Issam (Sabah) el- Said

(b Baghdad, 7 Sept 1938; d London, 26 Dec 1988). Iraqi architect, painter and designer. The grandson of the Iraqi prime minister Nuri el-Said (d 1958), he studied architecture in England at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1958-61), and attended Hammersmith College of Art and Design, London (1962-4). From the early 1960s he incorporated sentences and words in kufic and other scripts into his paintings. He designed the interior of the Central Mosque and the Islamic Cultural Centre in London (1976-7), and he was consultant to PPA Ltd of Canada for the Abdul Aziz University master plan in Jiddah (1977-8) and to TYPSA Ltd of Spain for the Imam Saud Islamic University master plan in Riyadh (1978-9). In Baghdad he designed the Aloussi Mosque (1982-8) and al-Aboud Mosque (1984). In addition to his paintings in oil and watercolour he worked with such materials as paleocrystal (a transparent material made of polyester resin) and enamel on aluminium. His Geometric Multiples (enamel on aluminium, 1979; Amman, N.G. F.A.) is made of 16 magnetic squares, each with an identical calligraphic and geometric design, that can be arranged in various combinations. He also designed carpets and furniture. At the time of his death he was working on a doctoral thesis entitled The Methodology of Geometric Proportioning in Islamic Architecture at Newcastle University.

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