Zoomorphic & Figural Calligraphy (Islamic Calligrams)

• Choose the figure for the words: write the Nad-e ʿAli prayer to ʿAli, the 'Lion of God', as a lion, and the names of the Seven Sleepers, whom God protected, as the hull and deck of a ship, so the picture names what the text says; in Cirebon the figure is instead an emblem or talisman that a sacred formula fills, as the Macan Ali tiger is written from the shahada.
• Make the letters themselves the drawing: stretch, stack, rotate and compress the strokes of Thuluth, Naskh or Nastaʿlīq along the contour until outline and body are written. In the classic lion the writing is the whole figure, with only an eye or a red tongue added. In the more pictorial sheets the writing carries the defining part, the galleon's hull and deck, the rim of the peacock's tail or the body of a Cirebon tiger under a drawn, mask-like head, and fine drawing or painting supplies the rest.
• Usually set the one figure alone on a plain paper ground, so it is seen whole before it is read. Album pages and grand sheets may add a written border, a painted ground or a light setting (the Bellini peacock stands on blue among gold trees, and the galleon rides a drawn sea). In Cirebon the figure stands centred on wadasan rocks under mega mendung clouds. Either way it never dissolves into an all-over pattern, and the written figure stays the focus.
• Keep the colour mostly to black ink on cream paper with gold and one or two painted accents. Album pages may be painted in opaque watercolour on a coloured ground, a popular print may frame the figure with roses or a sword, Cirebon glass paintings use graded colours on a black, white or light turquoise ground, and a carved Cirebon panel may be gilded on red, but the figure stays the only focus.
• Hide wit inside devotion: let even the calligrapher's signature become a limb, balance the strokes where a symmetric figure is wanted, and reward the viewer who traces the text through the shape.

The Persianate world by the 16th century: the Aga Khan Museum's 17th-century Indian lion copies a 16th-century model whose signature forms the lion's hind leg; the museum reads it as most probably that of Mir ʿAli Haravi (d. 1544), whom it calls a Safavid calligrapher and who worked in Herat and, from 1528, in Bukhara. Copied in India in the 17th century; made in Ottoman Turkey from about 1600 (the Bellini Album peacock) into the 20th century, where Sufi practitioners gave ships and lions mystical meaning and Bektashi theology read the lion's paws and tongue; sold in the Lahore bazaar in the 19th century; in Cirebon, Java, where, as there are no lions in Southeast Asia, the lion of ʿAli became the Macan Ali, a tiger written from the shahada, on the sultanate's banner, on panels and in glass paintings, and where such figural prayers, called Srabad, also take the shape of the wayang figure Semar, the Buraq and the sacred turtle Bulus, are painted on glass, carved in wood and made in batik, and serve as talismans that keep evil out of the house; and printed as Shiʿa posters in Pakistan (a 1986 example is in the Hackney Museum). Lion compositions were made for Shiʿa and, in Ottoman Turkey, also for Sunni patrons.

1. Aga Khan Museum, Devotional Calligraphic Composition, AKM526 (https://collections.agakhanmuseum.org/collection/artifact/devotional-calligraphic-composition-akm526)
2. Wikipedia, 'Mir Ali Heravi', on his work in Herat under Sultan Husayn Bayqara and under Safavid rule, his removal to Bukhara in 1528 and his death there in 1544 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Ali_Heravi)
3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Calligraphic Galleon, 'Abd al-Qadir Hisari, dated 1180 AH/1766–67 CE, 2003.241 (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/454611)
4. Wikipedia, 'Calligraphic Galleon', on the Seven Sleepers, Sufi use of ship calligrams and Persian pictorial writing, citing Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and Ekhtiar, Canby, Haidar and Soucek (eds.), Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2011), no. 206 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calligraphic_Galleon)
5. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Calligraphic Composition in Shape of Peacock', Folio from the Bellini Album, ca. 1600, 67.266.7.8r (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451978)
6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Calligram in the Shape of a Sufi Cap, late 19th–early 20th century, 2023.571 (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/902864)
7. Victoria and Albert Museum, Drawing (calligraphy in the form of a lion), Lahore, c. 1880, IM.14-1916, given by Col. T. Holbein Hendley (https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O67547/drawing-unknown)
8. Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, Calligraphic lion, 19th century, 1996-00019 (https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1101281)
9. Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, Panel, Cirebon, mid-20th century, 2000-05572, on the macan Ali or tiger of ʿAli written from the shahada (https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1129833)
10. Rosalia Sciortino, glass paintings collection, no. 65, 'Macan Ali/Tiger Ali' by Rastika, 1996, on the Cirebon sultanate's Macan Ali banner, its syncretic link to the tiger banner of the Pajajaran Sundanese king Siliwangi, and Rastika's son Kusdono continuing his work (https://rosaliasciortino.com/macan-ali-tiger-ali/)
11. Agung Zainal Muttakin Raden, Wirawan Sukarwo and M.S. Andrijanto, 'Anthropomorphic Arabic Calligraphy: The Elements of Srabad in Cirebon', Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Folklore, Language, Education and Exhibition (ICOFLEX 2019), Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research 512 (Atlantis Press, 2020), pp. 47–51, doi:10.2991/assehr.k.201230.010, on Srabad as figural prayers and talismans in glass painting, wood carving and batik, the Semar, Bulus and Buraq figures, their centred compositions on white or light turquoise grounds with wadhasan rocks and mega mendung clouds in graded colours, and the glass painters' fasting and dhikr (https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125950172.pdf)
12. Hackney Museum, 'The Lion and the Sword of Ali', poster, Pakistan, 1986, paper, 354 × 278 mm, 1987.88, on the lion of ʿAli known as 'Nad-e-Ali', the Zulfiqar and the names of the twelve Shia Imams (https://museum-collection.hackney.gov.uk/object-1987-88)
13. Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, education resource 'Zoomorphic Calligraphy and Virtuous Qualities', on Ahmed Hilmi's Calligraphic Lion (1913) and its Bektashi reading (https://education.asianart.org/resources/zoomorphic-calligraphy-and-virtuous-qualities)
14. Wikipedia, 'Mirror writing', on Ottoman mirror calligraphy (muthanna or musanna) and an 18th-century sheet writing 'Ali is the vicegerent of God' in both directions, citing Esra Akın-Kıvanç, Muthanna / Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy (Indiana University Press, 2020) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing)
15. Wikipedia, 'Calligram', defining a calligram as words arranged to form 'a thematically related image' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calligram)
16. Wikipedia, 'Calligrammes', on Guillaume Apollinaire's collection first published in 1918 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calligrammes)
17. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, 'Hüsn-i Hat, traditional calligraphy in Islamic art in Turkey', inscribed 2021 (https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/husn-i-hat-traditional-calligraphy-in-islamic-art-in-turkey-01684)

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