How banning images shaped Islamic geometric art

HostI was looking at some photos of old buildings in Spain and Iran the other day, and it really struck me how you never see a face. No kings, no heroes, no animals. Just these wild, interlocking stars and squares that seem to go on forever. It’s a very specific style, and I wonder if it all comes back to a big choice made a long time ago. How did a rule against drawing people actually lead to this kind of art?

GuestIt’s a great example of how a wall in your path can actually force you to find a brand new way to walk. In the early days of Islam, there was this very strong feeling that artists shouldn't try to copy the work of God. The idea was that if you draw a person or a horse, you’re trying to breathe life into something, which is a power only the creator has. It felt a bit like pride, or even like making an idol to worship instead of the real thing. So, artists were in a spot where they wanted to make something beautiful for a mosque or a palace, but they couldn't use the things we usually see around us. They had to look for beauty in the rules of the world itself rather than the objects in it.

HostBut doesn't that feel a bit cold? I mean, if you can't draw a flower or a person, you're basically left with a math book. It sounds like a lot of dry lines and angles instead of something that actually moves you.

GuestYou might think so, but it ended up being the opposite of cold. Since they couldn't draw the "what," they started drawing the "how." They turned to shapes. Think about a circle. It’s perfect. It has no beginning and no end. For these artists, a circle was a way to talk about God without drawing a person in the clouds. They would start with a simple circle, use a compass to mark points on the edge, and then connect those points to make a star or a hexagon. By repeating those shapes, they created these huge, flowing patterns. It wasn’t about being stiff. It was about showing that there’s a hidden order behind all the mess of the world. When you look at a wall covered in those stars, your eyes don't just stay in one place. You kind of get lost in it.

HostI don't know, it feels like we might be reading too much into it. Maybe they just liked the look of a nice, clean star. Are we sure there was all this deep meaning behind a bunch of tiles?

GuestWell, the way they built them tells us a lot. They didn't just throw patterns together. They used something called Girih tiles, which were a set of five specific shapes with lines on them. By fitting these together, they could make patterns that were so complex that they didn't actually repeat for a long time. It’s a bit like a puzzle where the pieces can make a different picture every time. And here’s the kicker. Some of these patterns use a type of math that people in the West didn't really figure out until the nineteen seventies. These artists were doing high-level math with a ruler and a piece of string hundreds of years ago. They weren't just decorating. they were exploring how space can be filled. It was a way of saying that the world is more complex than it looks on the surface.

HostWait, you're saying they were doing college-level math just to decorate a wall? That seems like a lot of extra work if they just wanted a pretty building. Why go to all that trouble if the average person walking by wouldn't even get it?

GuestBecause the point wasn't for you to "get it" like a riddle. The point was the feeling of it. If you look at a painting of a king, you’re looking at one man in one moment. But these patterns are meant to feel like they go on forever. Even when the wall ends, your mind keeps the pattern going. It’s supposed to give you a sense of the infinite. There’s no center to the art, so your eye just wanders. It’s a very humble kind of art, in a way. The artist isn't saying, look at my talent for drawing a nose. They’re saying, look at this perfect law of nature that I’ve uncovered. It’s a move from the individual to the universal.

HostSo, by taking away the human face, they actually made the art feel bigger than a human?

GuestThat’s it exactly. They even used to leave little mistakes in the patterns on purpose. If a pattern was too perfect, they’d tuck a tiny flaw into a corner or flip a tile the wrong way. They did that because they believed only God could be truly perfect. So the art had to show it was made by a human hand, even while it was trying to point toward something bigger. It’s a strange tension. You have this incredibly tight, math-heavy system, but then you purposely break it to show your own limits. It makes the whole thing feel much more alive than if it were just a perfect printout.

HostIt’s wild to think that a simple no-entry sign for drawing people turned into this whole secret language of stars and circles.

GuestThese shapes show us that you can find the whole world in just a few lines if you look closely enough.

HostThose interlocking stars on a garden wall are more than just a pretty border then, they're a way to see the whole world in a single tile.