Arabic Calligraphy

Another style of art heavily represented at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts is Arabic Calligraphy. This is a very wide-spread and popular art form in the Middle East. Its origins are tied to mosque art and the Qur'an, but it has expanded over time to include much more. You can see some more examples here.

Zoomorphisms like this one are particularly spectacular, I think.  I have no idea what it says - I should have written down the caption.

A lot of Arabic Calligraphy is devoted to the 99 names of Allah, as is the piece below - "He is the Omnipotent".

I thought this more modern one was pretty cool as well.

In Persian Calligraphy, I know there are many Rumi poems (and other Persian poetry) in addition to the traditional Qur'anic calligraphy.  This is one of the things I like most about the Arabic and Persian alphabets - the script lends itself to artistic expression so beautifully!