Calligraphy in architecture — reading a building

Where other traditions painted saints on their walls, Islamic architecture wrote. The Dome of the Rock carries a Kufic mosaic inscription some 240 metres long, dated to the year 72 of the Hijra (691–92). The Alhambra repeats 'no victor but God' until the stucco itself seems to chant. Istanbul's mosques carry thuluth roundels several metres across, written on paper by court calligraphers and transferred to the walls. Square Kufic turns whole minarets into legible brickwork. The lesson for a designer is scale: a script drawn for a page dies on a wall unless its weight, spacing and contrast are rebuilt for distance — which is exactly why MASHQ pieces are re-proportioned, not just enlarged.

The Kufic band of the Dome of the Rock, set in mosaic around the octagonal arcade, carries more than a date. Its dedication gives the year 72 of the Hijra, and the verses chosen speak of Jesus, son of Mary, and repeat that God has no partner.

The band also shows that an inscription can be altered. The builder's name, the Umayyad caliph 'Abd al-Malik, was later replaced with that of the Abbasid al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833), though the date was kept. Melchior de Vogüé first noted the change in 1864.

In Cairo, the mosque of Ibn Tulun (876–79) received a Qur'anic frieze carved in sycamore wood, set high under the ceiling and once nearly two kilometres long; it survives in pieces. Its Kufic is tall, spare and cut in relief.

The TDV encyclopaedia defines the kitabe, the building inscription, as writing carved or raised on marble, stone, wood, tile or metal; elsewhere stucco served too. A foundation inscription names builder and year; a repair inscription records a restoration. Ottoman ones, from the fifteenth century, often give the year as a chronogram, a phrase whose letters add up to the date by their abjad values.

Kufic ruled the first centuries; after about the eleventh century the rounded scripts, above all thuluth, took over the walls. Kufic did not disappear: in the madrasa of Sultan Hasan in Cairo, built 757–764/1356–63, a Kufic band from Surat al-Fath, cut in stucco over a bed of scrolling leaves, fills the qibla iwan from end to end.

Stone carvers in Seljuk Anatolia went further. On the portal of the İnce Minareli Medrese in Konya, commissioned in 1265 by the vizier Sahib Ata Fakhr al-Din 'Ali and signed by its architect Kölük bin Abdullah, two tall thuluth bands of Surat Ya-Sin and Surat al-Nasr climb beside the door, knot above it and part.

In Iran and Central Asia builders learned to write with the wall itself. The earliest known writing set in brickwork, per English Wikipedia, is on a Ghazni minaret of about 1100 naming the Ghaznavid ruler Mas'ud III. Later, in banna'i, the builder's way, glazed and plain bricks were laid so that the colours spell words.

Square Kufic is generally thought to have grown from this practice. When every letter must follow the grid of the bricks, the letters become straight lines and right angles. The names most often written this way are Allah, Muhammad and 'Ali, repeated in bands that can be read from several sides.

The minarets of the Shah Mosque in Isfahan (1611–1630) carry such a pattern in glazed tile. From the courtyard the eye sees a woven surface; from close by, it sees names.

The Nasrid palaces of Granada are covered with writing in carved stucco and tile mosaic. The dynasty's motto, set on shields and bands in every hall, is only the beginning.

Beside the motto are poems written for the rooms by court poets who also ran the royal chancery: Ibn al-Jayyab, Ibn al-Khatib and Ibn Zamrak, the last holding chancery and vizierate on and off from 1354 to 1393. In several poems the building speaks: a room describes itself to whoever stands in it.

Kufic, often foliated and sometimes knotted, marks words that double as ornament; the poems are in a rounded Nasrid cursive.

An Ottoman wall inscription began on paper. The calligrapher wrote the text at full size; its outlines were pricked with fine holes to make a stencil, the kalıp, and charcoal or chalk dust pressed through the holes put the letters on the surface for the carver or painter. A stencil of 1856 in the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, is a round thuluth composition of the kind set on mosque walls and in the centre of domes.

Sinan's Süleymaniye Mosque (1550–1557) is a written building; nearly all its calligraphy is attributed to Hasan Çelebi, pupil of Ahmed Karahisari. Over the door of the prayer hall his thuluth carries a foundation text by the chief mufti Ebussuud Efendi, naming the sultan, his titles and forebears. Beside the mihrab, Iznik tile roundels carry Surat al-Fatiha.

The largest roundels were hung in Hagia Sophia during the restoration of 1847–1849 under Sultan Abdülmecid. Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi wrote eight discs about 7.5 metres across, in jali thuluth, with the names of God, the Prophet, the four caliphs, Hasan and Husayn.

'Abd al-Haqq of Shiraz came to India with his elder brother Afzal Khan around 1608 and signed the calligraphy of Akbar's tomb gate at Sikandra in 1022/1613. From 1631 he designed the writing of Mumtaz Mahal's tomb, and in 1632 Shah Jahan titled him Amanat Khan. His signature inside the Taj is dated 1048/1638, and is often said to be the only artist's name there. His thuluth is inlaid in dark stone in white marble; the letters grow as they rise, so from the ground they seem one size.

The Turkish word for monumental script, celi (jali), means clear: a broad script read from far away. A letter written for a wall is drawn again for the wall, with heavier strokes, wider spaces between words and stronger contrast.

To read a building, start at the door: the foundation inscription over the portal usually names the patron and the year. Follow each band from beginning to end, and learn the formulas that recur everywhere: the basmala, the shahada, the Throne Verse, the names of God, the Prophet and the caliphs.