[nouf-q]

hello! if you're from the Middle East or North Africa and you do writing/photography/art etc, please consider this 🤍 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeW8vTFc2oX9CvaPyvF3-mwAyrMBL2slM9pgFnVMST6vT-QQQ/viewform

Writers, Poets, Photographers, and Artists - Submission of Interest Form

My name is Salem and I have enjoyed reading and writing since I was the tinniest, chubbiest little boy. I've always had aspirations to share

[forafricans]

Seen in Mali, 1960s by William Brown. “A weaver prepares cotton thread for weaving.”

[nehal-arafa]

Egypt, Cairo, 1999 - Musicians

by Denis Dailleux

[cma-islamic-art]

King Luhrasp Ascends the Throne: A Processon Arrives at Court (Recto); The Story of King Luhrasp (Verso), c. 1560s-80s, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

This scene of a procession arriving at court was surely completed by the court scene itself. The subject of the frontispiece had nothing to do with the text that it accompanied, and the text has not been identified. Size: Sheet: 47 x 29.7 cm (18 ½ x 11 11/16 in.); Image: 43.9 x 26.6 cm (17 5/16 x 10 ½ in.) Medium: opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1962.24

[cma-islamic-art]

Animals, Precious Stones, Coins, and Musical Instruments (recto); Illustration and Text (Persian Verses) from a Manuscript of the Mu'nis al-Ahrar fi Daqa'iq al-Ash'ar (The Free Men’s Companion to the Subtleties of Poems) of Muhammad Ibn Badr al-Din Jajarm, 1341, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

This is one of several pages that were removed from a unique manuscript of this otherwise unknown work, which bears a colophon stating that it was written by the author and finished “Ramadan, 741” (February 1341). Illustrations on both sides include various animals, trees, and objects such as weapons, musical instruments, and jewels. Size: Overall: 19.7 x 13.5 cm (7 ¾ x 5 5/16 in.) Medium: opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1945.385.a

[met-islamic-art]

Page of Calligraphy from a Kalila wa Dimna, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Islamic Art

The Alice and Nasli Heeramaneck Collection, Gift of Alice Heeramaneck, 1981 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Ink and opaque watercolor on paper

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453106

[cma-islamic-art]

Dragon in foliage with lion and phoenix heads, Sahkulu, mid 1500s, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

In this masterful drawing, a fierce undulating dragon entangled in swirling foliage is under attack from a lion above while assaulting a phoenix whose body dissolves into floral and foliate forms. The lion’s body undergoes a comparable zoomorphic transformation. This drawing represents the finest of the saz style, admired for elaborately curving flowers and leaves that flourished in the mid-1500s. The style was led by the Iranian-trained artist, Sahkulu, who joined the Ottoman imperial painting atelier in Istanbul in 1526 and became the head of the atelier in 1545. A verse from the Koran, 40:44, is inscribed in the stamp: “And I commit my case unto God.” Size: Sheet: 17.3 x 40.2 cm (6 13/16 x 15 13/16 in.) Medium: ink, gold, opaque watercolors on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1944.492

[cma-islamic-art]

Qur'an Manuscript Folio (Recto); Left Folio of Double-Page Illuminated Frontispiece, 1500s, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

The sending down of the Book is from God the All-mighty, the All-wise. Surah XXXIX: 1-3 The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. In the view of orthodox Muslims, it is the literal word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632) in the Arabic language, and thus, recorded in the Arabic script. Because of its association with the divine word, Arabic calligraphy came to be a supreme art form in the Islamic world. As the quintessential symbol of the culture, it became a pervasive decorative element in Islamic art and architecture. Although secondary to calligraphy, a splendid tradition of illumination –that is, ornamentation with colors and gold– developed to enhance the pages of the Qur'an. Because of the prestige associated with the book arts in the Islamic world, the decorative motifs employed by illuminators (scrolling vines, blossoms, lozenges, adn cartouches) found their way into other art forms, for example, metalwork, textiles, and carpets. Size: Sheet: 28 x 17.4 cm (11 x 6 7/8 in.); Text area: 8.4 x 6.4 cm (3 5/16 x 2 ½ in.) Medium: ink, gold, and colors on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1924.746.2.a

[cma-islamic-art]

Qur'an Manuscript Folio (Recto); Illuminated Page, 1500s, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

The sending down of the Book is from God the All-mighty, the All-wise. Surah XXXIX: 1-3 The Qur'an is the sacred book of Islam. In the view of orthodox Muslims, it is the literal word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632) in the Arabic language, and thus, recorded in the Arabic script. Because of its association with the divine word, Arabic calligraphy came to be a supreme art form in the Islamic world. As the quintessential symbol of the culture, it became a pervasive decorative element in Islamic art and architecture. Although secondary to calligraphy, a splendid tradition of illumination –that is, ornamentation with colors and gold– developed to enhance the pages of the Qur'an. Because of the prestige associated with the book arts in the Islamic world, the decorative motifs employed by illuminators (scrolling vines, blossoms, lozenges, adn cartouches) found their way into other art forms, for example, metalwork, textiles, and carpets. Size: Sheet: 49 x 36.3 cm (19 5/16 x 14 5/16 in.) Medium: ink, gold, and colors on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1924.746.1.a

[marxistbarbie-deactivated202109]

do you ever sit and think about your female ancestors and like how many of them endured forced marriages, sexual abuse, physical violence and complete deprivation of education and autonomy and suffered silently for literally centuries. going through pregnancies and child birth without modern medicine, having multiple children and watching most of them die before the age of five because that was just the way of life back then? and ultimately you are a product of their pain? i think about them a lot and then i think about how many women continue to share their reality in this current year 

[cma-islamic-art]

Musicians and Servants Outside a Royal Encampment, Bihzad, c. 1485, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

This unfinished painting—the left side of a double-page composition—shows a group of musicians on the far side of a stream and figures trying to gain entry to the royal encampment on the near side. Below, a cook prepares meat on a brazier while a servant holds a stick of kabobs over a dish. One man has fallen to the ground, probably intoxicated. One of the most famed painters from the Timurid court, Bihzad is known for his carefully balanced compositions and precise draftsmanship, and other artists emulated his style. After his death his works were regarded as the exemplars of Persian painting, both in Iran and in Mughal India, whose emperors collected his work. Size: Image: 24.4 x 14.1 cm (9 5/8 x 5 9/16 in.); Overall: 27 x 17.2 cm (10 5/8 x 6 ¾ in.) Medium: opaque watercolor and gold on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1944.490.a

[cma-islamic-art]

Qur'an Manuscript Folio, 800s-900s, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

Size: Sheet: 13 x 17.4 cm (5 1/8 x 6 7/8 in.); Text area: 9 x 14 cm (3 9/16 x 5 ½ in.) Medium: ink, gold, and color on parchment

https://clevelandart.org/art/1933.483.a

[cma-islamic-art]

Rustam’s seventh course: He kills the White Div, folio 124 from a Shah-nama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 934-1020), Mir Musavvir, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

This spectacular painting, both lyrical and fierce, comes from one of the greatest Iranian manuscripts ever produced. The royal copy of the national Iranian epic, the Shahnama, or Book of Kings, was made for Shah Tahmasp during the 1520s and 1540s. The book was even acclaimed in its own day for “the coloring and the portraiture” found in its 258 paintings. The lengendary hero Rustam, identified by his tiger-skin clothing, kills the savage chief of the demons, the White Div, in an immense cave, as other demons watch from above. Completing this last of seven trials, Rustam uses the White Div’s blood to cure the Iranian king Kay Kavus of his blindness. The painting is set in a spectacular spring landscape with blossoming trees and brilliantly colored rocks that bend like spectators: They wrestled, tearing out each other’s flesh, Till all the ground was puddled with their blood… [Rustam] reached out, clutched the Div, raised him neck-high, And dashed the life-breath from him on the ground, Then with a dagger stabbed him to the heart And plucked the liver from his swarthy form: The carcass filled the cave, and all the world Was like a sea of blood… Medium: opaque watercolor, ink, gold, and silver on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1988.96

[cma-islamic-art]

Leaf from a Qur'an (recto), 1300, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

Size: Sheet: 45 x 33 cm (17 11/16 x 13 in.) Medium: ink, gold, color on pink paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/2013.102.a

[cma-islamic-art]

Shamsa, recto of the right folio from a double-page frontispiece of a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940–1019 or 1025), c. 1444, Cleveland Museum of Art: Islamic Art

Size: Image: 27.7 x 10.3 cm (10 7/8 x 4 1/16 in.); Overall: 32.5 x 22.1 cm (12 13/16 x 8 11/16 in.) Medium: opaque watercolor and gold on paper

https://clevelandart.org/art/1945.169.a

[sahrai]

‘The heavens as they were on April 25, 1384’ by the Persian polymath Mahmud ibn Yahya ibn al-Hasan al-Kashi (completed between 1410 - 11)

[lahore2toronto]

Eid Mubarak: The art of camel barbering in Pakistan.