FROM a race of artists Mohammed took away the freedom to paint or model representations of living things. Yet the prohibition was a seed from which sprang a garden of expression more graphic than paint, a school of symbolism perhaps the most highly wrought the world has seen.
Artist the Arab is, whether measured by tests of his command over abstract symbol or—in such media as his religion permits—vivid portrayal of nature. Of concrete things and occurrences he has the alert observation of a reporter. Upon what he sees he ponders; intensely religious, he sees the hand of Allah in many things, draws morals, and seeks meanings.
His nomad forefathers mastered the geography of the stars, in search of a celestial message. Though the message be still unread, mathematical problems that vex the learned in academies amused the Arab when the race was young. Written numerals he invented, occult relations he sees in their functions. And, underlying all, he has a passion for intellectual order.
Geometry is the educated Arab’s plaything; from long practice he can project its figures upon the wall of imagination, free of the need of pencil. Owing to this practice, perhaps, his thoughts express themselves in the form of images. His literature is crowded with them, vivid sketches thrown before the mind’s eye; each a
