Well, I can go one better - the section of the website of the National Gallery of Art (Washington) on ‘Artistic Exchange: Europe and the Islamic World’ has other examples, as well as some discussion of the historical context.
Actually, although it’s in Kufic script and contains a Hegira date, the text is not obviously religious. The translation offered by the current catalogue of the Vienna Schatzkammer is:
But this is still relevant, as the meaning of the text was later forgotten and the mantle associated instead with Charlemagne, thus serving as an example of how Europeans could easily misunderstand the precise significance of such objects.
Is it possible that people looking at the pseudo-Islamic script in those paintings (Cambrai Madonna et al.) are reading meanings into them that aren’t there? Kind of like the eggplant which spells out “Allah exists”? There’s a name for this phenomenon, which is eluding me at the moment.
Pareidolia… I noticed this a few weeks ago on my own body… via a fashion faux pas…
In the morning I put on fishnet stockings to go to work. After I was already dressed I realized it was too cold out to go in just fishnets, so instead of changing and getting undressed all over again, I just pulled on a pair of knee socks. These were sheer black socks with a see-through burnout curlicued floral pattern.
So I was at work and looked down at my legs. The interference pattern from the superimposition of the two hosiery patterns (fishnet and curlicued floral) resulted in shapes that looked exactly like Arabic calligraphy. I was amazed. It seemed almost like I could read the Arabic text, but there were no actual letters, just their aesthetic impression.
