Just to clarify I don’t think that first image is Kufic script, whereas the second is the shahada (author calls it the shada)
I’m not sure about the 2 kinds of scripts claim, I think there are a few more than that.
mda · 1h ago
Not sure, I think first image is square or geometric Kufic (sometimes called "Satrancli Kûfi" in Turkish) of course looks quite different than typical Kufic script.
hinell · 53m ago
Incomprehensible for outsiders. Though, any script can be fit into "square" writing.
As someone with zero exposure to Kufic script before today, some of those images, and particular the circle ones in the original article, remind me of the London Underground "Labyrinth" mazes https://www.tubeopedia.co.uk/labyrinth-locations
I had the idea of making a QR code generator that embeds those "Kufi" "scripts" but never got to do it. Now with LLM image generators it's pretty feasible
Calwestjobs · 3h ago
Greatest shibboleths of them all.
brador · 3h ago
Such abstraction can be used to obfuscate information. Could they contain and have contained hidden messages? Hushed passwords to enter secret areas of the temples hidden in plain sight?
omneity · 1h ago
I always found Kufi to be a form of space-filling curves[0], which was the original purpose: a form of decoration that can fill a surface such as edges around a building[1, 2], without depicting humans in stone, a form of art historically forbidden in Islam due the prevalence of statue idolatry at the time. Hence the prevalence of geometry (Zellij [3]) and calligraphy in areas historically islamic.
Hilbert curves [4] could be the substrate (the coordinate system), and Kufi writing could be indeed encoded information maybe by XORing each point between the curve and the kufi word.
I'm just blabbering around. But it's difficult to disassociate the two in my mind.
https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi
If you look closely, you should be able to see "Mardin Artuklu Üniversitesi" in the labyrinth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufa
I’m not sure about the 2 kinds of scripts claim, I think there are a few more than that.
As someone with zero exposure to Kufic script before today, some of those images, and particular the circle ones in the original article, remind me of the London Underground "Labyrinth" mazes https://www.tubeopedia.co.uk/labyrinth-locations
This is not the link you intended...
Hilbert curves [4] could be the substrate (the coordinate system), and Kufi writing could be indeed encoded information maybe by XORing each point between the curve and the kufi word.
I'm just blabbering around. But it's difficult to disassociate the two in my mind.
0: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/kufi-ayat-kursi-al...
1: https://i0.wp.com/majnouna.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/...
2: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f2/f7/e9/f2f7e99d6bfe75042313adbe6...
3: https://zellige.info/
4: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christoph-Schierz/publi...