geometric vocabulary by adding polygonal and circular polygonal move-
ment. This seems to have informed several later visual representations of
musical modes, ranging from theKitab al-Adwarof Safial-Din Urmawi
(d. 1294) to eighteenth-century Ottoman representations of rhythms
by Dimitri Cantemir and cosmological associations with modes.^31 The
integration of music with geometry reflected al-Farabi’s recognition of
both practices among the seven fields of mathematics, including
Figure 23Ibn al-Bawwab, frontispiece, from the Quran,c.1000. Chester Beatty
Library, CBL Is 1431, f.284b. © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
(^31) Shiloah, 1979 : 382.
Isometric Geometry in Islamic Perceptual Culture 277