Girih vs zellige: what's the difference?
The two words are often used as if they were interchangeable names for "Islamic tile pattern". They are not. One describes the lines of a pattern; the other describes how a pattern is physically made. Getting the distinction right is the difference between a design brief that works and one a fabricator quietly re-interprets.
Girih is a system of geometry - interlacing straight strapwork lines that form stars and knots. Zellige is a craft of material - hand-cut glazed terracotta assembled into mosaic. Girih answers "what shape is the pattern?"; zellige answers "how is the surface built?" You can draw a girih pattern with a compass and never cut a tile, and you can lay a zellige panel whose geometry owes nothing to classical girih strapwork. They overlap constantly in practice, which is exactly why they get confused.
Girih: the geometry of the line
Girih - from the Persian gereh, "knot" - is the strapwork tradition of the eastern and central Islamic world: Persia, Anatolia, Syria, Central Asia. Its patterns are networks of straight lines that weave over and under to form stars and interlocking polygons, and they appear in every hard material a builder had: carved stucco, turned and joined wood, cut brick, and glazed tile. The defining fact about girih is that it is constructed - built from an underlying polygonal grid by a repeatable method - so the same pattern can be reproduced exactly at any scale. We cover that method in What is girih? and How Islamic geometric patterns are constructed.
Zellige: the craft of the cut tile
Zellige (also spelled zellij) is the mosaic craft of the Maghreb - above all Fès and Marrakesh in Morocco, and Moorish Spain. A maalem glazes terracotta tiles in solid colours, then chips each individual piece to shape by hand with a sharp-edged hammer, the menqach, working to a memorised repertoire of stars, crosses, chevrons and interlace. The pieces are laid face-down and grouted from behind into panels. Zellige's character comes from the material: the slight irregularity of hand-cut edges, the depth of the glaze, and a disciplined palette. We cover it in full in What is zellige?
The differences, side by side
| Girih | Zellige | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A line geometry - strapwork stars and knots | A craft - hand-cut glazed tile mosaic |
| The pattern lives in | The lines | The coloured pieces and their edges |
| Region | Persia, Anatolia, Central Asia (the east) | Morocco, the Maghreb, Moorish Spain (the west) |
| Materials | Stucco, wood, brick, tile - any hard surface | Glazed terracotta, specifically |
| Made by | Drawing / carving to a construction | Cutting and assembling fired tile by hand |
| Signature look | Interlacing straps, over-and-under knots | Solid colour fields, mosaic joints, star-and-cross |
Where they meet
The confusion is understandable, because the two genuinely overlap. Both draw on the same underlying geometry of stars and regular polygons, and a zellige panel can absolutely realise a layout that girih strapwork would also produce - the star-and-cross fields common in Moroccan work are a case in point. The clean way to hold it in your head: girih and zellige are answers to different questions. Girih is how the pattern is drawn; zellige is how the surface is built. A single eight-fold khatam star can be expressed as girih strapwork on a carved screen and as zellige mosaic on a fountain - same geometry, two entirely different crafts.
Which one do you need?
For a designer, the practical answer follows the fabrication. If the surface will be cut tile, screen-printed, or laid as mosaic, you are briefing something zellige-like and colour is your primary control. If the surface is carved, routed, laser-cut, inlaid or printed as line artwork, you are working in the girih register and the strapwork is the star of the piece. Zakhraf Studio draws both from the same engine: switch on interlace and you have girih strapwork; group faces by colour with the polychrome fills and you have the zellige reading - and either exports as print-ready SVG or a fabrication cut schedule. What to hand a workshop is covered in Using Islamic geometric tiles in interiors.
Common questions
What is the main difference between girih and zellige?
Girih is a line-based geometry: interlacing straight strapwork that weaves stars and knots, carved or painted or built in brick across the eastern Islamic world. Zellige is a craft of material: hand-cut pieces of glazed terracotta assembled into mosaic, native to Morocco and the wider Maghreb. Girih describes the lines of a pattern; zellige describes how a pattern is physically made from cut tile. A single star layout can be rendered as girih strapwork or realised in zellige mosaic - they are answers to different questions.
Is zellige a type of girih?
No, though they overlap. Zellige is defined by its technique - glazed tiles cut by hand with a hammer and set into mosaic - and it has its own vocabulary of stars, crosses and interlace. Some zellige compositions realise the same geometric layouts that girih strapwork produces, but zellige is not a subset of girih and girih is not a subset of zellige. One is a way of drawing pattern, the other a way of building it.
Where is each tradition from?
Girih matured across the eastern and central Islamic world - Persia, Anatolia, Syria and Central Asia - under dynasties such as the Seljuks and Timurids, in stucco, wood, brick and tile. Zellige is western: it developed in the Maghreb, above all in Fès and Marrakesh in Morocco and in Moorish Spain, and it remains a living craft there today. Both grew from the same geometric instinct but in different materials and regions.
Draw both from one engine.
Interlace for girih strapwork, polychrome for the zellige reading - the same construction, free to explore in your browser.
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