Comments on: Alhamdulillah

Alhamdulillah

klangklangston — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:12:02 -0800

Mouneer Al-Shaarani's beautiful Syrian calligraphy.

Any Arab-literates out there who can tell me what they all mean?

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:15:26 -0800

Forgive me, as I only just realized I could link to the images: These are favorites.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:18:22 -0800

These too.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:19:10 -0800

Heh. Those are all probably better seen in-site, as outside they tend to be ridiculously small.

By: isopraxis

isopraxis — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:25:55 -0800

Gorgeous. I've always marveled at the flow and geometry of kufic calligraphy.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:37:58 -0800

I once had a calligrapher in Istanbul write my name in Arabic and Latin characters; my awful handwriting is the only thing that prevented me from being too jealous of him. My deeply seated belief that I was a man of music also helped but, hey, I was young.

By: cell divide

cell divide — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:48:38 -0800

I've been a fan of this guy for awhile, I have this great mini-book of an exhibition he did in Egypt. Beautiful stuff. I tend to like the more graphic/modern stuff like this one or this one. What's also fun about this stuff is trying to read what they say!

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:11:48 -0800

I took a class on arabic calligraphy, but I still can't always decipher where the letters are hidden in the patterns. It's just such an amazing art.

By: doubtful_guest

doubtful_guest — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:14:08 -0800

These are absolutely beautiful. Thanks for posting! If only I knew what they mean...

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:48:36 -0800

Very nice stuff—thanks!

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:06:59 -0800

I wish I could do my grocery lists like this. Superlovely, thanks for the link!

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:12:23 -0800

C'mon, LH, tell us what they say...

By: carsonb

carsonb — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:21:17 -0800

I saw this site the other day—his stuff is mind-boggling even without knowing what it all means. Skulking around MeFi to find links to similar stuff, I scored jackpot with mediareport's '02 post on Arabic calligraphy. Thanks for this post, neat stuff!

By: carsonb

carsonb — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:22:02 -0800

(You can work around many of the 404s in the post, but lots of the links work straightaway.)

By: edmz

edmz — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:30:43 -0800

I find arab calligraphy beautiful. But, in the same way, I find some types of graffiti equally gorgeous.

By: omarr

omarr — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:50:24 -0800

You guys should also check out the work of Haji Noor Deen. He mixes traditional Islamic and Chinese calligraphy styles beautifully. Heck of a nice guy as well. kk, if you've got specific translation requests, let me know. There are way too many there for me to try to do them all. edmz, that's a gorgeous piece.

By: nicolin

nicolin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:15:56 -0800

thanks, that's beautiful.

By: peacay

peacay — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:32:43 -0800

I'm such an idiot. I posted this to my site ages ago and when I just tried to find it I couldn't. Reason being: I'd misattributed the work to Al-Shaarani's teacher, Badawi Al Dirany. But thanks klang for being reminded. It's the perfect script made for abstraction into so many forms and also has that unique magic of being indecipherable to my non-arabic eye.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:20:41 -0800

Ever since the US has idiotically decided Islam is the new Nazism I've been looking for a beautiful sample of Arabic calligraphy to frame and hang in my house. I don't even know where to begin to purchase something like this; so much of what I've seen is religious in intent, not decorative. Any suggestions?

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:31:00 -0800

so much of what I've seen is religious in intent, not decorative Huh? Are the two incompatible? Is Chartres Cathedral not a work of art because it's religious in intent? Beautiful calligraphy is beautiful no matter what it says. And I doubt there's such a thing as purely decorative calligraphy, because calligraphy involves text, and text says something.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:03:04 -0800

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest a dichotomy between religious and decorative. More I'm just worried that it would somehow be inappropriate cultural appropriation to hang a religious statement I don't understand on my wall. Then again I have Christian art on my walls and I'm not particularly Christian, so this may well not make any sense. Let me try again. I love the design and artistry of Arabic calligraphy and I respect the centuries of religious and cultural heritage behind it. How can I collect some original calligraphy for display purposes?

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:54:06 -0800

Omar—The two that Cell Divide linked to are the ones that I'm most curious about. I also wish I knew a bit more about the techniques—like, they look screen printed, but could simply be ink and brush with a steady hand.

By: peacay

peacay — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:26:22 -0800

Incidentally I came across a pictograph(?) of zoomorphic calligraphy yesterday - it's from 1647 and is definitely the oldest form of this ornamentation* I've come across in a western book. (It's from HAB somewhere or other). *[good background piece on figural calligraphy by Robert Hilldebrand, Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Edinburgh]

By: peacay

peacay — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:37:53 -0800

err...that's Robert Hillenbrand.

By: omarr

omarr — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:21:31 -0800

kk, those two are really difficult to decipher. I'll take another look at them tonight and see if I can figure anything out.