By contrast, some Muslim artists celebrate Arabic culture, riffing on ancient Islamic decorative and calligraphic traditions. Moshiri’s record-setting Eshgh, for instance, consists of the titular word scrawled in Farsi script and smothered in thousands of Swarovski crystals. The Egyptian painter Ahmed Moustafa, especially popular among Middle Eastern collectors, bases his prismatic explorations of hue and form on the geometric perfection of the cube, the shape on which Arabic calligraphy is grounded. At Christie’s October sale in Dubai, his 1995 Qu’ranic Polyptych of Nine Panels, in which dense Arabic script floats across shimmering bands of color, brought $657,000 (est. $300–350,000), breaking the then record for contemporary Islamic art.

Mohammed Ehsai fills his canvases with lush, sinuous calligraphy that strikes a visual blow: power and spirituality made manifest in color, form and volume. Similarly, Charles Zenderoudi infuses his work with richly chromatic signs, symbols and Farsi calligraphy that dance on the page. And at his recent exhibition at Gagosian L.A., the Iranian-born Y. Z. Kami, who has also shown with Deitch Projects, in New York, presented architectonic collages of sacred texts in Persian, Hebrew and Arabic. In all these works, the impact derives from the form of the writing; one needn’t understand the texts to appreciate the paintings or to find in them the artists’ profound love for the heritage of Arabic poetry and design.

Some artists avoid voicing Islamic or Arab identity entirely. Paul Guiragossian (1926–93), an Armenian refugee raised in Jerusalem and Beirut, is widely considered the master of Lebanese modernism. In his paintings, which command prices in the range of $60,000 to $70,000, he bucked Islamic restrictions against representation with abstract, often despairing canvases in which figures cluster tightly, like shrouded women drawn together in their mourning. Similar melancholy permeates the poignant portraits and street scenes of the Syrian modernist Louai Kayyali, whose 1974 Untitled (Shoe-Shine Boy) (est. £20–25,000; $41,000–51,200) sold for £38,900 ($79,700), among the highest prices fetched at the Sotheby’s London sale.

Different styles, of course, appeal to different collectors. Before the Dubai sale, the Bonhams expert Mehreen Rizvi-Khursheed, who organized the first Sotheby’s sale in this category in May 2001, correctly predicted that the record-breaking Moshiri would not appeal to Westerners. “Arabs like flash and bling,” she says, “but Western collectors probably think it’s tacky or kitsch.”

While Sotheby’s Islam feels calligraphic works sell better to Middle Eastern collectors, both in Europe and in Dubai, Rizvi-Khursheed notes that her first sale to a Western buyer, a known collector, was in this category. “He wanted that piece because it wasn’t like other modern art,” she says. “Calligraphy is what makes it different — a calligraphy that is modern and larger scale, more pattern than it is word.” Still, she does not expect such buyers to be a major force at auction yet: “Westerners really start coming after the prices go up.” An exception may be issue-oriented works, which command a strong Western audience—as seen in the soaring careers of Essaydi and Neshat. Both outstripped expectations at Christie’s, where Essaydi’s Converging Territories #14 (2003) brought $43,000 (est. $8,000–12,000) and Neshat’s Guardians of Revolution, 1994 (est. $60–80,000), sold for $240,000.

It isn’t only their political expression that drives interest in these pieces. “We work with private collectors who respond aesthetically to the work first,” Edwynn Houk director Julie Castellano observes of Essaydi’s oeuvre. “They have to love looking at it. The topics that she’s dealing with can be difficult, but she does it in a way that is approachable.”

Whether the popularity of these pieces extends to Middle Eastern as well as Western buyers is difficult to judge. “It’s important to remember that in some [Muslim] countries, there is political censorship of art,” cautions Islam, “so it can be hard to tell if the reason people aren’t buying it is because they don’t like it or because it’s not permitted.” Indeed, Jacob Witzenhausen, who represents Essaydi in the Netherlands, encountered mixed reactions when he presented her work at the Istanbul Contemporary Art Fair last December. “Most people were enthusiastic,” he says — but there were threats. One visitor told Witzenhausen’s assistant he shouldn’t show such imagery, causing the gallerist to fear reprisals.