The square Kufic (kufi mrabba ‘), also known as bannâ’i (“wall writing”) is a particular Kufic style that allows us to create compositions using the elementary structures of the letters. In truth, the squared Kufic is the most essential of all the Arabic writing styles, an interesting precursor of pixel art, despite the fact that it was originally made of bricks and tiles and used on a large scale in architecture.

This style does not care about legibility: it is understood that the message, the Word, is present, and admiring it is enough to benefit from it. Literacy may have been limited in the past, but beauty was accessible to everyone, and its beauty is what matters. In its simplest form, the Kufi is gaunt and its beauty derives from the purity of that austerity; but it also lends itself to intelligent, even playful variations, limited only by the creator’s creativity. Even more than any other calligraphic technique, the realization of the Kufi is very similar to solving a puzzle, and attracts the attention of riddles.