Talk:Islamic calligraphy

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two people have sex up the bum

in the notes section. Does that have any meaning or should it just be deleted?
          Stupidenator 01:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)Stupidenator

What happened to Image:Thuluth.png ?

There's a possible replacement image at de:Bild:Izzet_09.png , but the author de:Benutzer:Baba66 didn't leave any copyright tag for the image, and hasn't responded to my previous comments on his discussion page de:Benutzer_Diskussion:Baba66 . Maybe someone who knows German would have better luck... AnonMoos 16:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] There is no Islamic calligraphy

But there is Arabic, Turkish, or Persian Calligraphy

Calligraphy in characters based on the Arabic script would be a more neutral term, but Islamic calligraphy has become the most widely used term in English language. It is not so for other languages - the Arabicized al-khatt al-islami is unused by Muslim calligraphers, while in French calligraphie arabe is more common. Apparently the existence of the term must be understood in the context of the history of English speaking countries in their relation with areas of Islamic culture (yet again term with difficulties of definition).

The problem is that there are few terms that can objectively be applied to all the instances they claim to cover. "Islamic calligraphy" obviously stems from the desire to link calligraphy and religion, which is fine if the initial intent wouldn't be overstretched. Not all calligraphies have a religious content, so applying the term "Islamic" to them is forcing a certain view on calligraphy, the one that everything happening in a society with Muslim majority is "Islamic" (and the question is which conception of Islam). For the sake of consistency one also has to exclude calligraphies done by non-Muslims, with all the oddities that this implies (e.g. Christians numerous in the Medieval administrations of the Middle East, Copts, Jews, Zoroastrians, pre-Islamic Arabs etc. producing fine writing, European font designers...).

In brief, certainly that following Wikipedia's guidelines, Islamic calligraphy couldn’t be considered as a neutral point of view if it is applied in a monopolistic way. But it can be acceptable given that it is the established term. / Abjad 23:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with abjad, Islamic calligraphy imply that there is Islamc script and Islamic letters, while it shoud be Arabic Calligraphy becaus its the art of writing arabic letters. --Ali Obeid 17:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The alphabet is the Arabic alphabet, but calling the art of Arabic calligraphy would imply that the art is practiced only by Arabs. In any case, Islamic art and Islamic calligraphy are well known terms and should not be renamed according to our opinions. --Free smyrnan 18:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I have felt offended to find the term "Islamic calligraphy" instead of the proper term "Arabic calligraphy" (i.e. with Arabic letters). I would find it more adequate that all calligraphies be referred to after the alphabets in which they are performed (Western/Latin, Greek, Russian, Hebrew, Indian, Chinese, Arabic, etc.) and not to religions making use of them. If Wikipedia wishes to stress the role of calligraphy in Islam, it then should create a "Calligraphy in Islam" entry. However, equating Arabic calligraphy to "Islamic calligraphy" is simply an outrageous choice that undermines my opinion of Wikipedia.

There is no "Wikipedia" per se. If you wish to create an article about the role of calligraphy in Islam, feel free to do so. The common English name of the art, however, is independent of Wikipedia and independent of what we would ideally like to call it. Calling it Arabic calligraphy would lead to misunderstandings about the ethnicity of the practitioners and contributors to this art, namely the non-Arabs who have also created works in this art form. --Free smyrnan 21:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I also think this page should be entitled Arabic calligraphy. All other scripts that have developed calligraphy as an artform refer to it by the name of the script, and not by the name of a religion. Calling it "Islamic calligraphy" implies that calligraphy created by Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists or Hindus in Arabic, Farsi or Urdu either does not exist or is somehow less important. It makes a very POV statement. I vote for making the change. If nobody else rises to the task, I'll do it myself in a couple of weeks. Remember that we also have to fix all the pages that link to this one - the list can be found by clicking on the What links here link in the panel on the left. Cbdorsett 08:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I dispute this proposed name change. This name change will make the uninformed user think that the art was solely practiced by Arabs. Some of the best pieces of Islamic calligraphy have been created by non-Arabs such as Turks and Iranians. Please look at where all this genre of calligraphy is exhibited in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art - in the department of Islamic art. This is not POV, but a simple and widely accepted classification. --Free smyrnan 00:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That is a correct statement. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Cbdorsett and Free smyrnan point out two valid concerns stemming from the two alternative approaches. We need a reasonable criterion to evaluate and compare the two. On one hand, we have the potential to ignore the contributions of people of the Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist or Hindu faiths to Arabic-script calligraphy. On the other hand, we have the potential to ignore the contributions of Turks, Persians, Indians and others ethnic groups to Arabic-script calligraphy. As the contributions of Turks, Persians, Indians and other Muslim ethnic groups to Arabic-script calligraphy is much larger than the contributions of people of Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist or Hindu faiths, my vote would go to "Islamic calligraphy" over "Arabic calligraphy". Ukumcuoglu 16:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep the name, The main consideration here is "Kuran". As you know " Kuran" is in arabic. Calligraphy created with the motivation of "Kuran" and so Islam, not with a motivation of "Arabic".By this way it is easily understandable why majority and best pieces of this art are created by non-Arabs.Must^TC 06:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Strong keep, the current intro contains sources that state the calligraphy is Islamic (Bloom and Blair, Oxford history of Islam). Users are welcome to create seperate articles on "Arab calligraphy". Also note that before Islam, there was really no prominent calligraphy, and almost all "Arab" calligraphy we have is about Allah, verses of the Quran etc.Bless sins 20:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted the first sentence of the subsection titled, "role in..." It was complete and utter nonsense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.43.52.52 (talk) 18:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] What is "Ariealic" calligraphy?

The dispute as to whether the calligraphy is ethnic or religious aside, I have never heard of this term "Ariealic" before, ever. I do not find it in Sheila Blair's most recent comprehensive work on Islamic Calligraphy: [1]. Jemiljan (talk) 04:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)