhammad returned to reduce the amount of prayers required, till finally, the number was five. After that Muhammad dared not object any more.

This became the amount of prayers a Muslim must do on a daily basis to honour Allah.

The Dome of the Ambassadors Hall in the has a masterpiece ceiling of geometric Taracea Craftsmanship pattern of the Seven Heavens of Islam in Alhambra-Granada-Spain-1

The Islamic 'need to know' which direction to pray, to pray in the correct direction of the Mecca, was meticulously studied in cosmology.

The beauty of Islamic artistic symmetrical balance, reflects cosmic equilibrium, in Islamic Art and Architecture 1.

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