Hand-Worked Islamic Brass Plaque

It is brass, worked by hand. On its face the Arabic word “الله” (Allah) stands up from the metal in raised calligraphy, and beside it a minaret and a dome have been pressed into shape — a small skyline in the palm of your hand. The surface has gone dark and soft, the way brass does when years and other people’s fingers have passed over it; the high points catch what light there is, and the hollows keep their shadow.

The making is in the early-twentieth-century Islamic manner — chased and raised by hand, the lines cut and the relief pushed up from behind, then worked over and tidied by hand rather than stamped out clean. It carries the small unevennesses of that kind of labour, which is part of how you read it.

As an object it is modest and plain about its measurements: hand-worked brass, roughly eleven centimetres across, weighing about a hundred and ninety grams. It will stand on a shelf or hang in a corner, whichever the room asks for.

And here we will be careful, because it matters. This is antique-style brass in the old Islamic manner. We cannot document its exact age, so we will not claim it as a verified antique. We sell it for what it plainly is — a hand-worked brass plaque, sourced and chosen for its face, not its paperwork. We have not polished away its surface, and we will not pretend to know more about it than we do.