“Abraham said to his father and his people: 'What are these images to whose worship you cleave?'
They said: 'We found our fathers worshipping them.' He said: 'Certainly you have been, you and
your fathers, in manifest error.'”
— Koran, Chapter 21, verses 52-54
The Tughra
Loophole
Warnings in the Hadith
to make no image of God
or man or animal
are no match for the loophole
function of the human mind
which will overcome obstacles
like certainty
and threats of hellfire
to make real any
object of longing
mystic or material
as can easily be seen
in the lovely lyrical
portrait, the Tughra
(signature of Sulaiman
the Magnificent),
disguised as calligraphy,
a loophole allowed in
Muhammed’s line by men
who knew the futility of
banning beauty
by Jim Culleny,
January 2, 2009