There are two concepts of God in Islam that I chose to represent in my calligram. The first that I picked was the oneness of God, called “tawhid” in Arabic. I wished to show through my design that God can be conveyed through anything and everything. I decided that the best way to show this would be through drawings of nature, broadly. Nature encompasses the very foundation of our Earth and therefore what God has intended for people to see. The second concept that I worked with was God’s beauty and appreciation of beauty. There is a verse in the hadiths that says “Allah is beautiful and loves beauty.” This relates to the last concept because nature, which both contains God and is a product of God, is a representation of beauty.

The medium that I chose for my design was fine-point colored markers. They have vibrant colors to show the aesthetic of the flora and fauna of the design, yet are easy to work with to get smooth, crisp lines. First, I planned the design in pencil with an outline of the Arabic for “Allah,” including a large amount of space within the lettering. Then, I filled the blank part of the script with a brilliant array of plants and animals. After I created this pencil draft, I slowly worked my way back through the initial setup, erasing and replacing the lines with a marker. I believe that it worked to get the desired effect for the design, which is simplicity, beauty, and cohesiveness.