Home › Education › Resources for Schools › Secondary Lesson Plans

Geometry and Islam

Religious Beliefs Made Visual

Share

Photo courtesy flickr/seier+seier+seier
enlarge image

Photo courtesy flickr/seier+seier+seier

Religious Beliefs Made Visual
A short student activity that introduces why patterns are used in Islamic books, textiles and architecture and how to use a compass and a ruler to create two common patterns.

Students will

  • Understand the significance of geometric patterns in the Muslim world
  • Replicate common patterns that adorn architecture, texts and textiles
  • Practice using a compass and straight edge

  1. Read and summarize "Islamic Belief Made Visual" essay for students.
  2. Give each student a piece of paper or poster board, compass, straight edge and copies of the handouts Construction of an Islamic Pattern parts one and two.
  3. Through demonstration and/or one-on-one work, help students replicate common geometric designs seen throughout the Muslim world.

For elementary school students: color the patterns to bring out geometric shapes. You may want to paper a bulletin board or wall with student artwork.

Author: Jane Norman.

 

LSparham | 04:06:10 03:47pm
Hi, You used to have (2003) a great two - page set of instructions, suitable for high school, on how to construct Arabesques. Would you please make it available again? Thank you very much. Lucie Sparham
anonymous | 08:04:09 05:08pm
Where are the handouts "Construction of an Islammic Pattern Parts one and two?'
Charlie Kimball | 06:21:10 03:37am
I googled "Construction of an Islamic Pattern", and the first hit was "http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/islam.pdf". That is a 2 page handout with straightforward Euclidean constructions using circles and lines. As the "Islamic Belief Made Visual" article points out, Islamic patterns ARE based on Euclidean constructions.

Post new comment

Your comments are welcome, please adhere to our guidelines

Be respectful. Personal attacks will not be tolerated; nor will profane, abusive or threatening posts.

Keep it short (150 words or less), Stay on topic.

Asia Society reserves the right to moderate all comments and remove or edit for guideline violations. Thank you.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Type the characters you see in this picture. (verify using audio)
Type the characters you see in the picture above; if you can't read them, submit the form and a new image will be generated. Not case sensitive.