ART OF CALIGRAPHY

Islamic calligraphy spread along with Islamic religion and have 29 letters and it is written from right to the left, unlike English letters which is written from left to right. Islamic calligraphy exists since the early Islamic century and it is also used in Quran. Quran is revelation from Allah to our  Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century, epitomise Islamic calligraphy. It was revealed orally to Muhammad, and the scripture was soon committed to writing. Calligraphy is specially revered among Islamic Arts since it was primary means for preservation of Quran. Arabic scripts in Quran, however, has only the cursive form of writing, although it has many styles. Islamic calligraphy, also known as Arabic calligraphy, is the artistic practise of handwriting, calligraphy, and by extension, of bookmaking in the lands sharing a common Islamic cultural heritage. Islamic calligraphy not only been used in Quran, it is also used as artistic in architecture in Middle-east’s buildings or houses design. Most of the obvious design is in mosque ,which can be found in and out of the mosque in any states, they carved the Islamic calligraphy of ayah in Quran on the ceiling or wall beautifully, typically with combination with Arabesque motifs. Arabesque is a form of Islamic art known for its repetitive geometric forms creating beautiful decorations. These geometric shapes often include Arabic calligraphy written on walls and ceilings inside and outside of mosques.   Furthermore, it has been spread widely to Asians especially in Malaysia. Besides been used in designs of houses and building, it is also used as handicraft and then framed it to be sold. It has become as one of the famous handicraft in Malaysia, calligraphers can generate a high income and make living out of it. Because not everyone can writes a beautiful calligraphy, it has its own styles in writing it.

I choose this topic because I think people nowadays have the lack in ability of writing Arabic calligraphy. Which we are supposed to master it as we are Muslims and mostly it is been used in our religious book and Quran. And it would be very shameful if we could not read and understand the language. Calligraphy is the art of beautiful handwriting, thus, by learning on how to write calligraphy, it improves the skill of one’s handwriting. Learning it will gives one many benefits. Besides that, it will be beneficial for memory and perseverance improvement, and last but not least, it will teach one the beautiful of calligraphy arts. Some people are born lucky because they are gifted with the skills of writing Arabic calligraphy beautifully. But to those who are poor and lack of that skill, that is one of the major reason why I want to give them a lesson on how to be a skilful calligraphers They can also make business out of it. All they need to do is, practise it for hundred times a day, and the results will be impressive, with Allah’s will. For example, Mohamed Zakariya is an American Muslim master of Arabic calligraphy. He went to a trip to Morocco would change his life and future path. He was fascinated by the culture, religion, and language that he encountered in Morocco. It was this experience that led him to study and eventually revert him into Islam. However, his love for Arabic calligraphy began even earlier, when as a boy in Santa Monica, he first saw a wrok of Arabic Calligraphy hang on the wall of an Armenian carpet shop. Many years later, he makes a stop in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey, studying the arts of Islamic Calligraphy.

Today, Zakariya continues his art in the U.S. where he trains his own students and regularly holds exhibitions and workshops across the country. More recently, Zakariya and his works were featured in the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" (2002), produced by Unity Productions Foundation.

The early history of Arabic writing is obscure, and what historical records do exist are controversial. Here is what we know for sure: The Arabic language is very ancient, but it was not a written language until perhaps the third or fourth century C.E. What the earliest written forms looked like we can hazard only a barely educated guess. Inscriptions on stone suggest both unconnected and connected letter alphabets were in use. The connected letter alphabet is recognizable as the true Arabic alphabet. We also know that a small number of people in the Prophet Muhammad’s lifetime knew how to read and write. We know the Prophet had secretaries, or scribes, to write for him, as he was unlettered. What did this writing look like? As for calligrapgher, they use Quran as their reference of their art works. I believe the preserved letters of the Prophet may be of greater help here than early Quran manuscripts. The letters are either authentic or copied from originals in look and content, while the dates of the early Qurans cannot be demonstrated. I doubt the authenticity of the available copies of the Quran from the caliph Uthman’s time—the calligraphy is too well developed. The letters, on the other hand, must represent contemporary writing practice and may even be in the hand of some of the scribes who made the first complete mushaf under the caliph Abu Bakar. From what little we know, a picture emerges of a practical, crude writing system that was available to the scribes. It was a cursive, “soft,” or layyin script, produced with a blunt pen tip. Just possibly another version existed for very special uses—a hard, “dry,” or yabis script, which would have been written with a chisel-edged pen on prepared animal skin (parchment or vellum). Evidence from petroglyph inscriptions suggests that this script, too, was known in the earliest Islamic period. The script would soon be used for copying the Quran, though the date is uncertain. The Andalusian Quranic scholar, Abu Amr ad-Dani (d. 1052 C.E.) describes seeing many early Qurans, but he does not mention the script or page materials, only the spelling and contents.  

A swift, practical script for daily use, and a formal soon to be calligraphic script for special or formal occasions. The first would eventually evolve into the modern calligraphic styles, the second into the broad-pen Quranic calligraphic scripts that, for lack of authenticated terminology, we conveniently label “Kufic.” The Arabic language spread with the Islamic religion, and with it, the Arabic alphabet: 29 letters (including Lam-Alif) written from right to left like Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and other languages from the same family. Other languages such as Persian, Turkish, and Spanish, soon came to be written in versions of this versatile alphabet as well. It seems clear that soon the concept of calligraphic correctness that is, legibility and repeatability that had begun to emerged among the scribes (katibs).  This can be observed in probably in the first century of Quranic texts and the papyrus texts of correspondence between early Muslims. And now it has developed into more modernic and came with many styles over the century that our calligraphers has created. For example, Arabic calligraphy have five styles, those are Naskh, Thuluth, Ta’liq, Riq’a, and Diwani. Every scripts mentioned above has their own curvy and styles, it is not the same. Each one of them has their own uniqueness and characteristics. For example, as for Thuluth scripts, Thuluth was the medieval Islamic style of handwritten alphabet. Thuluth (Arabic: "one-third") is written on the principle that one-third of each letter slopes. It is a large and elegant, cursive script, used in medieval times on mosque decorations. It took on some of the functions of the early Kufic script; it was used to write surah headings, religious inscriptions, and princely titles and epigraphs. It was also used for many of the large copies of the Koran produced from the 13th century.

It is not surprising, that even today many of the leading calligraphers of the Islamic world come from non-Arabic speaking areas. One example is Aftab Ahmad, of Peshawar in Pakistan are examples of whose work are presented in the eyes of the world. The son of Muhammad Sharif, also a famous calligrapher, Aftab Ahmad is a man of many talents, an internationally recognized photographer, he is also a well-known ceramicist and calligrapher. Extraordinarily, he is ambidextrous and can write either from left to right or right to left with either hand. In keeping with the long tradition of Islamic calligraphy, the texts he prefers to inscribe are the shahada, the Muslim profession of faith, and short Quranic texts testifying to the unity of God. The works of Islamic calligraphers, both past and present, are not always easy to decipher: although the form of individual letters must adhere to the rigid canons of whatever style is being used, clarity is not a paramount goal in artistic calligraphy. Part of the pleasure of looking at decorative calligraphy is the slow dawning of recognition, as the eye traces the letters and discovers a familiar text from the Quran. Well said, this is the major impact of Islamic calligraphy to the world. It has been spread to the nation and expand widely, no matter what religion you are, which states do you live, and what language do you speak. Islamic calligraphy is the most famous calligraphy among all because it has existed ever since others calligraphy were exist. 

The contribution of the Muslim World to a wide range of arts, sciences and academic disciplines is often overlooked or taken for granted. Islamic calligraphy is a good epitomise to be an example. Youngsters nowadays do not even know on how to write an Islamic calligraphy, and this is too saddening for us Muslims. Because Islamic calligraphy origins from Arabic alphabet which we are supposed to know, and understand, and can read it. Here I am going to provide a glimpse of the rich cultural heritage within the Muslim World and the significant role that Muslims have played in the advancement of knowledge. It presents the rich creativity of Islamic Arts and Architecture, traces the historical development of Islamic regions and dynasties, highlighting their diversity of artistic expression from the inception of the faith until the present. Our previous calligraphers has contributed in many things that related with calligraphy. They has transmitted from all ayah Quran that our Prophet received from Allah, into one book, in a word that we are easy to understand. For example, We can trace the first evolution of writing into an esthetically mature calligraphy to this period. The grand inscription belt in the Dome of the Rock is the lasting testimony of those first century concepts—something totally new in world art. Executed in mosaic tiles, this band of calligraphy is a perfectly legible, fully artistically realized monumental form of the earliest Koranic script. To be that good, that confident and exuberant only seven decades after the Hijra, is really impressive. The concept of the belt in calligraphy as an architectural component is still used today, in fresh ways. In the late Umayyad period and early Abbasid period, names and a little information about some of the great calligraphers, such as ad-Dahhak Ibn Ajlan and Yusuf Ibn Hammad, begin to show up in the Arabic source literature. So far no signed examples of their work have been found, and we can only guess what their calligraphy was like.  In any case, by the end of the third century, the whole edifice of calligraphy in the Islamic domains was essentially in place. Korans were copied in huge numbers with varying degrees of skill. The stationer’s trade was practiced, as was the government scribal trade, and art materials were being produced. The art itself was discussed and found to be beautiful, necessary, and valuable. There were libraries, customers, professionals and amateurs, a connoisseurship, a market.  

Calligraphy was both a court-sponsored enterprise and a cottage industry, involving a large supporting cast of paper makers, stationers, pigment and ink makers, gold beaters, and the like. The art had its own rules, etiquette, and literature and its own jargon of words and concepts. Most of the Arabic terms have been lost, but many of the Persian and Turkish terms seem to have survived, along with the concepts script. The most different and unique of calligraphy was the North African-Andalusian-West African method. This style group, often called Maghribi, consists of many specific scripts, although their names are a bit problematic. They are commonly written with a blunt pen, usually in brown ink. The illumination styles differ as well. This is still a living tradition. Chinese Muslims also devised a method of writing that contrasted with the main line. They work is done with a brush, rather than a pen, and the aesthetics are definitely Chinese. This too remains a living tradition. This phenomenon is nicely described by the late Mahmud Yazir, the Turkish scholar of calligraphy: “Within the Muslim community,” he wrote, “it was not only the Arabs, but the Turks, Persians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans, Andalusians, Afghans, Central Asians, Indians, Javanese, Kurds, Laz, Bulgarian Pomak Muslims, Bosnians, Albanians, and Circassians who brought forth calligraphers. These and so many more peoples and nations brought up countless illustrious artists; male and female slaves, men, women, poor, rich, religious savants, philosophers, painters, musicians, composers, singers, physicians, rulers, sheikhs, theologians, judges, muftis, kadiaskers, sheikhulislams, vezirs, ministers of state, pashas, generals, shahs, and emperors, all exhausting their lives and ruining their eyesight producing masterpieces of calligraphy.” Yazir later alludes to the place of Istanbul in this grand scheme: “The city of Istanbul became an exhibition of beautiful calligraphy for all humanity, not just the Turks and the Islamic world. It became a glorious university of esthetics.” 

In my opinion, every calligraphies has its own uniqueness and beauty. It is like a music to my eyes. Some calligraphy may be long and thin, some may look like short and wide. It depends on the hand of arts of the calligraphers. But most of calligraphs that I can see widely used in Malaysia is the Naskh script. When they announced the prayer times in television, they have the azan and the subtitles of the azan. The ayah is written in Arabic calligraphy is in Thuluth script, while the Naskh script is taught to school in children. For example, Islamic Arts Museum in Malaysia organized a competition to all calligraphers out there to show their talent and skill in calligraphy. It is organized annually and it attracts many people to join them. And so does to school children, the museum organized a workshop for kids to sharpen their skills and to exposed them to the arts and culture of Islam. I am not surprised if the kids not having any idea or thought on this. Parents should exposed them on this, it would be such wasted if the Arabic calligraphy is obsolete among us. For example, when I was in primary school, I participated in the calligraphy competition because one of my teachers saw my hidden talent. She said, I have a beautiful handwriting in Arabic fonts and she would love to sharpen my skills. So she trained me for a month, and I have to practised it everyday using a blunt pencil. How to make the pencil blunt, it cannot be used by the sharpener. Instead of shaperners, my teacher blunt it by a knife. And it has its own techniques to do it. But unfortunately, the luck was on my side. I did not win the competition, but at least I managed to gain knowledge from it. It was a whole new thing for me, and I am lucky because the teacher picked me. And so I was picked for every year to participated in the competition, and I gained so many friends. Their handwriting in calligraphy is way much better than me. Surely I learnt a lot of things from them too . I wish I can participate in more competition in the future.

Arabic opens the way to centuries of history, science, literature and culture. Arabic opens the way to a body of authentic material and a collection of manuscripts that cover all fields of study including the Qur'an, and Islamic writings and thoughts. Arabic opens the way to the Middle East, and provides access to the varied market of 21 countries and over one billion Arabs across the globe. Arabic provides us the tools to build bridges with communities and groups that are in the heart of current affairs, and communicate for creating a more peaceful and prosperous world. By learning Arabic calligraphy, it will gives many benefits to us. Firstly, it will improve our handwrittings to a beautiful one. If back then, our handwriting looks like a mess and our lecturers are hardly to understand, after learning the calligraphy, it may improves on our handwriting a little bit. From mess, to neat. It would not look mess like it used to be before this. Furthermore, thru calligraphy, we have gained another knowledge that other people might lack of. Not many people are exposed to this and not many of them out there can writes calligraphy even after they have learn it. Calligraphy is an art, it is a skill that you need to have in yourself. Thirdly, you can earn money from this. Many of calligraphers earn a lot of money by their skills. You framed a basic surah like Al-Fatihah in a big frame, with a beautiful calligraphy. And you can sell it up too RM 1,000. You would not have think of this before, but this is a reality. For example, my mom would a buy a big frame of surah with a beautiful calligraphy to hang in on the wall in our home. She would not mind spending her money on it, because she does not have the skill to write the calligraphy. She loves and appreciate those work very much. This is what I am talking about. Those are the advantages of learning Arabic calligraphy.

In a nutshell, I hope that over time we will have a huge user-generated mobile museum of Arabic calligraphy, typography, art and design with pictures from around the world. And people who are interested in the subject will be able to learn about different approaches to this art form as well as to educate others by sharing their own knowledge. One of the many benefits we can envisage is for tourists travelling to a new country. If they are interested the calligraphy, the applications can help pinpoint specific masterpieces they want to see and also search for other examples located in the area. It can help them understand the words written on inscriptions even if they do not know Arabic, and if they want to learn more about a particular work, they can post questions to draw on the knowledge of other users. Moreover, we are living in the 21st of century, inventor of application on mobile should create an applications like they have in Google Play or Apple Store and it should be free download. It will make it easier for an amateur to learn it everywhere and anywhere they would like to. And most of people nowadays use smart phones and tablet, I am pretty sure that some of them would demand an application like I mentioned above. At the same time, the course uses their Arabic language skills as a means of studying popular culture. For non-Muslims who will be downloading that application, at the same time will learn Arabic. It will enhance them to learn our language, and who knows by God wills, they will revert to Islam just like I shared with you on the above. The master in calligraphy who is American Muslim. I believe, non-Muslim will be fascinated by our beautiful language and culture. And Allah said “kun fay a kun” , which means “ Be and it is”.  With Allah’s will, anything can happen. If he wants it that way, thus it will happen in his way it wants it to be happen.