There is a strongly metaphysical dimension to the Arabic letter shapes in Ahmed Moustafa’s art, reflecting the discovery that the exact geometric basis of proportioned script does not simply provide a mathematical rationale for Islamic calligraphy, explaining why this art form is so harmonious and aesthetically pleasing in its effect, but it implies something far more extraordinary: that the Arabic script, like music, is a finely tuned abstract vocabulary embodying universal mathematical laws, and therefore has the power to have an objective moral and spiritual effect upon the viewer. In this way, the script is like the sacred vocabulary in most traditions of ancient civilisations.

It is not surprising that people, sensing universals in their response to Ahmed Moustafa’s art, frequently receive intimations of that divine harmony and order which pervade the created universe, most obviously in paintings such as Landscape in Due Measure and Proportion (1997), in which all the planes of the structural sides of this landscape are determined by the text, “Behold, everything have We created in due measure and proportion” (Qur’ān 54:49). The concepts of perfect harmony, congruity, proportion and order in creation are collectively expressed and inspired by the Names or Divine Attributes, Al-Khaliq (the Creator), Al-Bari’ (The Producer) and Al-Musawwir (the Fashioner).

This composition endeavours to express many layers of knowledge which inform and illuminate Ahmed Moustafa’s art – such knowledge, whether exoteric or esoteric, whether scholarly, linguistic, religious or mystical, is not the starting point for an appreciation of its essential impact. So vividly does he translate verbal material into visual images which palpably represent the meaning of the texts that he opens a door into the inner realities of the Islamic revelation, and, by extension, the essential truth hidden in the diversity of all religious experience, a door through which anyone can enter by the exercise of intuition alone, for intuition is innate in all human beings. It is that faculty or organ, otherwise called “creative imagination”, “imaginal understanding”, “symbolic thought” or “archetypal awareness”, resident in the heart and beyond discursive reason, which reflects a basic urge towards mystical experience shared by all humanity.

When the mirror of your heart becomes clear and pure
You’ll behold images which are outside this world.
You will see the image and the image-maker.

Jalaluddin Rumi

The work of Ahmed Moustafa activates this faculty, making it more conscious in all of us. He invites us to view his work with the unconditioned eye of the child, with that primordial simplicity and sincerity unclouded by preconceptions, cultural prejudices, aesthetic poses and affectations, doctrinnaire fundamentalism, or scholarly erudition divorced from inner understanding.

This original work has been rendered in a number of other media, including tapestry, Iris print and art greeting card.