The Hilye of the Prophet Muhammad by Hattat Mohamed Zakariya
“Calligraphy presents the thought as the source of the image,
not the image as the source of the thought.”—Nabil F. Safwat How
does one describe the indescribable? How does one form an image
of that which cannot be portrayed? That is what the hilye
does—it gives parameters to the imagination so that one can
think about the Prophet with a mental or spiritual image to hang
onto, yet not attempt to visualize him or portray him in a
painting. But the hilye is not an icon in words. As impressive
and accurate as the manyhilye texts are, they still remain
vague, contrary to the claims of literalists, who would reject
these texts as being visual portraits. That, of course, would
not be acceptable to Muslims. Hilye is the Turkish form of the
Arabic word hilya, which has several meanings, including
physiognomy, natural disposition, likeness, depiction,
characterization, and description. But these dictionary
definitions only begin to convey the real meaning of