In Muslim cultures, words are used not only to communicate but to decorate. Because it is through writing that the Qur’an is transmitted, scripts in the Arabic alphabet were devised and perfected to be worthy of divine revelation. On this account, calligraphy became the most important art form regardless of the text. This concern with beautiful writing extended beyond the page to objects of all sorts, including metalwork, coins, ceramics, stone, glass, wood, and textiles, as well as inscriptions on buildings, as here.
From the time of the construction of Sultan Süleyman’s great mosque complex in Istanbul (1550–57), inscribed Iznik tiles such as this example increasingly came to embellish Ottoman religious monuments. Stencils were used to transfer the designs of epigraphic compositions. This inscription, however, seems not to have been conceived by one of the many professional calligraphers who flourished under the Ottomans. Rather, it may have been the work of a highly proficient amateur. The Arabic text—“This world is the sowing ground of the next [world]”—is probably a paraphrase of a verse from the Qur’an (42:20).
Ceramics made in Iznik, in western Turkey, are among the most renowned and influential arts of the Ottoman period. The Iznik kilns, about 85 miles southeast of the capital, Istanbul, produced both tableware and architectural revetment such as this. Tiles were first manufactured at Iznik around the early sixteenth century; however, production expanded dramatically in the second half of the century as the court increasingly sponsored new buildings.
