Visual Language of Mahajir (eye Letters) in Decorative Kufic

The visual form of writing has not only meaning apart from the content of writing but also different language from the language of writing. Based on this claim, graphologists believe that it is possible to recognize writers’ thought through their handwriting. In fact, Graphologists constituted some principles for analyzing handwriting as well as semiotic system for interpreting the visual diversification of letters. It seems that the diversity of art writing in Islamic visual culture originated from such visual perception of handwriting. This visual perception specifically used in the first exegesis of Quranic letters (Muqattaat) is similar to graphology method. Accordingly, it is supposed that letter forms in decorative Kufic contain visual messages that can be comprehended with the principles of graphology along with symbolic signs in Quranic letters’ exegesis and its interpretation, namely Hurufi thoughts and alphabet similes. Therefore, on the premise of existence of latent visual language in decorative Kufic , the varieties of Mahajir from 10th to late 12th century A.C (4th to late 6th century A.H) are evaluated with descriptive, analytic and historical methods. It is worth mentioning that the visual language of decorative Kufic has not been taken into account in previous research, but the idea of visual language of writing was proposed for the first time by Derrida with the term “Cultural Graphology” in his book titled “of Grammatology”. First, it is necessary to describe and analyze the varieties of Mahajir for explaining the forms and structure of eye letter in primary Kufic in terms of calligraphic principles being in accordance with principles of graphology. Second, analytical methods of graphology are utilized for comparing different letterforms in decorative Kufic with primary ones. As a result, according to the Quranic exegesis and its related thoughts and similes, “Perfectionism” and “Unitarianism” are introduced as two major approaches of letter decoration. Afterwards, our analytical procedure is presented and our data fall beneath these two titles. For this purpose, different letterforms of Mahajir are collected and their visual signs are derived. Moreover, their symbolic signs are inferred from Hurufi thoughts and alphabet similes. In other words, the diversification appearance in Mahajir’s letterforms are investigated descriptively and analytically in order to estimate the origin of letter’s formation from historical exegesis of Quran and its related thoughts and similes. Ultimately, a diagram will be drawn to show how concepts were formed in visual language of decorative Kufic. Actually, this diagram illustrates the connection between the diversification appearance in Mahajir’s letterforms with exegesis of Quranic letters and its related thoughts and similes, depending on graphology method. Altogether, it can be stated that Mahajir of decorative Kufic embodies symbolic visual language. Thus, it is feasible to decrypt encoded messages of this language on the basis of Quranic exegesis of letter and its related thoughts and similes; because those are thesaurus of texts having historical perception of letters beside each symbolic concept of alphabet forms. In addition, the principles of graphology should be considered as a grammar of this visual language.