“The beauty of writing is the tongue of the hand and the elegance of thought.”
Ali ibn Abi Talib
Bifolium from the Blue Qur'an, North Africa, 9th-10th century. Image: Aga Khan Museum
From the Greek kallos (beauty) and graphein (to write), calligraphy is the art of beautiful writing. Although the development of sophisticated calligraphy as an art form is not unique to Islamic cultures, it has been used to a much greater
extent and in varied ways, and in all art forms and materials in Islamic civilisations.
Sources credit Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad and the first Imam of the Shia, as the developer of the Kufic script. This is the oldest style of Quranic calligraphy, named after the city of Kufa in Iraq, where Hazrat Ali
resided and where the script is believed to have originated. Hazrat Ali taught that each letter of the alphabet has not only an outward form, but also an inner meaning.
Qur’an folio in Kufic script, North Africa, 8th century. Image: Aga Khan Museum
For instance, the alif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and the beginning of the word ‘Allah,’ is the basis for all letters of the alphabet. Its vertical linear form is a metaphor for heavens and Earth, and the purified state toward which the
spiritual seeker aspires to return. Sufi scholars explain that alif points to God who “is the alif, the one who has connected (allafa) all things and yet is isolated from all things” (Schimmel).
Alif. Image: Wikipedia
Therefore, “just as everything came from God, so the letters emerge from the alif which corresponds to humans, created in God’s likeness; but it is also true in general calligraphic terminology because of the similarity of the alif to a standing
person and its role as the invariable point of relation for all other letters” (Schimmel). Thus, each letter of the word is believed to contain divine power, and therefore, the discipline of writing has spiritual significance. Hence Hazrat Ali is regarded
as “the first master of calligraphy” (Sharify-Funk)
Seyyed Hossein Nasr notes that “calligraphy, the complementary sacred art of Islam which makes manifest the Word of God as revealed in the Noble Quran, is believed by Muslims to have been originated by ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib…” ( Religious Art, Traditional Art,
Sacred Art, p 179)
Annemarie Schimmel states that Kufa was “one of the important centres for the art of writing and the political connection of Ali ibn Abi Talib with this city accentuates the generally maintained claim that Ali was the first master of calligraphy.”
Many Sufi orders, or tariqahs, trace their spiritual lineage to the Prophet through Ali, therefore, Sufi calligraphers honour Ali as the principal source of inspiration for their own inventions in styles.
Quran folio dated North Africa, 10th century. The text is written in Kufic script with emphasis on vertical lines and the swooping tails of the final curved letters that
later became a hallmark of the maghribi script in Spain, North and West Africa.
Pattern and Light, Aga Khan Museum.
Meena Sharify-Funk adds that “for many, cultivating mastery of Quranic calligraphic expressions became a method of Islamic spirituality that opened hidden dimensions of the universe. This spiritual art would connect the seeker and practitioner not just to scripture,
but also to past legendary masters. Training in calligraphy linked the student to a spiritual heritage that included esoteric discipline and doctrine.”
Mirroring the Sufi-disciple relationship, students of calligraphy studied with a certified calligraphic master who ultimately had the right to bequeath a certificate of permission – ijaza – to be a recognised calligrapher. The master taught the student
not only the outward skills, such as the correct position for writing, ink preparation, pen trimming, but also introduced him to the etiquette demanded of calligraphers: should be modest and should maintain a state of ritual purity – as required for reciting
or writing the Qur’an.
As Islam spread to regions where languages other than Arabic were spoken, many styles developed which were influenced by the diverse artistic traditions of the regions. At the beginning of the tenth century in Baghdad, six styles were codified by vizier Ibn
Muqla (d. 939) which served as a guide, and which were further developed: Naskhi, Muhaqqaq, Raihani, Tauqi, Riqa, and Thuluth. The type of pen, whose nib was made from cutting a reed, was an important factor in the effects of calligraphic inscriptions.
Bismillah is six styles: (top to bottom) Riqa, Naskhi,Nastaliq, Thuluth, Muhaqqaq, Square Kufic Image: Elke Niewohner
A variety of effects were achieved by cutting the nib in different ways, allowing the calligrapher to create thick and thin lines, adding elegance and variety to the script. Wider nibs were needed for larger script so that the width of the line stayed in proportion
to the overall size of the writing.
Medieval reed pens. Image: A Brief History of Writing
A system of proportion based on the width of the nib also determined the shapes of the individual letters, and the relative sizes of the letters in a line of writing. For example, the word thuluth means “one-third” possibly referring to the pen size
(one-third the size of the pen used for larger scripts ); hence the calligraphy style came to be called Thuluth.
The Arabic script is irregular in its proportions and therefore, there is generally an imbalance between the upper and lower parts. The calligrapher endeavoured to create balance by techniques such as enlarging the upper ends into leaf shapes or turning the
curves at the lower ends into plant shapes. They also allowed the letters to twine around each other creating a “blossoming” effect. Frequently, the ends were extended to form human or animal heads, which were used only for inscriptions on buildings or vessels,
not for the Qur’ans. Within the Kufic script, local styles began to develop such as the slanting Persian script, or the style used in Spain and North Africa which came to be known as Maghribi (Maghrib referred to the western part of North Africa: present–day
Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia).
Text in Naskhi in the form of a bird, Iran, 17th century. Image: Berlin, Museum fur Islamische Kunst
Calligraphers also blended the arts of writing and drawing to form animal shapes such as a bird, a lion, among others.
India, 17th century, Image: Aga Khan Museum
the Arabic text in the calligraphic lion a supplication to Ali, Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, who was the fourth caliph and first Imam of the Shia. "Because of his courage and valour, ‘Ali was known to Sunni and Shia Muslims by the epithet “The
Lion of God.” The prayer, known as Nad-e ‘Ali, is typically used by Shia Muslims to seek ‘Ali’s help and support in times of stress and sorrow. The seventeenth-century calligrapher was so faithful in copying from an earlier model that he also replicated the
signature of the original sixteenth-century calligrapher, most probably the famous Safavid calligrapher Mir ‘Ali Haravi. That signature forms the hind leg of the lion in the original composition" (Aga
Khan Museum).
Calligraphy was an art that required a special skill to achieve mastery. Nasr states "It must never be forgotten that the understanding of the spiritual significance of traditional and sacred art ... is of the utmost significance for the existence of authentic
religious life since such an art is ultimately a gift from Heaven and a channel of grace which brings about recollection of the world of the Spirit and leads us back to the Divine" (Religious Art, Traditional Art, Sacred Art)
Sources:
Meena Sharify-Funk, Geometry
of the Spirit: Sufism, Calligraphy, and Letter Mysticism
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Religious
Art, Traditional Art, Sacred Art, Some reflections and definitions
Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy
and Islamic Culture, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1990
Elke Niewohner, “Islamic Calligraphy,” Islam Art and Architecture, Edited by Markus Hattstein and Peter Delius, Konemann, 2000
