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 This information has been digitized for use in the Ethnomathematics DigitalLibrary (EDL), a program of Pacific Resources for Education and Learning(PREL). The EDL is sponsored by the National Science Foundation as a partof the National STEM Digital Library (www.nsdl.org).
ISLAMIC GEOMETRICAL PATTERNS FOR THETEACHING OF MATHEMATICS OF SYMMETRY
byS. Jan Abas
 
School of InformationUniversity of WalesBangor, UK 
 © Symmetry Foundation. Digitized 2004 by permission of publisher.Abas, S. J. (2001). Islamic geometrical patterns for the teaching of mathematics of symmetry [Special issue of 
Symmetry: Culture and Science
]
. Symmetry in Ethnomathematics, 12
(1-2),
 
53
-
65
.
Budapest, Hungary: International SymmetryFoundation.
This product was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a component of the National Science,Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL), award number DUE0121749. Anyopinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do notnecessarily reflect the views of NSF.
 
Symmetry: Culture and ScienceVol. 12, Nos. 1-2, 53-65, 2001
ISLAMIC GEOMETRICAL PATTERNS FOR THETEACHING OF MATHEMATICS OF SYMMETRY
S. Jan Abas
 Address:
School of Informatics, University of Wales Bangor, UK LL57 1UT. E-mail: s.j.abas@bangor.ac.uk.
Abstract:
From the 10
th
to the 13
th
century AD, aided by mathematicians (Ozdural2000), the artists and artisans in the Islamic civilization produced a large body of symmetric geometrical patterns. Many of these are extremely elegant and conveysomething deeply profound about the beauty of geometrical forms which cannot be put into words. Islamic patterns may of course be enjoyed purely as decorations. They can be enjoyed  for aesthetic experience of art and science in unity. But these patterns depict a variety of geometrical structures and constraints of the Euclidean space. Hence they are of great merit as educational aids for the teaching of many topics in mathematics, physics,chemistry, crystallography, computer science and design. In particular they can bevaluable in the teaching of geometry to school children and provide a visual gateway for the teaching of abstract notions of Group Theory at the university level.This paper will introduce Islamic geometrical patterns, say something about their characteristics and origins and point the reader to a variety of resources on IslamicPatterns (books, papers, videos and websites) which may be utilised in the teaching of the mathematics of symmetry.
1. INTRODUCTION
Geometric patterns occur in rich profusion throughout Islamic cultures. They are foundon a diversity of materials – tiles, bricks, wood, brass, paper, plaster, glass and on manytypes of objects. They occur on carpets, windows, doors, screens, railings, bowls,
 
54S. J. A
 BAS
furniture-specially pulpits in mosques, and on other surfaces. They can be seen inabundance in Persian miniatures in the illumination of the Holy Koran and on architec-tural surfaces of mosques, palaces, madersas (centres of education) and tombs.Symmetric Islamic patterns come in three distinct geometrical flavours. One of these isthat of 
Calligraphic
 
patterns which most often mould Arabic lettering for words such as
 Allah
 
and
 Mohammed 
 
or short verses from the Koran, to create symmetric geometricalforms. Figure 1 shows an example Calligraphic Pattern which uses the word
 Moham-med.
It is from the tomb of the Sufi poet Shah Abdullah Ansari in Hirat, Afghanistan.
Figure 1
of 00

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