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Art of Arabic Calligraphy Arabic calligraphy is a genuine Islamic and Arabic art. It is, no doubt, the most important element of the Arabic legacy, as it is the pot wherein all Arab cultures, over succeeding generations, are merging to come up with such eternal heritage. Its forms, however, differ, as Arabic calligraphy has surpassed the end of writing process itself to reach eternity in terms of design and styles; further becoming one of the outstanding features of Islamic arts, constituting the common denominator for all Arab and Islamic arts, either they were taking shapes of fixed buildings or mobile antiques. It was, also, used in photographing and mosques decorating, as there is not one Arab monument void of Arabic calligraphy art tang. |
INTRODUCTION Islamic art is the art of a civilization based on the Islamic religion. People that follow the teachings of Islam call themselves Muslims. Arab Muslims began a series of conquests in the 600's and united all the countries they conquered into a single civilization. The Arabs themselves had very little art, but during their conquests came in contact with the flourishing art of Persia, Syria, and Egypt. The Muslims blended these cultural influences and developed their own distinctive form of art now known as Islamic art. Islamic art was in its prime between the years 800 through 1700. The major practices of Islamic art were, and still are; metalwork, pottery, painting, calligraphy and rugs. All of these art forms are brought together in the finest quality in the mosques, the Muslim house of worship. Though not as prominant as the other art forms, the Muslims were also experts in beautiful book decorations, (mainly for the Koran) and bindings. The cover of the Koran and other books are sometimes decorated with gold stamps. Our report will be a general description of a few of the major art forms of early Islam.
CALLIGRAPHY Calligraphy is the oldest and most common form of Islamic art. It is a fancy, flowing way of writing done in Arabic, that is looked on more as an art form then as a form of literature. In Arabic, calligraphy means literately "beautiful writing". Calligraphy is the most prominant form of Islamic art not only because images are frowned on in the Islamic world, but because the other art forms; ceramics, glass, metalworks each draw on calligraphy as their major source of embellishment. It was a common sight to see a tile or vase with calligraphy inscribed on it. The words from the Qur'an were put on very common everyday things, like plates and vases, as well as architectural decorations in mosques.
At an early date, the characteristics of calligraphy showed only consonants and long vowels. The system was later changed to indicate short vowels and doubled consonants. The system was a series of short marks above or below the letter indicating how it should be pronounced.
The picture on the left is the style Diwani. The picture on the right is an example of the Kufic style
Like many things in the Islamic world,
calligraphy is used chiefly for religious purposes. The reason for this is,
mainly, that it is written in there holy book, the Koran that calligraphy is the
word of God. Because of this, the most common phrases written in calligraphy
are; "in sha' Allah" as God wills, "ma sha' Allah" and "hamah li-Allah" God will
be praised. It is a tradition of pious Muslims to copy the entire Qur'an, which is over twice the size of the Christian Bible, in calligraphy. At the time of the Prophet, calligraphy was a square formal type which is now called Kufic. Soon, however, it became necessary to have a quicker, more flowing cursive style, which we now call Nashki. There are many different forms and styles of calligraphy that developed after that. A few of them are; Deewani, Farsi, Kufic, Naskh, Req'aa, and Thuluth. The original style, Kufic, is the one used most often in copying the Koran.
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Deewani
Farsi
Kufi
Naskh
Req'aa
Thuluth
