Ash’ar Script and Waq Style in the Human-Headed Inscriptions of Islamic Metalwork Based on Theory of the Two Qalams

In the realm of Islamic paleography, decorative scripts have been one of the controversial discussions due to both their origins and varieties. What has not been considered in these discussions is whether there were any special principles about designing decorative scripts. To answer this question, we should mention that the oldest decorative scripts came back to the late 2nd AH/9th AD as the oldest treatise on calligraphy principles returned to 3rd AH/10th AD. However, no sooner than 10th AH/17th AD can we find treatises on the principles of decoration. These 10th Century treatises are about painting and its principles, where also there are discussions on calligraphy and its principles. This paper attempted to reintroduce the human-headed script from the viewpoint of the theory of the Two Qalams based on the 17th-Century principles of both painting and calligraphy. To this end, it conducted a bibliographical survey on early and medieval Islamic texts and images; while it applied descriptive-analytical methods of paleography to analyze human-headed inscriptions. Briefly speaking, the third main discussion is the theory of Two Qalams, Persian principles of calligraphy and painting, and data collection.
The first time, Porter (2000) addressed the relationship of calligraphy and painting in the 17th-century treatises, when later he put it forward again under the title of Theory of the Two Qalams. Referring to 'Abdi Beg Shirazi’s Ayn-i Iskandari (1977 [1691]), Qutb al-Din Qissakhvan’s Risala'i dar tarikh-i khatt u naqqashi (1994 [1552-1606?]), Sadig beg Afshar’s Qanun as-Suwar [Canons of Painting] (1994 [1607?]), and Qazi Ahmad Qomi’s Gulistan-i hunar (2004 [1575-1622?]), Porter pointed out the 17th-century relationship between calligraphy and painting as well as the influences of painting principles from calligraphy principles in this era. The point is that this relationship was already mentioned in the 10th century Ibn al-Bawwab’s qasida on calligraphy. In the opening of his qasida, Ibn al-Bawwab describes the one -who wants to learn calligraphy- as an aesthetic seeker for beauty either in scripts or in images; likewise, he brought to learning calligraphy after he had learned illumination. Furthermore, the Quran of Ibn al-Bawwab, particularly decorative Kufic of its chapter titles, demonstrates to what extent pre-17th century Persian calligraphy and painting have related to each other. It is noteworthy that the decorative scripts of Ibn al-Bawwab’s Quran have dramatically become pervasive not only in 10th Century Quranic title chapters but within the next several decades of architectural and artwork inscriptions. Among these inscriptions, decorative scripts of Islamic metalwork have a more profound and precedent relationship of calligraphy and painting due to its visual similarity to the decorative script of Ibn al-Bawwab as well as the well-combination of its letter with Waq decoration. We aim to re-describe the decorative script of the 12-13th-century Islamic metalwork in light of the principles of calligraphy and painting in order to understand the rules of the combinations of these principles.
Qissakhvan clearly stated the principles of calligraphy and painting when he represented six styles of calligraphy in addition to its original style named Kufic as seven principles of calligraphy. Then he called Nastaliq and Taliq as derivatives of those six styles. Ultimately, he continued by introducing the seven principles of painting (Islami, Khatai, Farangi, Fassdal, Abr, Waq, Girih) in comparison to sex styles of calligraphy (Thuluth, Naskh, Muhaqqaq, Rayhani, Tawqi', Riqa'). This inspiration raised the idea that since these seven principles similar to those sex styles are general, we should scrutinize more in details of artworks to find out if there are the particular implementation of derivative principles similar to hybrid styles of calligraphy. The other noticeable vagueness is how the 10th-century principles have been applied in the design of early decorative scripts (dated from the 2nd century onwards). To shed light on these disputable topics, a human-headed script is appropriate; not only did we notice that the designer of these inscriptions was aware of Waq principle, but we also dealt with a kind of script named Ash'ar which is a combination of calligraphy styles. It is noteworthy that the earliest and broadest collection of human-headed scripts exist in the 6th-7th century Islamic metalwork. These scripts are analogous to the decorative script of Ibn al-Bawwab's Quran, both in stroke and painting values of letters. The research questions, thus, are how we must re-describe firstly the decorations and secondly the scripts of human-headed inscriptions more systematically based on principles of both calligraphy and painting in the light of the theory of Two Qalams.
Therefore, aiming for the re-Introduction of the human-headed script in terms of principles of calligraphy and painting, this paper, first, explains the framework of the theory of Two Qalams as well as the research methods, then, in the third section, it provides a literature review. This review shows that as last researchers did not apply the theory of Two Qalams in comprehending decorative scripts, we have not an accurate classification in this field. Consequently, in the fourth section, we attribute the principles of painting to the decoration of each familiar decorative script as follows; Islimi and Abr to foliated scripts, Khatai to floriated scripts, Fasali to plaited scripts, Girih to knotted scripts, and Waq to human-headed scripts. At the end of this part, we explain how the decoration of human-headed scripts originated from Waq principle. After re-introducing the human-headed script, this part arrives at this point that Waq style of inscriptions diversified sometimes with the combination of Islimi style in the form of regular repetition of heads on the top of Alifs. Moreover, in combination with Islimi principle, the decorative Waqs are drawn between scripts like scroll arabesque. Ultimately, in more complicated inscriptions, the combination of Girih, Khatai, and Islimi is common in the forms of human bodies and animal heads, respectively.
In the fourth section, considering the similarity of the script of human-headed inscriptions to the script of Ash'ar, presented in Ibn al-Bawwab Quran, we build a ground on Ibn al-Bawwab's Ash'ar formed from two styles, Thuluth and Muhaqqaq to compare the hybrid style of Ash'ar with these two main styles. This comparison re-introduces Ash'ar as a kind of Thuluth, while it reveals that more than Ash'ar bounded to Muhaqqaq, it seems coming from Kufic. This tendency, in addition to mono-line stroke of letters, exists in Ash'ar's Alifs and ascenders. However, the mono-thickness of Ash'ar scripts is also its specific characteristics; in fact, Thuluth letters and words became mono-line and outlined in Ash'ar script. These two characteristics organized the letters and characters irregularly enter from different other styles to Ash'ar inscriptions, and calligraphers/designers use those to refine the form and design of letters by painting them after writing.
As mentioned above, we re-introduce human-headed scripts as a combination of Waq principle and a kind of Thuluth style named Ash'ar; meanwhile, we state that many other prevalent homogeneous combinations of either seven principles or sex styles branched from each part of this combination. For instance, the combination of Waq principle with Islimi, Khatai, Abr, and Girih as well as the combination of Thuluth style with Kufic, Muhaqqaq, Tawqi', and Naskh are frequently used in human-headed inscriptions.
Consequently, this study suggests that further research is necessary to recognize accurate derivative styles of decorative scripts based on the theory of Two Qalams.