Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

• Draw every letter on a square grid with straight lines and right angles only, and make each stroke exactly as wide as the gap beside it, so that one brick, tile or grid cell is the unit of both letter and ground.
• Fill the chosen shape completely: turn the line of writing through right angles so that a word packs a square, rectangle, band or spiral without gaps or overlaps, let the viewer read it by turning the panel, and leave out the dots where the composition needs it, as early Kufic did.
• Repeat short sacred formulas, such as the names of God, Muhammad and ʿAli or the shahada, as square units in four-fold rotation, and lay them edge to edge across walls, minarets and domes like a tiling.
• Let figure and ground trade places: in interlocking compositions both the dark strokes and the light gaps spell words, so neither reads as background.
• Keep to two or three flat tones with no modelling: glazed turquoise and cobalt against unglazed buff brick, or one dark ink on a light ground for print and logos.
• Leave out curves, arabesque and vowel marks; when a modern mark needs a recognisable shape such as a mosque or a house, build it from the grid-bound letters themselves.

Brick and glazed-tile inscriptions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which Mamoun Sakkal places first in Iran and Afghanistan (English Wikipedia instead says it was invented in Iraq, and Persian Wikipedia credits Iranians); the earliest dated exemplar listed here is the Gar minaret of 1121 in Isfahan province. The bannāʾī brick technique it grew from goes back to eighth-century Syria and Iraq. It spread through Central Asia, the Middle East and Anatolia, reached the Maghreb, and grew under the Ilkhanids and Timurids. Revived from the twentieth century for logos, flags and calligraphy

1. Mamoun Sakkal, 'Square Kufic Calligraphy in Identity Design', Identity magazine no. 8 (autumn 2006), pp. 78–82 (https://www.sakkal.com/articles/sakkal_square_kufic_identity.pdf)
2. Mamoun Sakkal, 'Principles of Square Kufic Calligraphy' (مبادئ الخط الكوفي التربيعي), Hroof Arabiyya vol. 4, no. 13 (October 2004), pp. 4–12, on the twelfth-century development of square Kufic as 'an exceptional step towards simplification', 'originally an architectural epigraphic style' of straight lines, right angles and equal lines and spaces on a regular grid (https://sakkal.com/articles/principles_of_square_kufic.html)
3. Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006; ISBN 978-0-7486-1212-3), general reference on calligraphy in Arabic script, cited in English Wikipedia's 'Kufic'
4. Wikipedia, 'Kufic', section on square Kufic and image captions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufic)
5. Wikipedia, 'Banna'i', on the technique of glazed tiles alternated with plain bricks, its eighth-century Syrian and Iraqi roots, cobalt-blue and turquoise glazes, and the Yasavi mausoleum's blue brickwork spelling Allah, Muhammad and ʿAli in square Kufic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banna%27i)
6. Wikipedia (Persian), 'خط بنایی' (bannāʾī or maʿqilī script) (https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/خط_بنایی)
7. Wikipedia, 'Topkapı Scroll', after Gülru Necipoğlu, The Topkapı Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture (1995) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkap%C4%B1_Scroll)
8. Wikipedia, 'Flag of Iran', for the July 1980 design, the takbir band and the opposition and diaspora use of the Lion and Sun flag or plain tricolour (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Iran)
9. Wikipedia, 'Shah Mosque (Isfahan)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah_Mosque_(Isfahan))
10. Wikipedia, 'Bou Inania Madrasa (Meknes)' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bou_Inania_Madrasa_(Meknes))
11. Wikimedia Commons, 'Isfahan Royal Mosque minaret.JPG', described as interlocking names of Muhammad and ʿAli in square Kufic (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isfahan_Royal_Mosque_minaret.JPG)
12. Victoria and Albert Museum, Tile, Kashan, 1250–1300, 1480-1876, on the Shiʿi form of the shahada with 'ʿAli is the friend of God' (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O202780/tile-unknown)
13. Wikipedia, 'Gar mosque and minaret', completed 1121 in the Seljuq era, with square Kufic inscriptions carved into the brick shaft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gar_mosque_and_minaret)
14. Wikipedia, 'Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi', commissioned by Timur in 1389 and left unfinished at his death in 1405, with bannāʾī glazed brickwork (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Khoja_Ahmed_Yasawi)
15. Wikipedia, 'Khoja Ahmed Yasawi', a Turkic poet and Sufi, Sunni and Hanafi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoja_Ahmed_Yasawi)

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