Joint Winner of the 2007 British-Kuwait Friendship Society Prize for Middle Eastern StudiesWinner of 2008 World Prize for Book of the Year by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic GuidanceSelected as a 2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitleThe extensive use of writing is a hallmark of Islamic civilization. Calligraphy became one of the main methods of artistic expression from the seventh century to the present in almost all regions from the far Maghrib to India and beyond. Arabic script was adopted for other languages from Persian and Turkish to Kanembu and Malay.Islamic Calligraphy...

With a history spanning some fourteen centuries, Islamic art is one of the world's great artistic traditions, although it largely eschews such familiar art forms as painting on canvas and monumental sculpture. "Cosmophilia" is the catalog for an exhibition comprising 123 of the finest examples of Islamic art from the C. L. David Collection in Copenhagen, Denmark, shown at the McMullen Museum at Boston College and soon to travel to the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. These beguiling works from Spain, West Africa, China, and Indonesia include ornamental textiles, calligraphy,...