Inscription embroidery is a type of embroidery art in which designs featuring Quranic verses, the names of Imams, as well as poems are stitched in the style of calligraphic scripts. To learn more about this art, stay with Saed News.
Inscription Embroidery means sewing and decorating various letters, verses, and writings with different decorative materials in embroidery arts. This art has a very long history and changes over time according to the decorative materials available. Nowadays, with the peak of combining stone embroidery, gold thread embroidery (sormeh-doozi), and jewelry embroidery, this field has become highly attractive. The best and most effective activity in this area is becoming familiar with stitching techniques, various scripts, brush strokes, and also recognizing the thickness and width of the lines. One must first have a basic understanding of calligraphy rules and brushwork. Transferring the design correctly is also very fruitful and requires great precision to avoid damaging the overall design.
Inscription Embroidery
"Inscription embroidery" is a type of traditional and beautiful embroidery applied to designs such as Quranic verses, names of the Imams, poems, and epic stories. These are stitched using scripts like Thuluth, Muqni, Tughra, semi-Tughra, Tasiloli, Divani, other decorative scripts, or Nastaʿlīq with a high-diameter pen. The threads used include metallic threads such as gold, silver, and also threads like malileh, naqdeh, golabtoon, and sormeh threads in various shades of gold and silver (which themselves vary in tone, like bright or dull gold). The curtain of the Kaaba has also been embroidered using this technique. Typically, these threads do not penetrate the fabric’s warp and weft but are sewn using an intermediary thread.
History of Inscription Embroidery
Like other embroidery styles, inscription embroidery has an ancient history in the culture and civilization of our country. The earliest examples have been found on banners from the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanid periods, which, along with other stitches, gave a special appearance to the background.
The peak of this art came after Islam, during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AH (Islamic calendar), when workshops in Shush and Shushtar produced Kaaba curtains. Every year, eight large curtains and four narrow curtains for the Black Stone were embroidered on black velvet using inscription embroidery (along with other embroidery techniques) and sent to Arabia. After designing, the curtains were piped and the edges sewn with Golabtoon thread, which contained over fifty percent gold, using the "Dah Yak" stitch. The texts on these curtains included Quranic verses written in the six canonical scripts (Muhaqqaq, Rayhan, Naskh, Thuluth, Ruq'a, and Tawqi’) by renowned masters. The line widths were mostly 6-dang or inscription-sized brushes.
Until the Safavid period, this embroidery was used for the Kaaba curtain. After the task of making the Kaaba curtain was assigned to other countries, this beautiful embroidery was used in other applications. During the Safavid era, it was used to create decorative panels.
Today, besides sacred places, artists and needleworkers create artistic panels using this embroidery, which is widespread in most provinces of Iran. Satin stitch and Dah Yak stitch are used in inscription embroidery, and usually, the underside of the embroidery is padded or raised using cardboard or stitches like backstitch, overlapping, cotton embroidery, and piping.
Final Note
The word "Katibe" literally means a piece of tile, fabric, etc., on which verses, poems, or inscriptions are written using various scripts and placed on the entrance or walls of palaces, mosques, sacred sites, and so on. We hope you find this information useful.
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