For the cultural history of the Islamic World writing has long been recognized as a highly
important form of art as calligraphy has traditionally held a particular place in the
perception of Islamic elites and their artistic practices. The culture of calligraphy was
intimately connected with the production of prestigious book manuscripts but reached a climax
in the creation of single-leaf calligraphies that were also highly appreciated by collectors in
centres of Islamic culture from the Ottoman Mediterranean to post-Timurid Central Asia Safavid
Iran and Mughal India. At the same time writing by its very nature fulfilled its age-old
functions of encoding verbal language as text. The present volume approaches the variegated
aspects of writing fathoming its ambiguous character between text and image. It contains ten
contributions that originated from a conference held at the University of Bamberg in 2019.
These studies range from text-image relations in precious manuscripts through the use of
Chinese decorated paper for artistic book production the training of calligraphers and the
process of design to the iconic character of writing in the layout of books single-leaf works
of calligraphy iconic writing in contemporary art to more theoretical considerations on
aesthetic perception.
