@frauenfelder (Mark Frauenfelder) posted a new topic, subject "How to draw Islamic geometric patterns". It read:

   [Read the post]
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

To which @Dragonbait1 (Red Bnting) replied

    Looks awesome and sounds like fun. But are we just ‘Columbusing' another cultural art form? Where is the line between sharing and appropriating?
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

After which, @chgoliz (chgoliz) added

    Any chance it'll help the average Joe recognize the beauty, integrity, and sophistication of Islamic culture in general?
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

Then @Modusoperandi (Modusoperandi) said

    Don't try it. I did it and accidentally summoned a Muslim!
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

To which @OtherMichael (MichaelPaulukonis) replied

    Do you still use Roman Numerals, because Arabic numbers were appropriated?
    
    Did you ever study the Arabic discovery of algebra? Or look in the sky for Aldebaran?
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

Then @ChickieD (Suzanne) said

    The greatest animated film of all time (that was never completed) used Islamic geometry to great effects.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

Then @Dragonbait1 (Red Bnting) said

    I'd argue there is a difference in social standards of communication (Arabic numerals) and art labeled as Islamic.
    
    I'm not saying it is appropriation, I'm asking where the line is. Imagine “Draw your own Hindu mandalas” or “How to make your own Navajo art”. I don't want a bland, beige monoculture. But at the same time, cultural appropriation exists and it generally profits the appropriators, not the people whose culture is stolen.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

Then @GulliverFoyle (Aleck Smart) said

    Dragonbait1:
    
    > But at the same time, cultural appropriation exists and it generally profits the appropriators, not the people whose culture is stolen.
    
    I would argue that imitation is not appropriation. Appropriation is when you try to turn things you took from others into your property. That is _literally_ what Columbus did. Showing up, learning from the natives, and taking the knowledge home to enrich Europe would not have been an injustice. The European explorers' acquisitiveness, not their inquisitiveness, was their transgression against the Indigenous cultures of the Americas and Asia. Knowledge, art and traditions are for sharing, not walling up in quarantined isolation to shield them from foreigners. Cultural appropriation is when one individual or group claims cultural artifacts (including artistic traditions) as their own without crediting the original creators and discoverers, as in the case of rock music borrowing from African American music without acknowledging who and where the ideas they remixed came from.
    
    Anyway, that's my 2¢.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

To which @OtherMichael (MichaelPaulukonis) replied

    There's also the issue of minority vs. majority in this case.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

Then @Boundegar (Boundegar) said

    I would take issue with calling these patterns “Islamic.” There's a reason the Muslim world developed such beautiful abstract designs: the prohibition on representing humans, especially the Prophet.
    
    But the geometry itself is universal. No culture owns the compass and striaightedge.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

To which @ChickieD (Suzanne) replied

    You mean like this?
    
    amazon.com
    
    ### Amazon.com: adult coloring book mandala
    
    ****
    
    http://www.amazon.com/COLORING-Tribal-Collection-Exquisite-Navajo-Placemats-/dp/B01DUZK8T4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462379108&sr=8-2&keywords=adult+coloring+book+navajo
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

Then @chenille (chenille) said

    Boundegar:
    
    > But the geometry itself is universal. No culture owns the compass and striaightedge.
    
    Euclidean geometry may be universal but it still takes someone to decide what they want to make with it. There is a lot more freedom in designing these patterns than in say making solids from regular polygons, and we still call _those_ Platonic and Archimedean for _their_ discoverers.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

@Boundegar (Boundegar) replied

    Yes there are platonic solids, but nobody accuses D&D players of appropriating Greek culture.
    
    I think if you _intend_ to make your living room look like the Taj Mahal, somebody is going to write a mean blog post about you. If you just happen to like how those triangles look… well… somebody is going to write a mean blog post about you, too. But you'll have more of a leg to stand on in the inevitable flame war. Is that a kind of victory?
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

To which @anon68952647 replied

    Boundegar:
    
    > nobody accuses D&D players of appropriating Greek culture.
    
    Maybe not Greek culture… but
    
    09-Oriental-Adventures.jpg826×1117 120 KB
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

After which, @Medievalist (Charlie) added

    It appears that the book in question draws its inspiration from geometric art forms which (nod to @Boundegar here) became highly developed as ritually permissible art forms in Islamic cultures.
    
    That being said, similar forms and methods of construction existed well before Mohammed was born. To insist that every such thing is inherently “Islamic” is in itself a form of cultural appropriation.
    
    These patterns are found in ancient Greece, the ancient British Isles, ancient Scythia, and many other places, as well as in the pre-Islamic Middle East and north Africa. I learned them from studying pre-islamic picts. There are scratched patterns in the beams of my barn that show that the same arc method was used to create Pennsylvania Dutch “hex” patterns generations ago; I don't think anyone looking at the hex signs on my barn (which feature oak leaves and chickens, among other things) would call them “Islamic”.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

So @bigtrendy (Bigtrendy) replied

    Honestly, when I was a kid? This came across as inclusionary in a way that maybe trumps the accusation of appropriation.
    
    It doesn't pass muster today, of course, but I'm inclined to regard it as a good faith effort that moved the D&D setting from its pretty exclusively European origins towards the more multiculturally open 5th ed. I expect that in 30 odd years there will be things we're doing now won't look jake, either.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

So @politeruin replied

    I'm not sure which is worse - summoning a class 5 brain eater and getting a visit from the Laundry or buying the book and getting a visit from a security agency with a 3/4 letter acronym… i think i prefer the former.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox

After which, @frauenfelder (Mark Frauenfelder) added

    This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
      *[White Stockings]: not to be confused with the White Sox


{'source': 'discourse', 'url': 'https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/how-to-draw-islamic-geometric-patterns/77558', 'title': 'How to draw Islamic geometric patterns', 'views': 3048, 'has_accepted_answer': False, 'word_count': 954, 'like_count': 50, 'reply_count': 10, 'participant_count': 13, 'posts': 18, 'tags': '', 'author': '@frauenfelder (Mark Frauenfelder)', 'participants': '@frauenfelder (Mark Frauenfelder), @Dragonbait1 (Red Bnting), @chgoliz (chgoliz), @Modusoperandi (Modusoperandi), @OtherMichael (MichaelPaulukonis), @ChickieD (Suzanne), @GulliverFoyle (Aleck Smart), @Boundegar (Boundegar), @chenille (chenille), @anon68952647, @Medievalist (Charlie), @bigtrendy (Bigtrendy), @politeruin', 'image_url': [None], 'created_at': '2016-05-04T13:46:03.216Z', 'last_posted_at': '2016-05-09T13:46:25.592Z'}