Floriated Kufic

Floriated Kufic is a style of Kufic in which the ends and uprights of letters are decorated with leaves, stems and blossoms. It is celebrated in the inscriptions of Fatimid Egypt, but Bernard O'Kane stresses that it was not a Fatimid invention: a full century before the Fatimids reached Cairo, Mubarak al-Makki carved a tombstone dated Dhu'l-Hijja 243/March 858, now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, one of the earliest mature examples. Shortly before the Fatimid conquest Khadija al-Tara'ifi was buried in the Lesser Qarafa (20 Shawwal 347/4 January 959), and her tomb inscription is a masterpiece of lightly floriated Kufic; another instance is the panel of the Ikhshidid vizier Ibn al-Furat (355/966). ¹

The earliest surviving Fatimid examples are the stucco inscriptions of al-Azhar (completed 972): the large outer inscription of the mihrab is consistently floriated with occasional knotting, the smaller one around the inner arch only lightly so, and most of the rest use floriation sparingly. At the Mosque of al-Hakim (completed 1013) floriation is more consistent, with a major innovation in the large stone inscriptions of the minarets: a grooved double stem from which the leaves spring, carried under or across neighbouring uprights to add motion and fluidity. In the works of Badr al-Jamali, such as the Mashhad al-Juyushi on the Muqattam (487/1085), the vegetal scrolls often emerge from the frame rather than the letters, and for the first time letters are set against a geometric ground of rosettes formed of six lozenges. ^{2 3}

O'Kane notes that floriation was one way of enhancing Fatimid inscriptions but not the only one: often the letters were left plain and the background filled with scrollwork, as in the lower inscription on the facade of the Aqmar Mosque against the floriated upper one. Open questions remain, which he sets out without settling: was floriation meant to obscure, and did the Fatimid retention of Kufic carry ideological meaning? ^{1 2 4}