in white on the wall of the mosque. That design, however, is overlaid with an intersecting tracery in blue around tiles of other colours, forming an elaborate pattern that partially conceals the original and underlying design. A similar design forms the logo of the Mohammed Ali Research Center.

One of the early Western students of Islamic patterns, Ernest Hanbury Hankin, defined a "geometrical arabesque" as a pattern formed "with the help of construction lines consisting of polygons in contact."