Image: The Bismillah India

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Description: In this unusual calligraphic composition from southern India, the Arabic phrase "Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim" (“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate”) is written four times: right side up, upside down, and in reverse of each of these. It is the opening phrase of all but one of the chapters of the Qur\'an. In the little inscription in black ink above, the page is referred to as a tughra, a type of calligraphic emblem that originated in Turkey in the sixteenth century and became popular in India in the nineteenth. Mirror writing in various cursive and squared scripts was a common practice in India, Turkey, and Iran in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Calligraphers were the most celebrated artisans in traditional Islamic cultures: to repeat the Bismillah is to repeat the word of God; to do so in beautiful script is to glorify the word of God.
Title: The Bismillah India
Credit: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/labs/splitsecond/painting.php?id=44
Author: Deccan, Hyderabad
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No

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