Geometric designs are everywhere in Islamic culture. In this film the educator Eric Broug, an expert on Islamic geometric design, explains how the extraordinarily beautiful and seemingly complex patterns used in these designs originate from a combination of simple squares and circles, created with a ruler and a compass, which can be overlapped and interlaced to form the complex patterns. Found throughout the world in mosques, palaces and private homes, these exquisite designs came to the fore more than 1,000 years ago during the early history of Islam, when craftsmen used motifs from Roman and Persian cultures and developed them into new forms of creative expression that inspire wonder and contemplation.