Okir

It is as an artistic design of the Maranao native inhabitants of southern Philippines beginning from the early 6th Century C.E. before the Islamization of the area. Okir is a design or pattern often rendered or curved in hardwood, brass, silver and wall painting in curvilinear lines and Arabic geometric figures.

Okir is a design or pattern often rendered or curved in hardwood, brass, silver and wall painting in curvilinear lines and Arabic geometric figures. The Okir Motif is an art depicting the indigenious originality and skill of the Maranaos.

These precursor forms of the okir designs can still be found in the art traditions of the Maranao in the basak (lowland) regions of Lake Lanao, and they contrast markedly from the later flowing okir designs. The rectilinear designs of the Sama were adopted and refined by the Maranao to decorate the torogan houses of the ruling dato class.

Maranao okir can be divided into two traditions, the predominantly curvilinear "male" okir-a-dato, and the predominantly rectilinear "female" okir-a-bai. Unlike Sama okil, okir designs are deliberately stylized when depicting living things, due to Islamic beliefs against idolatry.