Calligraphic Representations of the Prophet

İrvin Cemil Schick

I would like to begin my remarks by stressing that Islamic calligraphy signifies not only
through the text it embodies, but often also through its form. I am certainly not the first to
propose this. Oleg Grabar spoke of what he called the semantic-slash-iconographic
function of writing, though he unfortunately did not adequately elaborate this idea. Irene
Bierman wrote of the aesthetic function of public writing, in which style and materials
convey messages about hierarchy, power, and patronage. And Yasser Tabbaa discussed
the transition from angular to cursive script in book making, and from floriated kūfī to
thuluth in public writing, as strategic weapons in the doctrinal wars then raging between
the beleagured ‘Abbasid caliphate and the rising Shi’ite threat to its survival.
Still, the role of form as an element of the polysemy of Islamic calligraphy remains
understudied. Indeed, calligraphy itself is woefully neglected. What has been done so far
has, for the most part, been either epigraphic, in the sense of cataloguing the texts of
inscriptions; or paleographic, in the sense of attempting to trace the origins of Arabic
writing; or hagiographic, in the sense of repeating ad nauseam a repertoire of biographies
and legends concerning the sayings and doings of famous calligraphers. Very little has
been done to understand what calligraphy is, what calligraphy means, and what
calligraphy does.
I will approach the subject of calligraphic representations of the Prophet in three stages.
First, I will try to substantiate the claim I have just made, that calligraphy means not only
as text but also as form. Second, I will describe examples in which important historical or
mythical individuals have been represented through calligraphy. And third, I will focus
specifically on calligraphic representations of the Prophet.
Now, I am sure most of you are quite familiar with the calligraphic pictures, 1 sometimes
called calligrams or pictorial calligraphies, 2 that one finds throughout the Muslim world,
and particularly in Turkey, Iran, and India. 3 Although these are quaint and certainly
deserve serious study, in most cases there is no relationship between the text and its
shape. 4 Whether the inscription has been moulded into a ewer or an elephant, a mosque
or a falcon, one cannot speak here of a dialogue between form and content.
In other cases, however, this is not so. Consider this work 5 by the Turkish calligrapher
Mustafa Halim Özyazıcı, who lived between 1898 and 1964. Halim Efendi has been
called the foremost Turkish calligrapher of the twentieth century. He was a student of
several of the best known practitioners of his day, including Hâmid Aytaç, Hasan Rıza,
Kâmil Akdik, İsmail Hakkı Altunbezer and Mehmed Hulûsi Yazgan. I am only
mentioning this to emphasize that Halim Efendi was not some marginal or folk artist, but,
quite to the contrary, very much a classically trained mainstream calligrapher. Dated
1348 A.H. (1929–30 C.E.), this panel is composed of two parts. The text in the form of a
hand is a well-known verse from the Qur’ān, which reads: wa mā arsalnāka illā
rahmatan li’l-‘ālamīn (“And we have not sent you but as mercy to the worlds”) (al-
Anbiyā 21: 107). It is spoken by God to the Prophet Muhammad, and is taken to mean
that the latter’s mission is evidence of God’s grace. Under the hand are two lines of
poetry in Turkish, which say:
Ne kadar müznib olsam da yine olmam gam-nâk
Hüccet-i rahmet iken elde: “Ve mâ erselnâk(e)”
No matter how great a sinner I may be, I do not grieve
So long as proof of mercy is in hand: “And we have not sent you…”
The Qur’anic verse stating that the Prophet has been sent to humanity by God as an act of
mercy is written in the form of a hand, just as the affirmation it represents is “in hand” by
virtue of the sacred revelation. Here, the text and the image share a single referent, and
the meaning of the text corresponds exactly to the meaning of the image into which the
text has been woven.
Another example of a work of calligraphy that means not only through its textual content
but also through its form is this panel 6 by Elhac Mehmed Nazif Bey, who lived between
1846 and 1913. Nazif Bey was also a highly respected “academic” (for lack of a better
term) calligrapher, one who has been labeled the apex of Ottoman thuluth. The panel is
dated 1319 A.H. (1901–2 C.E.), and features a short poem in Turkish extolling the virtues
of the Basmala. The poem is of no great literary value, and reads as follows:
Alem kaldırsa bir yerde kaçan sultân-ı Bismillâh
Olur lâhutiyân ârâyiş-i dîvân-ı Bismillâh
Sırât-ı Müstakıymi anla hatt-ı istivâsından
Varır Allâh’a doğru menhec-i âsân-ı Bismillâh
As soon as Sultan Bismillāh raises his flag
The angels become the pillars of the court of Bismillāh
Interpret its equator as the Sırat-ı Müstakîm
The short route of Bismillāh leads towards God
As you know, the phrase al-6irat al-Mustaqīm, or “the straight path,” appears in the very
first chapter of the Qur’ān, and is taken to mean the true faith, i.e. Islam. In addition,
however, sūfīs believed that there is a bridge by this name that every soul is required to
cross after death; it is “thinner than a hair and more trenchant than a sword,” in the words
of the poets, and those who fail to reach the other side will fall down into the eternal fires
of Hell. Those who can cross the bridge, on the other hand, will reach the side of God. In
the poem, a visual analogy is drawn between the bridge of 6irat and the words Bismillāh,
by playing on the lengthened arc in the words bismi. In an ordinary text, 7 these words
would be written with a short arc; however, calligraphers traditionally lengthened the arc
when writing this particular formula. Such lengthened Basmalas are very common, and
are termed oklu Besmele (Basmala with arrow) in Turkish. With its lengthened arc, which
the poet qualifies as an “equator” (hatt-ı istivâ), the formula is likened to the bridge of
6irat which, going from right to left, leads straight to Allāh. 8 So we have here a bit of
visual iconicity. The formula Bismillāh leads the believer to God, and it actually looks
like the very bridge over which the believer’s soul is to reach God in the afterlife. But
there is more: in the last line where the poem refers to the Basmala as a “short route” that
leads to God, the calligrapher has actually shortened the arc, so that once again the form
of the writing echoes the meaning of the text itself.
Let me give you just one more example. These two panels 9 contain the same inscription,
lā hawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh (“There is no force nor power but from God”). The
one on the right is by Neyzen Mehmed Emin Dede, who lived between 1883 and 1945. It
is beautifully written, and eminently legible. The one on the left, on the other hand, is by
Mustafa Râkım Efendi, quite possibly the greatest of all Ottoman calligraphers. He lived
between 1757 and 1826, and, educated as a painter as well as a calligrapher,
experimented a great deal with unusual, arresting compositions. Here, as you can see, he
collected similarly shaped letters together. In so doing, not only did he create a rather
interesting, if virtually illegible inscription, but he furthermore arranged the three lās side
by side, under the name Allāh, so as to make them appear like three believers turned
toward God, their hands open in supplication.
For those of you who may be skeptical, let me point out that I am not suggesting that
Râkım necessarily intended for this panel to look like three believers imploring God. But
in a sense, Râkım’s intentions are irrelevant. This interpretation has been around for
several generations, and that is what really matters. For many people who have beheld
this work over the years, the script represents three believers praying to God.
I hope you will consider all these examples compelling enough evidence to support the
argument that calligraphy can mean through its form as well as its textual content. There
are many more such examples, both academic and not. For instance, in many popular
panels 10 declaiming “Ah min al-‘ashq” (Ah! [How I have suffered] from love),
commonly found in coffeehouses, inns, and shops all over the Ottoman world, the letter
he was shaped like a tearful eye, sometimes pierced by an arrow. This indicates the grief
of love which, 11 the poem goes on to say, burns the heart with its heat.
These examples point to the function of calligraphy as icon, a role that has not been
satisfactorily addressed to date. Yet, because of this function, and contra Shakespeare,
“What’s in a name?” can be much more than at first meets the eye.
Consider these two pages. 12 Beginning in the eighteenth century, it became common in
Ottoman devotional manuscripts to include a section in which a series of holy names
(starting with Allāh and Muhammad, and often ending with the Seven Sleepers and their
dog Qitmīr) would be placed within large medallions, one name per medallion per page.
The fact that these medallions are literally hors-texte already endows them with a certain
pictorial quality, but there is more to it than that. In many cases, the medallions appear
below (or are sandwiched between) a caption that does nothing but state the obvious. 13
For example, if the name “Muhammad” appears in the central medallion, then the
accompanying caption might say something like “This is the name of His Excellency
Muhammad, may prayers to God and peace be upon Him.” If the name in the medallion
is “Abū Bakr,” then the caption might say “This is the name of His Excellency Abū Bakr,
may God be pleased with him.” This is a common pattern, and begs the question of why
the captions were added in the first place. After all, if one can read the caption, then
surely one can also read the central medallion. The answer to this puzzle is that the
caption refers in fact to two distinct objects: when it says “This,” it is referring to the
medallion below it; and when it says “is the name of Muhammad,” it is referring to the
proper name of the Prophet. In other words, the medallion is not identical to the name, it
is an image of the name. It is, in fact, an icon. Indeed, in many such books, virtually
identical captions 14 accompany pictures in the ordinary sense of the word, e.g. images
of holy relics such as the mantle of the Prophet or his footprint, or, as you see here, the
axe of Abū Muslim and the date-tree by the Prophet’s Tomb in Madina. As the word for
“picture,” resmun, is very similar to the word for “name,” ismun, the captions both look
and sound almost exactly alike.
In short, just the name 15 of a person can function as an icon, a visual representation.
This powerful panel by İsmail Zühdi, an Ottoman calligrapher who died in 1806, simply
lists the names of ‘Alī, Hasan, and Husayn, ending with the prayer “May God be pleased
with him.” But can one really argue that this is not a portrait of sorts?
So, moving on to the calligraphic representation of holy personages, we see in some cases
representations that are more picture than writing. Here, 16 for example, are Fazl-ı Hurûfî
(or FaŸlullāh of Astarābād, 1339/40–1394), founder of a schismatic sect that emphasized
letter-symbolism, and the Caliph ‘Alī. These portraits are no more than generic images of
wise old men, whose identities depend solely on superimposed inscriptions that bind their
facial features to the letters that spell their names. Thus, on the left, the letters fā, Ÿād,
and lām correspond respectively to the ears, eyes, and moustache of FaŸlullāh. Here 17
are two other images, representing Kutb-ı Nâyî Hamza Dede, the chief nay player of
Mawlānā Jalālu’d-Dīn Rūmī. And here 18 is the Shi’ite mystic Kazak Abdal, identified
not by his own name but by his affiliation to the Imams ‘Alī, Husayn, and Ja’far. In all
these cases, letters are simply used to label otherwise unidentifiable images. In other
words, these are pictures with captions, and their only noteworthy aspect is that the
captions are physically integrated into the pictures themselves.
But there are more sophisticated instances of the representation of individuals through
calligraphy. This famous image, 19 for example, was designed by an Ottoman
calligrapher named Abdülgani in 1763. It survived as a stencil, which the illuminator
Osman Yümni Efendi used to produce several copies including this one dated 1321 A.H.
(1903 C.E.). The text forming the bird is a couplet about a certain dervish known in his
day as “Seyyid Hasan Leylek Dede.” The word “Leylek” is Turkish for “stork”; it is said
that the dervish earned this nickname because he was very tall and lanky. The poem that
composes the image celebrates the devotion of this dervish to his master, Mawlānā
Jalāluddīn Rūmī. It reads as follows:
Aşk-ı Mevlânâ ile hayretzede
Mevlevî Seyyid Hasan Leylek Dede
Ecstatic with love for Mevlânâ
Mevlevî Seyyid Hasan Leylek Dede
What is most important here is that the text and the image are related at a very basic
level. The text speaks of a dervish known by the nickname “the Stork,” and it is also
shaped like a stork.
A common calligraphic image that similarly shares a common referent with its text is the
lion 20 as a symbol of the Caliph ‘Alī. As he was nicknamed Haydar and Asadullāh—the
former meaning “lion” and the latter “lion of God,” many calligraphic compositions
containing invocations and prayers to him are shaped like a lion. In other cases, 21 the
letter ya in Ali’s name is forked, to resemble his fabled sword, dhulfiqār.
In this panel 22 dated 1318 A.H. (1900–1 C.E.) by the Ottoman calligrapher Hüseyin
Sâtı’ Efendi, the names of the Seven Sleepers and their dog are written in a circular
composition that conjures them in the cave, as depicted more figuratively in the fifteenth-
century miniature on the right, attributed to Mehmed Siyah Kalem.
By far the most common such images, however, are sūfī inscriptions 23 in which
invocations to the patron of the dervish order are frequently shaped like the distinctive
headgear of that particular order. Here, on the left, you see an inscription shaped like the
headdress of the Mevlevî dervishes, by the Turkish calligrapher Hâmid Aytaç, also
known as Hâmid el-Âmidî, who lived between 1891 and 1982. On the right is an
inscription shaped like a Sünbülî headdress, by the Ottoman calligrapher Hâşim Efendi,
who died in 1845. Each inscription contains the name of the patron of its order, followed
by a benediction.
So let me finally get to the main topic, calligraphic representations of the Prophet. Given
everything I have said so far, it will come as no surprise that there are a good number of
such works, not least because figurative representations of the Prophet were frowned
upon, particularly by Sunnis.
As with other holy personages, 24 the name of the Prophet also takes an iconic form
when written by itself. These are two pages from a devotional manuscript dated 1808 by
Galatalı Ahmed Na’ilî Efendi. Here, you see 25 two panels featuring the name of the
Prophet. The one on the left is from the eighteenth century, and is signed by Seyyid
Derviş Hüseyin. The one on the right is by Ali Alparslan, who only passed away last
year. Both are, in a sense, portraits. They are not invocations, like Yā Muhammad, say,
nor supplications, like Şefaat yâ Resûlallâh. They are just names as icons of the Prophet.
But of course things do get much more complicated. Consider these interesting panels 26
by the great Ottoman calligrapher Mehmed Şefik Bey. The one on the left is dated 1292
A.H. (1875 C.E.), and the text says “Mercy Ali, Fatima, Hasan, Husayn.” In other words,
it addresses itself to Islam’s equivalent of the “Holy Family”, the so-called Âl-i Abâ or
Ahl al-Bayt comprised of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, son-in-law Ali, and two
grandsons Hasan and Husayn. Though the name Muhammad does not appear explicitly
on this panel, it is in fact hidden in the composition, as the word âmân, mercy, is
numerologically equivalent to it. Indeed, the panel on the right has, under the pear, a
well-known poem, which says the following:
Âmân lâfzı senin ism-i şerîfinle müsâvîdir
Anınçün âşıkın zârı âmân’dır Yâ Resûlallâh!
The word “Mercy” is equivalent to your noble name
That is why the lover’s cry is for mercy, O Messenger of God
In other words, the name “Muhammad” does not have to be written for the calligraphy to
represent him! The leaves on the pear at right read Yā Sayyida’l-Awwalīn wa’l-Āhirīn, a
title of the Prophet’s that makes it certain that the prayer is addressed to him.
Though it does not tie in directly with our topic, I want to draw your attention to another
interesting detail in the panel on the left. As you can see, the first letter of the name
Fatima is inside the first letter of the name ‘Ali. What is interesting is that the name of the
first letter of Ali, ‘ayn, is a homonym of the Arabic word for “eye”—that is, the organ of
sight. Furthermore, there is, in both Arabic and Turkish, the expression “to be in
someone’s eye,” which means to be loved, to be esteemed, to be valued. So by placing
Fatima into the ‘ayn/eye of Ali, this inscription is in fact giving the message that the
Prophet’s daughter was greatly beloved and esteemed by her spouse, the Caliph Ali.
Visually, the calligraphic composition makes Fatima “the apple of Ali’s eye”—an
expression that has the same meaning in Turkish (Ali’nin göz bebeği) as it does in
English. That both 27 Şefik Bey and other calligraphers repeated this motif, which is
actually rather awkward from a purely calligraphic point of view, suggests that I am not
reading too much into this work.
The Ahl al-Bayt is sometimes also signified as a hand 28, whose five fingers stand for
Muhammad, ‘Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn. This talisman, dated 1258 A.H. (1842
C.E.), features both this symbol and ‘Ali’s dhulfiqār. As in the word “mercy” in the pear-
shaped calligraphies, here too the Prophet is represented only indirectly, but in a way that
the intended audience would have certainly recognized instantly.
Another interesting case is this panel 29 by the Ottoman calligrapher Elhac Mehmed
Fehmi Efendi. It bears the date 1309 A.H. (1891–2 C.E.), and is a textual representation
of the so-called “Seal of Prophethood,” the mark between the shoulders of the Prophet
Muhammed that is taken as proof of his divine mission. What is significant about the
panel is the lower inscription, in Turkish, which says, among other things:
The benefit of this holy seal to those who visit it will be as follows: To those
who look at it in the morning, having performed their ritual ablutions, it will
last until the evening. And to those who look at it at the beginning of the
month, until the end of the month. And to those who look at it at the beginning
of the year, until the end of the year. And for those who look at it while on a
journey, may their journey be blessed. And those who die in the year during
which they have looked at it shall die with faith.
At the end of the text, after the signature, are the customary prayers, including asking for
God’s forgiveness for the calligrapher, for his parents, and “for all those who look at it.”
It is significant that the verb “to read” does not occur once, anywhere on the panel.
Instead, the word nazar (to look) recurs time and again. This emphasis on looking
strongly suggests that the panel was not only regarded as written text, as well as
devotional object, but also as image. After all, one reads text, but one “looks” at an
image. In this respect, this is an image of the Prophet.
But of course the works of calligraphy most deserving of being called images of the
Prophet belong to the genre known as hilye-i şerîfe or hilye-i saadet 30, apparently
invented by the Ottoman calligrapher Hâfız Osman in the late seventeenth century. These
are word portraits of the Prophet Muhammad, describing, within an eminently
recognizable composition, his physical and moral attributes. There are a number of
recorded descriptions of the Prophet’s appearance, including those by the Caliph ‘Alī,
Anas ibn Mālik, Hind ibn Abī Hāla, al-Barā’ ibn ‘Āzib, Jābir ibn Samurah, and Umm
Ma’bad. Of these, the most popular is the one by the Caliph ‘Alī as recorded in
Tirmidhī’s al-Shamā’il. With slight variations, the central medallion contains the
following text:
[It is related] from ‘Ali (may God be pleased with him) that when he
described the attributes of the Prophet (may prayers to God and peace be upon
him), he said: He was not too tall, nor was he too short, he was of medium
height amongst the nation. His hair was not short and curly, nor was it lank, it
 would hang down in waves. His face was not overly plump, nor was it fleshy,
yet it was somewhat circular. His complexion was rosy white. His eyes were
large and black, and his eyelashes were long. He was large-boned and broad-
shouldered. His torso was hairless except for a thin line that stretched down
his chest to his belly. His hands and feet were rather large. When he walked,
he would lean forward as if going down a slope. When he looked at someone,
he would turn his entire body towards him. Between his two shoulders was the
Seal of Prophethood, and he was the last of the prophets.
That these panels were intended as portraits is clear not only from this descriptive text,
but also from the fact that the components of the panel were named (from top to bottom)
başmakam (head station), göbek (belly), kuşak (belt), and etek (skirt).
Now, the Arabic word ­ilyah refers to the features or appearance of a person, and the
Ottoman compounds hilye-i şerîfe (noble hilye) and hilye-i saadet (felicitous hilye)
denote the features or appearance of the Prophet Muhammad. Tim Stanley has suggested
that while the hilye may have arisen as the Muslim counterpart of the Orthodox Christian
icon, in view of the fact that a figural representation of the Prophet would have been
frowned upon in the Sunni tradition, it was most likely inspired by the celebrated poem of
the sixteenth-century Ottoman poet Hakānî Mehmed Bey known as Hilye-i Hakānî. This
latter was in turn based on a possibly spurious tradition, according to which the Prophet is
reported to have said:
Whoever sees my hilye after me is as though he has seen me. And whoever is
true to me, God will spare him the fire of Hell, and he will not experience the
trials of the grave, and he will not be driven naked on the Day of Judgement.
If Hâfız Osman did indeed draw his inspiration from the Hilye-i Hakanî, then he created
his hilye panels primarily as objects of contemplation: “whoever sees my hilye,” were the
words reportedly spoken by the Prophet, not “whoever reads my hilye.” Once again, then,
the hilye is meant not so much to be read, as to be seen. As such, it is an image, albeit one
made up of plain text.
The composition invented by Hâfız Osman was widely imitated 31 throughout the
eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. However, there are some very interesting
variations as well. For example, 32 two calligraphic giants of the early nineteenth
century, Mahmud Celâleddîn (on the left) and Mustafa Rakım (on the right), are united in
this slide. Both cypresses filled with microcalligraphy and bands of calligraphy
surrounding the central medallion also show up in the works of later artists. A number 33
used the form of the imperial cypher, the tuğra, like Kebecizâde Mehmed Vasfi Efendi in
the early nineteenth century. Microcalligraphy was perfected by Fehmi Efendi in the
early twentieth. And some emphasized the Prophet not only in the text, but also in the
form of the hilye, as with this 34 work by İbrahim Sukûtî dated 1243 A.H. (1827 C.E.).
Hilyes were also sometimes written in book form, as in this one 35 by Yedikuleli Seyyid
Abdullâh, who lived between 1670 and 1731. The text reported from the Caliph ‘Ali is in
the circular medallions, while selections from the Hilye-i Hakanî appear in the columns
above and below them. This little book also contains hilyes —that is, word portraits— of
the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, for example 36 ‘Uthman and ‘Ali on these two pages.
Another book, this one by the eighteenth century Ottoman calligrapher known as Derviş
Ali the Second, 37 contains hilyes within naturalistic flowers typical of manuscript
illumination of the period. These are the portraits of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar. And as the
practice became more widespread, hilyes were also written for various prophets, 38 for
example Adam and Noah here.
In short, calligraphy provided many opportunities for visual representation which, if not
exactly figurative in the usual sense of the word, certainly added much expression to the
textual contents of the works. Many individuals were physically represented through
calligraphy, notably the Prophet, and I do not doubt that most believers were thus able to
imagine him not only as the Messenger of God, but as a person as well. 39