on the nature of ornament. The arabesque was
understood to represent a paradigmatic way
of life—simple and instinctual, close to nature
yet profoundly spiritual, unchanging, and stoic.
These characteristics were visually apparent in
applied decoration of floral scrolls, interlaced
and/or overlapping geometric motifs, or styl-
ized writing, sometimes in combination. To
European eyes, the two-dimensionality, abstrac-
tion, and nonfigural nature of these decorative
designs made them perfect expressions of Arab-
Semitic abhorrence of representations of living
beings (even though some of them included
such representations). Their being categorized as
ornament underscored their additive and unnec-
essary nature and their lack of meaning, while
their infinite repetition with minute variations
expressed a horror of emptiness. By 1900, when
the first handbooks on Islamic art were written,
the arabesque was cited as the major character-
istic of an art whose goal was to express infinite
(ethnic or created) variety within unity (of Islam
and God). Some Muslim scholars now uphold
this concept as an expression of tawhid (unity)
partly as a way of affirming Islamic cultural and
political identity.
Recent research demonstrates that the ara-
besque has complex histories and meanings. On a
theoretical level, floral, geometric, or calligraphic
arabesques may have acted as carriers of pleasure,
mediators between (human) nature and culture.
Historically, they first appeared in late 10th-cen-
tury baghdad, when they were also introduced
into the three-dimensional muqarnas decoration
used for the portals and domes of shrines. The
Persian term girih (knot) expresses their math-
ematical and geometrical complexity, and their
specific context indicates that they belonged
to inter-Islamic philosophical, theological, and
political discourses on the nature of God and
the universe. The visual appeal of the girih mode
eventually led to its adoption in a variety of later
contexts, even when its original purpose was no
longer operative.
See also architectUre; calligraphy; ibn al-baW-
Wab, abU al-hasan ali; mathematics; theology.Nuha N. N. KhouryFurther reading: Terry Allen, Five Essays on Islamic
Art (Sebastopol, Calif.: Solipsist Press, 1988); Oleg
Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1992); Ernst Kühnel, Die
Arabesque (Wiesbaden, 1949); Richard Ettinghausen,
The Arabesque: Meaning and Transformation of an Orna-
ment (Graz, Austria: Verlag für Sammler, 1976); Gülru
Necipoglu, The Topkapi Scroll—Geometry and Ornament
in Islamic Architecture (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Getty
Center, 1995); Yasser Tabbaa, The Transformation of
Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 2001).Arabian Nights
The Arabian Nights is one of the most famous
works of Arabic literature. It consists of several
hundred adventure stories, fairy tales, love stories,
and animal fables that storytellers recounted for
centuries to audiences living in the Middle East
and Asia. Between the 14th and 18th centuries,
these stories were written down in Arabic and
collected in the book Thousand and One Nights
(or Alf layla wa-layla). It first became known
to English readers as Arabian Nights in the 18th
century. The tales are nested within the overall
frame of a story about the fictional king Shahrayar
of india who murdered his first wife because she
betrayed him and then, continuing his revenge,
had each new virgin bride he took thereafter
killed. To end the king’s killing spree, Shahrazad,
the well-educated daughter of the king’s minister,
offered to marry him, and she was then able to
save her own life and bring his killing spree to
a halt by entertaining him with a different tale
night after night, year after year. With its fanciful
and often risqué stories, the Arabian Nights is not
an example of Islamic religious literature, but it
does contain elements—such as references to theArabian Nights 51 J