Protection
حماية
Himaya · The Square Amulet · All Palestine
Le texte du livre est présenté en anglais et en arabe. Une traduction française intégrale est à venir.
La vidéo
Le concept
Protection (Himaya) is not the absence of threat — it is the creation of a space within which life can continue despite the threat. The square amulet was worn and displayed across Palestinian homes as a protective object: the embodiment of intentional prayer, the decision to create a defined sacred boundary around what matters most.
الحماية ليست غياب التهديد — بل هي خلق مساحة تستمر فيها الحياة رغم التهديد. الحجاب المربع كان يُرتدى ويُعرض في البيوت الفلسطينية كتجسيد للنية الحامية.
Le motif
The Square Amulet defines a protected territory with perfect precision — four triangles meeting at the center, each one facing a different direction of threat. Protection is not built from the outside in; it is projected from the center outward. The hijab (amulet) was worn across Palestinian homes not as superstition but as embodied prayer: the intention to create a sacred boundary around what matters most, stitched into the geometry of four equal guards.
الحجاب المربع يُحدِّد منطقة محمية بدقة مثالية — أربعة مثلثات تلتقي في المركز، كل منها يواجه اتجاهًا مختلفًا من التهديد. الحماية لا تُبنى من الخارج للداخل؛ بل تُسقَط من المركز للخارج.
Coloriez ce motif à la page 26 du livre.
Comment le colorier
Fill the center point
The point where all four triangles meet — one filled dot, your darkest color.
Work each of the four triangles
Fill each triangle completely before moving to the next — use alternating colors for adjacent triangles.
Add the inner diamond ornaments
The small diamonds within each triangle section — accent color.
Complete the outer square boundary
The large outer square frame — your deepest, most grounding color.
Add the inner square border
The smaller square just inside the outer frame — lighter version of same color.
Palette suggérée
#800000#000000#f5f0e8#0a0a0a
Signification culturelle
The Square Amulet (al-Hijab al-Murabba) belongs to a broader Palestinian tradition of encoding protective intention in geometric form. The hijab (literally 'veil' or 'barrier') was worn as a physical amulet across Palestinian communities — a folded paper or cloth object containing Quranic verses, placed inside a sewn geometric cover and worn against the body. The embroidered square amulet is this object translated into Tatreez.
The tradition of the protective square in Palestinian Tatreez connects to ancient Near Eastern protective geometry — the square with internal diagonals appears in talismanic objects from multiple Levantine cultures dating back thousands of years. Palestinian women inheriting this form were participating in a protective tradition far older than the specific religious context in which they understood it.
The red and black palette of the protective amulet motif is the most high-contrast combination in Palestinian Tatreez — deliberately so. A protective symbol that cannot be seen cannot protect. The amulet declares itself; it occupies its space on the garment with deliberate visual force, a boundary made visible through the insistence of its color.
Réflexion
What do you protect most fiercely — and what shape does that protection take in your daily life?
Écrivez votre réponse à la page 28 de votre livre.