The displayed design is known in the Moroccan dialect as shughul ban, or “the work has unfolded.” According to local zillij tile masters, shughul ban is one of the earliest forms of tastir, or geometric patterns, to be composed from classical square mosaic tiles.

Less than a century later, we find the same pattern in Cairo at the Qalawun Complex on the walls of its hospital’s iwans. The corner pieces of each square are much smaller and more intricate than the variations found in Morocco; they appear to form alternating arrow-like shapes across the matrix. This pattern is stunningly ordered not just because it lacks a singular focal point, but because it actively disorients the viewer’s eye by directing it both laterally and longitudinally. 

As a later example, the shown instance of this pattern dates to the eighteenth century. This particular pattern is one of four patterns in this database (Patterns 013, 025, and 026) that come from the same fasqiyya (fountain)  displayed in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. The fasqiyya was moved from an Ottoman house (likely from a qa‘a, or reception hall) after it was purchased from Muhammad Effendi Zaki Isma‘il for twenty-nine Egyptian pounds at the time—equivalent to 215 grams of gold!