tilings

In the Islamic countries, there is an old tradition of using calligraphy for decoration, and they also use decoration and intrincate tilings to decorate buildings, both the interior and the exterior.

however, as far as I know, they never combine the two ideas: using a repeated Arabic word to form a repeatng pattern. The following designs are just that. They might "look Arabic" 2 u, but they are fairly untraditional.

Group p2:

(#mos400) - image #mos400

Group p6:

(#mos186) - image #mos186

Group p6m:

(#mos474) - image #mos474

These designs are unsuitable for tattoos because they are too big. I don't know what they are good for, if anything. They are also insuitable to tile a floor with, because, in Arabic culture, letters are always considered somehow "holy", so they must not be placed where they will be trodden upon. You might tile walls or ceilings with them, though.

I suppose you could use one of these to tile your floors with the name of your enemy: according to Arabic culture, this does not count as honouring, but as demeaning.

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Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
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Last revised: 2008-05-10

Arabic tattoos

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