Geometry as Meditation

Islamic geometric patterns aren't mere decoration. They give visible form to a theological idea: the repeating shapes that cover mosque walls and ceilings seem to extend forever, echoing the Islamic belief in God's limitless, boundless nature.

The math behind them is remarkable. Patterns at the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, built in 1453, use the same quasicrystalline geometry that Western mathematicians didn't formally describe until the 1970s — work medieval artisans did five centuries early.