What I Create Will Outlast Time — The Story of the Beauty of Arabic Script

by Raf ik Schami

Celebrating the Publication of The Calligrapher’s Secret

CONTENTS

—7— MUSIC FOR THE EYES An Essay on Calligraphy by Rafik Schami

— 40 — THE CALLIGRAPHER’S SECRET An preview of the just published novel

— 46 — PRAISE FOR RAFIK SCHAMI The Calligrapher’s Secret is published in English by

INTERLINK BOOKS

An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc. www.interlinkbooks.com

He is a prophet of the art of script, God placed calligraphy in his hand just as he taught the bees to build the hexagonal cells of their honeycombs Abu Haiyan al-Tauhidi Encylopaedist and Sufi scholar, on Ibn Muqla

‘What I Create Will Outlast Time’

The Story of the Beauty of Arabic Script by Rafik Schami

Translated by Anthea Bell Calligraphy by Ismat Amiralai

© Rafik Schami 2010 English translation © Anthea Bell 2010 Calligraphy © Ismat Amiralai www.salam-verlag.de

If anyone can be called ‘the Leonardo da Vinci of Arabic calligraphy’ it is Abu Ali Muhammad bin Hassan bin Muqla, known simply as ‘Ibn Muqla’, born in the slums of Baghdad in 885. (Ibn Muqla’s name is a curiosity in itself: Muqla, a poetic word for ‘eye’, was the affectionate nickname given to his mother by her father, who loved this particular daughter. When she married a poor calligrapher, the family was called not after him or his clan, but after her – a rare occurrence in Arab culture, then as now.) Ibn Muqla’s father, grandfather and brother, as well as his own children and grandchildren, were all calligraphers; and Ibn Muqla was the most famous of them all. He learned the art of calligraphy when young, and at the age of sixteen he became the star pupil of the famous calligrapher Ibn Furat, who later rose to the rank of vizier in the ‘Abbasid Empire. Ibn Muqla’s former teacher then found him a post in the state civil service as a tax gatherer for the caliph, and the young man grew very rich indeed. Though the ‘Abbasid Empire was the most powerful civilisation in the world of its time, the golden age of the first nine caliphs already lay in the distant past. In Ibn Muqla’s lifetime, which spanned the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, Arab culture was very sophisticated. Baghdad produced more paper and books than the whole of Europe put together; there were more bookshops to be found in the city than in the rest of the world. Politically, however, the empire was visibly breaking up. Its peripheries, where local rulers (in Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, the Maghreb, Andalusia and elsewhere) were practically autonomous, were not the only regions affected: rebellions reached the centre of power and shook it to its foundations. The rebels who made their way to Baghdad and Mecca were often Shi‘i Muslims, or drawn from the ranks of non-Arab peoples. They humiliated the Sunni caliph al-Muqtadir, repeatedly destroying his cities (e.g. Basra in 912 and 924, Mecca in 929). 9

The bureaucrats, the harem and the emirs who led the army and the police all gained more and more power in Baghdad at the expense of the caliph, who was not infrequently deposed and arrested, his property seized by his own party – only to be liberated by the other side and reinstated as the ‘new’ caliph. It was in this atmosphere that Ibn Muqla lived and worked. This greatest Arabic calligrapher of all time was an architect of script. He not only developed and improved several styles of writing (among them Thuluth and Naskhi), but was also first to propose a theory of the dimensions of written characters, keeping them in harmony and symmetry with each other. His doctrine of proportion holds to this day, and can easily be used to check whether or not the proportions of a work of calligraphy are correct or not. The first letter in Arabic, alif, is a vertical stroke, and was chosen by Ibn Muqla as the criterion for all written characters. Since Ibn Muqla all calligraphers begin by choosing the length of alif as a measure in their script. The calculation is worked out by means of vertically placed diacritical marks – rhomboid ‘dots’, the size of which depends on the width of the pen as it is pressed down on the paper. All the other letters, whether horizontal or vertical, are adjusted to the size worked out by Ibn Muqla and determined by a given number of diacritics. In addition, the curves of many letters lie along a circle with a diameter corresponding to the length of the character alif. This technique is sometimes referred to as ‘proportional script’, because all the letters relate to the size of alif and the width of the pen (that is to say, of the dot it makes). Keeping to these proportions is analogous to maintaining the First choose your travelling companian and later your route

rhythm of a musical composition. It introduces harmony to the script, making ‘music for the eye’. After years of practice, every master calligrapher does it automatically. However, the dots always allow

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for a quick check as to whether or not the proportions are correct.

Arabic script as sacred: the expression of the word of God set down

Ibn Muqla was a gifted mathematician, calligraphic scholar and

in the Qur’an. Ibn Muqla, of course, knew it was not of divine origin.

natural scientist, and the author of some remarkably straightforward

Fascinated by its beauty, he nevertheless also recognised its weak-

and candid poems. He also studied the works of theologians and

nesses. (Many calligraphic scholars and translators of his day, for ex-

atheists – writers such as Ibn al-Rawandi, Ibn al-Muqaffa’, al-Rasi

ample, had criticised the absence of letters in Arabic that could allow

and al-Farabi. He was inspired most of all by the polymath scholar

them to reproduce sounds from other languages.) Quite early on, Ibn

al-Jahiz; unlike al-Jahiz, however, Ibn Muqla enjoyed being close to

Muqla began wondering how he could introduce cautious reform

the rulers of his time – whereas al-Jahiz could not endure more than

into the alphabet, the source of the script itself. He experimented,

three days at the court of Caliph al-Ma’mun, the great patron of sci-

made notes and waited for a suitable moment.

ence and literature who reigned from 813–33.

Arabic script had been reformed several times already, a fact that was known to Ibn Muqla. The most radical change had been introduced in Baghdad over 150 years before his birth. Until then the script had contained no diacritics, and many of the characters resembled each other. Uncertainty, misunderstanding and misinterpretation were thus always likely to intrude into the reading process, even when scholars were reading aloud. Several minor reforms were attempted, but the greatest of them came at the beginning of the eighth century. Diacritics had been added, in the form of one, two or three dots, to fifteen of the letters (over half the Arabic alphabet), situated above or below the character. Mistakes in reading could then be almost eliminated. The Umayyad caliph, ‘Abd al-Malik bin Marwan (685–705), and al-Hajjaj, the bloodthirsty governor of his eastern provinces, had stifled all the conservative voices against reform. The caliph had the

Ibn Muqla eventually became First Vizier – the equivalent of a prime

Qur’an recopied in the reformed script, after that anyone could read

minister today – under the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth ‘Ab-

the holy book without making mistakes.

basid caliphs (beginning with al-Muqtadir). But proximity to them, which he sought again and again, would be his undoing.

It was not only religious texts that gained greater clarity. Arabic poetry and science, as well as the everyday use of the script, had

At the time Baghdad was the capital of a grand empire, and the cen-

also become clearer and more precise as a result. Without the power

tre of both secular and religious Islamic power. Conservative Muslim

of the caliph behind it, however, such a step could never have been

scholars, however, were hostile to any kind of reform. They regarded

taken, and Ibn Muqla knew that. He, too, needed the strong hand of

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an enlightened and farsighted caliph to push through his own, now-

derstand Creation through study of the animal kingdom; his staff

overdue reforms.

conducted research, with some degree of success, in cross-breeding

Ibn Muqla loved calligraphic script like his own child. He gave all

birds, dogs, cats, sheep, goats, donkeys and horses. Many of these

he had in its service – and in the end he lost everything. Were all

experiments also led to the birth of creatures with deformities, how-

his efforts aimed simply at gaining power, as his enemies claimed?

ever, and aroused interest in the caliph’s court but also hatred and

Certainly, they forged hostile accounts of his activities, filling whole

contempt. Ordinary people remained remote from all the debates

books with their flimsy reasoning; the answer was no. Ibn Muqla had

and experiments, of course, hidden as they were behind the thick

already achieved so much before introducing the radical steps lead-

walls of the palaces of Baghdad.

ing to reform and to his personal ruin.

Progress in natural science encouraged Ibn Muqla to take a differ-

Ibn Muqla was the tutor of the twentieth ‘Abbasid caliph, al-Radi

ent kind of step, which could have brought him worldwide renown:

Billah, teaching him philosophy, mathematics and language; he was

the extension of Arabic and its script by cross-breaeding it with oth-

to him what Aristotle had been to Alexander the Great, though this

er languages. He had studied Persian, Arabic, Aramaic, Turkish and

caliph lacked the stature of the Macedonian conqueror, to say the

Greek, as well as the changes undergone by Arabic from its begin-

least. At the height of his power, Ibn Muqla had a legendary palace

nings to his own time. Taking care in the course of his studies he

built in Baghdad. He had prophetic words carved into the great stone

was able to invent a new Arabic alphabet that, with only twenty-five

blocks of the interior of the garden wall: ‘What I create will outlast

letters, could express words in all the languages then known.

time.’ His power and wealth caused many people to envy him, which

Al-Radi Billah had a great liking for his tutor and First Vizier, but

would not have mattered had al-Radi been a man of strong character

all the same Ibn Muqla overestimated the caliph’s ability to support

or authority. Ibn Muqla would also have been spared had the Islamic

his attempts to reform the written language. Al-Radi was twenty-

scholars of his time not turned against him, issuing fatwas to justify

four years old, an open-minded man who wrote poetry himself and

the penalties inflicted on him. Their hostility had increased over the

loved wine and women. Like all the later ‘Abbasid caliphs, however,

years, and they observed everything the First Vizier did with suspi-

his say in the affairs of his court steadily diminished. Palace bureau-

cion.

crats, princes, the caliph’s wives and high-ranking officers of state all

Passionate about animals, Ibn Muqla’s converted his huge palace garden into a zoo, where different animals could move freely about

engaged in intrigues, ensuring that no reformer could stay near the caliph for too long.

in separate enclosures. He had a far-flung network of correspond-

Ibn Muqla was, by then, in his late forties. He realised that the

ents who sent him news from all over the empire by pigeon post; to

caliphate was rotting from the head down, and feared that he would

give the birds the illusion of freedom, he had the zoo covered with

not be able to put his revolutionary plans into practice. Baghdad

a silken net stretched high above the garden. A team of keepers and

had become a place of unrest, revolution and plotting. Ibn Muqla

veterinarians looked after the animals. Ibn Muqla attempted to un-

himself had a proud nature and a hot temper, and was often irritable,

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impatient and brusque with court officials, making himself more enemies than friends among those close to the caliph. Yet despite the conspiracies against him, the fact that he had become First Vizier to the young caliph strengthened Ibn Muqla’s belief in his own powers – and left him isolated in the ruler’s palace. Loyal friends, rightly anxious on his behalf, advised him to leave the palace and enjoy his fame as a brilliant calligrapher; but Ibn Muqla wanted to pursue his ambitious plan for the Arabic alphabet, and needed the caliph’s support against the mosques. He knew that the mere idea of changing Arabic script was considered a mortal sin. Previous caliphs had kept as many as 4,000 women and eunuchs in their palaces to minister to their pleasure, and quite often liked wine better than theology, but they were unyielding when it came to religion. Famous philosophers and poets had been lashed or barbarically executed for suggesting the least reform to the structure of government or expressing the faintest doubt in the Qur’an. The caliphs did not scruple to consider themselves the ‘shadow of God on earth’, and their caliphates the perfect expression of divine rule. They and (to a greater degree) their administrators were implacable at the suggestion that any change could be introduced whatsoever to Islam. Ibn Muqla’s revolutionary reform was double-pronged. His immediate wish was to give the Arabic script such a clear and straightforward form that reading it would present no further problems. His second, long-term and more important objective was to re-create the alphabet to encompass all the sounds in the world, and to endow its characters with even greater clarity. He was unaware that with Food, humour and patience are the camels that will lead you through all deserts

his first aim, he was supporting the ruling Sunnis in their struggle with the Shi‘is. Several Shi‘i groups – the Ismailis, for instance – had always regarded the Qur’an as a book written on several levels, ca-

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pable of supporting various interpretations. Certain extremists went

danger of adopting such an attitude outright and kept a low profile.

so far as to claim that what the common people understood of the

Ibn Muqla scorned the danger. He felt certain that he had al-Radi’s

Qur’an was merely al-saher: the surface, the husk, which concealed

sympathies.

a more important and complex kernel, batin. (They were, therefore,

Learning of his ideas, Ibn Muqla’s adversaries informed the caliph

known as the ‘Batinis’.) According to their doctrine, every word in

and drew a direct connection between them and the animal experi-

the Qur’an had a double meaning. Sunni doctrine claimed the dia-

ments the vizier had been conducting – the only aim of which, as

metrical opposite: there could be no double meanings in the language

they saw it, was to mock God by making Ibn Muqla figure as a crea-

of God.

tor in his own right. And now this man also wanted to change the

The court in Baghdad was Sunni. The caliph and his advisors, court philosophers and theologians characterised their campaign against

holy language of the Qur’an! The young caliph told Ibn Muqla to abandon his plans.

the Shi‘is as the struggle of God’s chosen ruler against apostates and

Ibn Muqla, who was very devout at heart, could not see that his re-

unbelievers. They were delighted that Ibn Muqla had developed a

forms entailed any deviation from the Qur’an, and assured the caliph

precise system for the dimensions of written characters, and a simple,

that he would sooner die than doubt a word of Holy Scripture. In

beautiful and flexible script – Naskhi – that copyists could now use

fact, he said, the simplification and extension of Arabic script would

to write out the Qur’an quickly, clearly and without flourishes. (The

give the language, and thus the Qur’an, yet wider distribution. When

name Naskhi derives from the verb ‘to copy’, and to this day it is the

the two friends parted, each held the erroneous and dangerous belief

script used most often for printing books.) Ibn Muqla had become

that he had convinced the other.

the best weapon in the Sunni arsenal against Shi‘i opposition. The

Ibn Muqla underestimated his enemies.

caliph and his theologians, however, did not realise that Ibn Muqla

At first, al-Radi did not reject the idea of reform. But the clerics

wanted to further and more radically reform the writing system.

had threatened to rebel against him in the name of remaining true

Caliph al-Radi loved his First Vizier, and praised him publicly, but

to Islam, should he agree to Ibn Muqla’s vision. Al-Radi knew what

when Ibn Muqla confided a detail about the new alphabet he had

that meant: he had watched an angry mob murder his father, seen his

conceived, the caliph was shocked. Ibn Muqla’s antagonists al-Mu-

uncle al-Qahir deposed and arrested and only just escaped an assas-

zaffar and Ibn Ra’iq had already been stirring up the caliph’s feelings

sination attempt on his own life. Now Something happens that shows

against the calligrapher; he cautioned his vizier that his rivals were

the calligrapher in a curious light.

now moving against him, but Ibn Muqla interpreted this warning

On his way to see the caliph, Ibn Muqla was attacked in a palace cor-

as a hint from an ally. He promised to take more care, but stuck to

ridor by slaves of al-Muzaffar and Ibn Ra’iq and dragged away. The

his plan, and began to assemble groups of like-minded people. Some

conspirators tortured him, and told the caliph that the calligrapher

scholars and well-known translators shared his views on the necessity

had been plotting against him, writing appeals for his overthrow. The

for radical reform of the Arabic language and script, but knew the

furious al-Radi ordered Ibn Muqla’s arrest without questioning him

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personally or even seeing him. He lacked the courage to punish his

fasten the reed he used as a pen to the stump of his wrist, and was

vizier in person, delegating the task to his emirs and court officials,

thus able to write calligraphy again, if not as beautifully as before. He

never guessing that they were the leaders of a plot against Ibn Muqla,

founded the first great school for calligraphers with the aim of pass-

They had the former vizier lashed, but he refused to tell them where

ing on his knowledge, and would gather his most gifted students in a

he had hidden his written-out new alphabet. In return his right hand

circle of initiates who would understand his reforms, remember them

was cut off and his property seized. Soon his palace was in flames. It

and pass them on if anything were to happen to him. He hoped to

is said that everything in it burned, but for the section of the interior

defeat death itself by implanting the secret of his script in the hearts

wall that bore the word ‘time’. What the fire did not consume was

of young calligraphers.

stolen by the hungry people of Baghdad.

But at the same time, he failed to see that he was walking into

The conspirators announced that Ibn Muqla had been plotting

another trap set by his enemies, who misrepresented his plans for

against the caliph. His friends were too afraid to demonstrate any

the school as further evidence of a plot against the caliph. Al-Radi

support for him, and made no attempts to rehabilitate him. One pal-

was angry that Ibn Muqla would not listen to him, and ordered Ibn

ace historian refuted the false accusations against Ibn Muqla, writing

Ra’iq to hold the calligrapher prisoner in a house far from the city,

that he was not, as usual in such cases, executed; rather, the caliph sent

to ensure that he could not dictate his secrets to anyone again. The

his personal physician Hassan bin Thabet to tend the calligrapher’s

calligrapher was to live there at the expense of the palace until the

wounds. A few days later the caliph even invited Ibn Muqla to eat

end of his days.

with him, and made him vizier again. Ibn Muqla wrote a poem about his disappointment:

Ibn Ra’iq had Ibn Muqla’s tongue cut out, and flung him into a prison on the outskirts of the desert to endure isolation and misery. Protests from poets and scholars did no good. Ibn Ra’iq had already

Men are friends to fortune.

seized power in the palace. Ibn Muqla died July 940, still famous

When it left me for half a day,

throughout the Islamic world. His renown endures today.

they fled in fear.

The greatest poets of his epoch, men such as Ibn Rumi and al-Sauli,

Oh men, return, for fortune

made moving speeches at his graveside. If he had indeed been in-

is true to me once more.

volved in a conspiracy against the caliph or the Qur’an as his enemies claimed, no poets would have dared to praise him, let alone show that

He lamented his mutilation for the rest of his life. ‘My hand was

they mourned him; for the poets and scholars of the time worked at

chopped off like a thief’s, the hand with which I twice copied the

the caliph’s court and lived by his grace and favour.

Qur’an.’

‘What I create will outlast time,’ Ibn Muqla’s famous declaration,

Ibn Muqla was now fifty years old, and despite everything he had no intention of giving up. He devised a bandage enabling him to 20

testifies to the vision of a man who knew that the rules he created for Arabic calligraphy would endure as long as the script itself. 21

Music for the Eyes: A Short Introduction to Arabic Script Arabic script is used by over 300 million Arabs for whom Arabic is a mother tongue, and by more than a billion Muslims living in Pakistan, Iran and other countries. The invention of the alphabet by the Phoenicians changed the world radically. Like the wheel, it sped up the development of human culture. With twenty-two letters, the Phoenicians could reproduce phonemes, the sounds of human speech. Objective statements and abstract ideas could thus be presented and recorded much more quickly and precisely than any other kinds of written characters. Many scripts such as Greek and Aramaic developed from the Phoenician alphabet. Aramaic spread from North Africa across the Middle East and into India. In turn, Hebrew and Arabic developed from Aramaic. Linguists are now certain that Arabic script reached its final form by way of an interim stage, Nabataean Arabic. The seventh- to twelfth-century Arab conquests – ­ in less than a hundred years the empire of the Umayyads expanded from Asia, across the Middle East and Africa to Spain – also widely distributed Arabic script. Translation of the Qur’an was not allowed, moreover, so believers had to learn Arabic in order to pray. Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu also came under the influence of Arabic script, as did, sometimes, even Spanish, Portuguese and Swahili. The Arabic language itself, however, spread more slowly, as regions that had resisted the conquerors retained their own languages and religions. Arabic is written from right to left. The alphabet has twenty-five I taught him to compose and his first verse was written against me

consonants and three long vowels: A, I and U. Formerly, the short vowels were written above and below the letters, making possible a perfect reading of the text. Modern script has abandoned these nu-

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ances, however. Individual letters are always cursive in Arabic script, both in handwriting and in print. Every letter has four forms, depending on whether it stands at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a word, or on its own. The Roman alphabet, by comparison, has only two forms, majuscule and minuscule. There is an additional difficulty in that twenty-two letters in Arabic can be joined up to others on both sides, but six letters can be linked only to the left. If they occur in the middle of a word, the letter to their left is written as though it stood at the beginning of a word. Ligatures (the links joining the letters) play an important part in the design of Arabic script. Prior to the Islamic period, the desert-dwelling Arabs had nothing in the way of the visual arts as striking as Greek or Roman painting and sculpture; but the desert lets the eyes rest and loosens the tongue, and the Arabs did have one of the finest traditions of poetry in the world. Islam increased the importance of the word and its aesthetic expression in calligraphy, initially for sacred purposes. Later on, Arabic script was used decoratively in or on palaces, vessels, jewellery, books and other luxury goods. Yet it has always remained attached to the sacred. Mosques, which of course contain no images or statues, are adorned with inscriptions as though they were huge books in themselves. Thus Arabic calligraphy became the outstanding visual art form in the Islamic world and the importance of the Ottoman and Persian calligrapher was outstanding. If calligraphy was practised at first for purely religious reasons – to give aesthetically pleasing and legible form to the sacred texts A house without books is a house without a soul

and heighten the spiritual atmosphere of places of prayer through the beauty, rhythm, reflection, and the variety it displays even in its unity – it later went further and developed into an art form in its own

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right, independent of content but enhancing the understanding of the

and once referred to the width of the tip of the reed pen used for

texts at the same time.

writing it. The broadest pens had twenty-four hairs, the pen for Thu-

The art of calligraphy was greatly encouraged in Baghdad. Ibn

luth script only eight. This style reached its prime between the sev-

Muqla and his successors perfected Arabic script over three centuries.

enth and tenth centuries, and was regarded as the touchstone of any

Later, the calligraphers of Istanbul took up that role, practising and

calligrapher’s art. Thuluth is, therefore, known as ‘the mother of cal-

extending calligraphy further still. Calligraphy is subject to strict laws

ligraphy’.

dating back to Ibn Muqla, but a calligrapher may choose from several

It is often used when printing particularly exquisite books and reli-

styles. Every script variation, in turn, contains countless opportuni-

gious texts, and for ornamenting and decorating mosques and official

ties for reflection, repetition and style of ligature, so a calligrapher

buildings.

may shape it in accordance with his aesthetic ideals.

Naskhi. Created by Ibn Muqla in the tenth century to facilitate the work of copying (Arabic: nasakha, to copy) and above all to make it

Script Styles

easy to read text clearly. Today most books in Arabic use this style, which is elegant and clear.

Various styles of writing have developed over the course of centuries. With the coming of the computer age, hundreds more have arisen,

Riq’a. Developed from Ottoman calligraphies that aimed to achieve

though no single significant trend can be discerned amongst that

maximum simplicity, this script is small, compressed and free of or-

huge number. The following six classic styles remain canonical.

namentation. It spread quickly, being especially suitable for handwriting. Arabic newspaper headlines are often printed in this familiar

Kufi. Called after the Iraqi city al-Kufa, Kufi script had already at-

style.

tained perfection in the second half of the eighth century. This style has an angular appearance that gives it a religious aura, evoking min-

Farsi (also known as Ta’liq and Nasta’liq). Farsi script is airy and

arets. It is used to good effect in the architecture of mosques and

elegant, with a lithe, dynamic and often diagonal line. The few points

palaces, but also in the design of everyday utensils. A popular variant

to which it rises are often rounded. Its horizontal characters are gen-

of this style is ‘floral’ Kufi, in which plants and flowers emerge from

erous and broad in extent, with the rhythm of the letters lending

the characters; the effect is decidedly ornamental, if more difficult to

a peaceful note to the visual music of the script. Today this style is

read. In another variant, ‘woven’ Kufi, only experts can decipher the

dominant in Iran.

text amidst the ornamentation.

Thuluth. (The th is pronounced as in English, e.g. ‘the’; this style

Diwani. This script was used in state chancelleries (diwan). Diwani

is also called Talat or, in Turkish, Sülüs.) Thuluth means ‘one-third’,

is majestic, its characters often following the line of a circle with its

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diameter equal to the height of the letter alif.

Tughra. Now extinct, this script resembled a fingerprint and was reserved for Ottoman sultans, whose name and sometimes royal epithets were integrated into its design. Later, religious sayings were written in Tughra, becoming icons. The writing did not follow the right-to-left rule but ran as the figure required. A curious story about the origin of this style has the fourteenth–fifteenth-century Mongol conqueror Timur Leng and Sultan Bayezid I at odds; as Timur could not write, he dictated a letter to Bayezid through his clerk, then authenticated it with his thumbprint. The sultan replied with a particularly complicated way of writing his name in a filigreed style – Tughra.

Tughra des osmanischen Sultans Mahmud II.

Die Schriftstile von oben nack unten: Thuluth, Nas-chi, Farsi, Rihani, Riqa’i, Diwani, Diwani Gali, Kufi

He the instructed his calligraphers to design this emblematic fingerprint for him at once, demonstrating the high level of Ottoman civilisation to his enemy.

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Should a calligrapher wish to compose music carefully with the char-

Music for the Eyes

acters, the empty spaces between letters and words calls for yet greater skill. The spaces in a work of calligraphy are moments of silence.

There are considerable differences between Arabic and other written

Like Arab music, calligraphy returns to the repetition of certain ele-

languages of the world using the Roman, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek,

ments, not only promoting the dance of body and mind but also sug-

Korean and Chinese alphabets, and so on. Writing in these languages,

gesting that we are rising from the earthly sphere, reaching toward

for example, consists of various units divided from each other, and

other regions.

necessitates the regular raising and lowering of the pen. When the

As we can see from the papers left by Goethe, the great polymath

eyes read, they, too must learn to understand the repeated interrup-

practised writing Arabic script without ever having learned to read

tions of the written line.

the language, especially at the time he was taking an interest in the

Arabic characters, cursive, are linked together in handwriting and

Orient and writing his poems published as the West–Eastern Divan.

in printing. The words form a calligraphic river, and it is this quality

Why is this, we may wonder?

that marks out the Arabic script as the perfect medium in which to

Goethe recognised that the form of Arabic script is a wonderful way

make music for the eye – for just as the ear enjoys music, the eye can

of conveying the nature of Arab culture, even if those who do not

enjoy Arabic calligraphy, even without understanding the text.

read the language cannot understand the text. In his 1815 correspond-

As the script is always written continuously, the length of the liga-

ence with Christian Schlosser, the nephew of a close friend, he wrote

tures is very important in the composition. Lengthening or abbre-

that in no language more than Arabic were ‘the mind, the word and

viating these links is to the eye what lengthening or abbreviating a

the script so closely incorporated from the very beginning’. Goethe

musical note is to the ear. The letter alif, a vertical stroke in Arabic,

filled sheet after sheet with his Arabic writing exercises, as if to dis-

becomes a kind of bar line in the musical rhythm. However, as the

cover from his ‘intellectually technical efforts’ how Arabs think and

size of the letter alif determines that of all other characters in ac-

feel – as if to Orientalise himself, in fact. In these exercises he both

cordance with the doctrine of proportion, it too plays a part in the

saw the music of the script with his eyes and accompanied it, fasci-

height and depth of the ‘music’ formed horizontally by the letters in

nated, with his hand. Surely deep within his mind, Goethe was listen-

every line. Also influencing the visual music is the variety in breadth,

ing to the melody of Arabic script.

from very fine to generous, both in the letters themselves and in the ligatures at the top, bottom or centre of those letters. Extension along the horizontal, alternation between rounded and angular characters and between vertical and horizontal lines all have their effect on the melody of the script, evoking an atmosphere that is light, playful and cheerful, touchingly melancholy or heavy and dark. 30

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A Beautiful Alphabet with a Few Flaws

al purists, and some of whom spend months if not years discussing and debating the form of a poem or the right way to decline a verb,

If you were to ask two Arabs how many letters there are in the Ara-

have overlooked the fact that their beloved alphabet is defective?

bic alphabet, one would probably reply, with some embarrassment,

The answer has to do with the history of this one character, and of

‘twenty-eight’, and the other – even more embarrassed – would like-

Arab society. Many legends have accumulated around the alleged let-

ly contradict this answer: ‘No, I’m sure there are twenty-nine letters.’

ter consisting of the L/A combination. According to the best-known

The uncertainty and imprecision of the answer might appear surpris-

anecdote, a companion of the Prophet asked him how many letters

ing, for it is not as though the questioner were asking, say, how many

God gave Adam, and the Prophet replied: ‘Twenty-nine.’ His schol-

Chinese symbols an educated Chinese person must master. Even in

arly friend courteously corrected him, saying that he himself had

the first decade of the twenty-first century, these two figures alternate

found only twenty-eight Arabic letters. The Prophet repeated that the

everywhere: in Arabic language or calligraphy manuals, on Internet

answer was twenty-nine, whereupon his companion counted them

discussion forums and in the minds and memory of Arabs. Where

again and said no, there were only twenty-eight. At that the Prophet,

does this difference of opinion come from?

flushed with anger, told the man: ‘God gave Adam twenty-nine Ara-

The putative twenty-ninth letter consists of two letters, equivalent

bic letters. Seventy thousand angels bore witness to it. And the twen-

in the Roman alphabet to L and A. it is therefore not a letter but a

ty-ninth letter is LA.’ The Prophet’s companions knew he was wrong,

word, meaning ‘no’ or ‘not’.

and they were not alone: thousands of scholars and readers kept quiet about it for 1,300 years, teaching their children an alphabet containing a superfluous letter that is not a letter at all. The Arabic language remained unreformed for the same length of time. Again and again, the brave called for reform, but their calls were lost in the desert air. The ossification of Arabic and its alphabet cannot merely be attributed to religious fundamentalism, which sanctified the language and regarded any change to it as an attack on God and the Qur’an. It is more deeply rooted in the Arab clan system itself, which, though it was a brilliant means of coping with the hostile conditions of desert

The Arabic Alphabet.......

life and enabled Arabs to survive for millennia, could not tolerate change and proved to be a great obstacle to further development. The caliph was analogous to the head of a great clan, and lived in

How, then, could millions of Arabs – amongst them literary schol-

the capital; local rulers remained in their respective cities, where, in

ars, philosophers, linguists, liberals, rebels, innovators and tradition-

marked contrast to Europe at that time, advanced culture prevailed

32

33

as early as the seventh century. In Arab history (and in Asian history in general), therefore, the city was not the site of bourgeois rebellion, reform and dynamism, but the residence of the ruler and his philosophers, poets and scholars in the fields of religion, history and language. Nothing could be done there without the permission of the caliph, sultan or king. There were, of course, always rebels calling for reform, but they were exiled, persecuted or quite often executed. Some enlightened rulers (such as al-Ma’mun) made their palaces centres of cultural progress – we have them to thank for developments in philosophy and natural science, as well as for some of the finest poetry in the world. But no caliph was a guarantor for his sucessor. In the palace, or in its shadow, literary, philosophical and mathematical studies were pursued and meditation was practised; the term ‘court poet’ was not derogatory, but describes a deeply rooted tradition of poetry in Arabia almost unchanged down to the present day. From a distance, modern-day court poets appear to be contemporary types, camouflaged with reasonably good English, a mobile phone and a limousine, and quite often their European colleagues can be led to assume –as they discuss Marx, Heidegger, Sartre and other great intellectuals – that theirs is an up-to-date, liberal stance. At close quarters, however, they can be seen to be the henchmen of the regime in power (complementing its torturers), whose task it is to eulogise the ruler, defame his enemies and justify the harsh measures taken against them. That was the way in the past, and remains so today. From the beginning, however, there was another tradition, that of rebel philosophers and poets who lived outside the palaces. Its traces have, to a great extent, been erased or falsified. These people are still oppressed, but thanks to global communications technology they can no longer be silenced.

He who lives with two faces will die faceless

The Qur’an is the sacred text for over a billion people, and is sup34

35

posed to remain untouched; the Arabic of everyday life, scholarship

mately 60,000 terms, chemistry, 100,000 and medicine, 200,000. Over

and poetry, however, still needs radical reform. First, the building

350,000 plant species are known to botany, and over 1 million animal

blocks of the language, its characters, must be reformed. The written

species to zoology. Arabic must assimilate all these words if it is to

language lacks certain letters such as E, O, P and W, which it needs in

be regarded as an international language. Yet it hesitates, nonplussed,

order to communicate easily with other languages and adopt their ex-

before these innovations and the speed at which they come racing in.

pressions without having to write the words in the Roman alphabet.

If it does not keep up, it will simply become antiquated.

Farsi, spoken by Iranians, is able to absorb Arabic and Chinese ter-

False prophets claim that the magical solution for preventing the lan-

minology, as well as words in languages that use the Roman alphabet,

guage from becoming a fossil is for Arabs to abandon classical Arabic

without employing parentheses as a crutch. Arabic lines, pages and

in favour of writing in local dialects; such ridiculous ideas are like an

books are still harmonious to the eye, and reading flows smoothly

intellectual extension of nineteenth-century colonialism. What na-

from right to left, but such is not the case in Arabic books on sci-

tion ever overcame a crisis by abandoning the language of its high

ence, psychology, philosophy and medicine, where the flow of words

culture in favour of dialect?

is often interrupted by Latinate expressions that must be read from

A second tendency is to advocate the forsaking of Arabic script

left to right. European languages do not have this problem: for every

for the Roman alphabet, a change successfully imposed by Mustafa

sound in one European language, it is possible to find a combination

Kemal Atatürk on Turkish in 1928. This reform may appear sensible

of letters in another to reproduce it satisfactorily.

across the Arab world, and I fear it will materialise if the Arabs do

In the Arab world, naturalising modern-day scientific, philosophi-

not wake up, reform their language and script and put some effort

cal, technical and sociological terminology in Arabic is a hesitant and

into keeping pace with our changing global civilisation. At the same

uncoordinated process. But the express train of modernity merci-

time, such a proposition would be unacceptable to most Arabs: Ara-

lessly thunders on; its rails are the new words produced by inventive

bic characters are vital to their culture as a whole.

minds. Yet one young Arab proudly informed me that he knew thirty

A brave proposal for resolving the crisis of the Arabic language was

synonyms for the word ‘lion’. An Arab linguist proudly announced

made in the 1970s. To do it justice, the fundamental problem with Ar-

that he had read of Ibn Faris’s 200 synonyms for ‘beard’.

abic script (which had been apparent from the first) must be empha-

That was all very well for writers in the eighth century. But what

sised: its letters closely resemble each other. At an early date, scholars

about the Arabic words for ‘hydrogen’, ‘steering wheel’, ‘radio’, ‘ox-

made several attempts at reform in order to eliminate ambiguity and

ide’, ‘computer’, ‘digital’? There was no answer. Depending on the

misreading (particularly of sacred texts). The most radical step was

former colonial power to which they were once subject – and this

taken in the eighth century under the Umayyads, when the aforemen-

even in the first decade of the twenty-first century! – some Arabs

tioned fifteen letters acquired diacritical marks in order to draw a

adopt the English and others the French terms for all these words

clear distinction between characters of the same basic shape.

and more. It is estimated that modern physics has coined approxi36

A great debt is owed in particular to the linguistic scholar al-Fara37

hidi (died 786) for this improvement. The Qur’an was recopied in this reformed script, and from then on

sentence; al-Sakkar fled the country in 1978, and has lived in exile in Paris since then.

any student could easily and correctly read the text, where once even

With all due respect to al-Sakkar’s efforts, it must be said that a

scholars could find themselves baffled. This historical fact gives the

reduction in the number of an alphabet’s characters impoverishes

lie to any Islamists who claim that language and writing are sacred.

a language and impairs its elegance. The Qur’an would need to be

They are of human origin, and as such must be kept alive through

recopied, and these changes taught to the Islamic world, or utmost

innovation.

chaos would ensue; two or three alphabets would co-exist in conflict

Another problem, mentioned earlier, is that Arabic letters are writ-

with one another, causing only confusion.

ten in four different ways depending on their placement at the begin-

The sensible solution would be to extend the alphabet. The Qur’an

ning, in the middle or at the end of a word, or whether or not they

could then remain intact, while the language of everyday life, poetry

stand on their own. These rules force students to learn over 100 letter

and science would be richer by four characters. Iranians, Pakistanis,

forms, while a European child must learn only about fifty forms. The

Afghans and other Islamic peoples extended their alphabets long ago,

great Egyptian writer Taha Hussein (1882–1973) once sighed: ‘Others

and have fared no worse as Muslims than before.

read in order to study, while we have to study in order to read.’ His

There is certainly no shortage in Arab countries of the financial

complaint is more than justified.

means to support such a radical reform of the language and its script.

After years of hard work, the Iraqi poet, painter and calligrapher

A single day’s oil revenues would be enough to subsidise transla-

Muhammad Said al-Sakkar developed what he called a ‘concentrat-

tion of the most important books, and for the renovation of Arabic

ed alphabet’ containing only fifteen letters, each with a single form

vocabulary. However, taking such steps would necessitate unity, de-

wherever it appears within a word. Al-Sakkar referred to his inno-

mocracy and freedom in the Arab world – and such reform as that

vation, which he patented, as ‘breaking the fetters of placement’.

still lies in the remote future.

It was intended to facilitate reading and learning, and to simplify working on computers and in print. This new system was initially taken up enthusiastically in the Baghdad of Saddam Hussein. The dictator wished to present it as a brilliant achievement of the Ba‘th regime, but soon the explosive power of this reform became evident, and threatening to its rule. Al-Sakkar, although loyal to Saddam (he wrote some dreadful nationalist poems in support of the regime), was now accused of being a ‘follower of Freemasonry’ whose sole aim was to destroy Arab culture. Such condemnation, pronounced by Saddam’s uncle Khairallah Tulfah, was tantamount to a death 36

37

Dedicated to Ibn Muqla (886-940)

Rafik Schami

the greatest architect of Arabic charactrs, and his misfortune

An extract from

The Calligrapher’s Secret

Translated from German by

Anthea Bell 38

39

The Old Town of Damascus still lay under the grey cloak of twilight before dawn when an incredible rumour began making its way to

The Rumour

the tables of the little snack bars, and circulating among the first

or

customers at the bakeries. It seemed that Nura, the beautiful wife of

Hoe Stories begin

that highly regarded and prosperous calligrapher Hamid Farsi, had

in Damascus

run away.

April of the year 1957 brought summer heat to Damascus.

At this early hour the streets were still full of night air, and the Old Town smelled of the jasmine flowering in the courtyards, of spices, of damp wood. Straight Street lay in darkness. Only bakeries and snack bars showed any light. Soon the call of the muezzins made its way down streets and into bedrooms. Muezzin started after muezzin, setting up a multiple echo. When the sun rose behind the eastern gate leading into Straight Street, and the last grey was swept from the blue sky, the butchers, vegetable sellers and the vendors at food stalls already knew about Nura’s flight. There was a smell of oil, charred wood and horse-dung around the place.

As eight o’clock approached, the smell of washing powder,

cumin, and here and there falafel began spreading through Straight Street. Barbers, confectioners and joiners had opened now, and had sprayed the pavement outside their shops with water. By this time news had leaked out that Nura was the daughter of the famous scholar Rami Arabi.

When the pharmacists, watchmakers and antiques dealers

were opening at their leisure, not expecting much business yet, the rumour had reached the east gate, and because by now it had assumed considerable dimensions it would not fit through the gateway. It rebounded from the stone arch and broke into a thousand and one 40

41

pieces which scuttled away like rats, as if fearing the light, down the

wife Huda, who helped all his children into the world and knew the

alleyways and into houses.

secrets of his four wives. She placed the delicate cup containing her



Malicious tongues said that Nura had run away because her

mocha on the table deliberately slowly, as if she herself suffered from

husband had been sending her letters speaking ardently of love, and

this severe diagnosis. Her five women neighbours nodded, holding

the experienced Damascene rumour-mongers stopped at that point,

their breath.

well aware that they had lured their audience’s curiosity into the



trap.

pretended gravity. The midwife shook her head, and the others



“What?” asked their hearers indignantly. “A woman leaves

“And is the disease infectious?” asked a plump woman with

laughed, but with restraint, as if they thought the question embar-

her husband because he writes to tell her of the ardour of his love?”

rassing.

“Not his, not his,” the scandal-mongers replied with the calm assur-



ance of victors, “he was commissioned to write to her by that skirt-

He did not distinguish between society ladies and peasant girls, old

chaser Nassri Abbani, who wanted to seduce the beauty with letters,

whores and adolescents. It was claimed that his youngest wife, six-

but though he struts like a rooster the fool can’t write anything much

teen-year-old Almas, had once said:, “Nassri can’t see a hole without

himself, apart from his own name.”

sticking his thing into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came home one



day carrying a swarm of bees on his prick.”

Nassri Abbani was a philanderer known all over the city. He

Driven by his addiction, Nassri paid court to all women.

had inherited more than ten houses and large orchards near the city from his father. Unlike his two brothers, Salah and Muhammad, who

And as usual with such men, Nassri’s heart really burned only when

were devout, worked hard to increase their wealth, and were good

a woman turned him down. Nura did not want to know anything

husbands, Nassri slept around wherever he could. He had four wives

about him, and so he was almost crazy for love of her. People said he

in four houses, sired four children a year, and in addition he kept

hadn’t touched a whore for months. “He was obsessed with her,” his

three of the city’s whores.

young wife Almas confided to the midwife Huda. “He hardly ever



slept with me, and if he did lie beside me I knew his mind was on the

When mid-day came, the scorching heat had driven all the

smells out of Straight Street and the shadows of the few passers by

other woman. But I didn’t know who she was until she ran away.”

were only a foot long, the inhabitants of the Christian, Jewish and

Then the calligrapher had written love letters that could have melted

Muslim quarters alike knew that Nura had run away. The calligra-

a heart of stone for him, but to the proud Nura that was the height

pher’s fine house was near the Roman arch and the Orthodox church

of impertinence. She gave the letters to her father. The Sufi scholar, a

of St Mary, just where the different quarters came together.

man of exemplary calm, wouldn’t believe it at first. He suspected that

“Many men fall sick from arrack or hashish, others die of an insatia-

some wicked person was trying to destroy the calligrapher’s marriage.

ble appetite. Nassri is sick with the love of women. It’s like catching

However the evidence was overwhelming. “It wasn’t just the callig-

a cold or tuberculosis, either you get it or you don’t,” said the mid-

rapher’s unmistakable writing,” said the midwife, and added that

42

43

Nura’s beauty was praised in the letters so precisely that apart from

All that may have helped to make the young woman’s decision easier

herself and her mother, only her husband and no one else could have

for her. But one kernel of the truth remained hidden from everyone.

known all the details. And now the midwife’s voice sank so low that

The name of that kernel was love.

the other women were hardly breathing. “Only they could say what



Nura’s breasts and belly and legs looked like, and where she had a lit-

begun. Nura had reached the end of a blind alley at the time, and

tle birthmark,” she added, as if she had read the letters herself. “And

then love suddenly broke through the walls towering up before her

all the calligrapher could say,” added another of the neighbours, “was

and showed her a crossroads of opportunity. And Nura had to act.

that he hadn’t known who that goat Nassri wanted the letters for,

But as the truth is not as simple as a apricot, it has a second kernel,

and when poets sing the praises of a strange beauty with whom they

and not even Nura knew anything about that one. The second kernel

aren’t personally acquainted, they describe only what they know.”

of this story was the calligrapher’s secret.

A year before, in April 1956, a tempestuous love story had

“What spinelessness!” This sigh went from mouth to mouth over the next few days, as if all Damascus could talk of nothing else. Many would add, if there were no children within hearing distance, “He’ll just have to live with the shame of it while his wife lies underneath that bed-hopping Nassri.”

“She isn’t lying underneath him. She ran away and left them

both. That’s the strange part of it,” malicious tongues would say mysteriously, putting the record straight. Rumours with a known beginning and end do not live long in Damascus, but the tale of the beautiful Nura’s flight had a strange beginning and no end. It circulated among the men from café to café, and from group to group of women in their inner courtyards, and whenever it passed from one tongue to the next, it changed.

Tales were told of the dissipated excesses into which Nassri

Abbani had tempted the calligrapher in order to get access to his wife. Of the sums of money that he had paid the calligrapher for the letters. Nassri was said to have given him their weight in gold. “That’s why the grasping calligrapher wrote the love letters in large characters and with a wide margin. He could make a single page into five,” said the scandal-mongers. 44

45

PRAISE FOR RAFIK SCHAMI’S

PRAISE FOR RAFIK SCHAMI’S

The Calligrapher’s Secret

Damascus Nights

“Warmly observed, richly detailed… Schami's fine portrait of life in Damascus, Syria, in the middle of the 20th century is filled with a compelling set of characters… exquisite storytelling… A novel to be savored.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Timely and timeless at once.” —Malcolm Bradbury, The New York Times Book Review “A picturesque collection of tales… wonderfully contemporary.” —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A literary masterpiece… a sensual homage to Damascus… you only wish it were a never-ending story.” —Sabine Tesche, Hamburger Abendblatt

“A master spinner of innocently beguiling yarns, slyly oblivious to the Western cartographies of narrative art and faithful only to the oral itineraries of the classical Arab storytellers, Rafik Schami plays with the genre of the Western novel, and he explodes it from within.” —Anton Shammas

PRAISE FOR RAFIK SCHAMI’S

“This wonderful book is enlightening and endearing, witty and wise… Highly recommended…” —Library Journal

The Dark Side of Love

“Like the mythopoeic India of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, the main protagonist of Schami’s encyclopedic, jigsaw puzzle of a novel is a country: Syria… Schami gives voice to the entire chorus of Damascus life… Schami, a major international talent, has a broad range, from the scatological to the sexually comic to the painful, and with this extraordinary book deserves to establish an American audience.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review and a PW Pick of the Week) “...may turn out to be the first Great Syrian Novel. The Dark Side of Love illumines almost every side of love, as well as fear, longing, cruelty and lust. Darkness and light alternate like the basalt and marble stripes on Damascene walls, and the novel's structure is just as strong...as expansive, as comprehensive, as War and Peace.” —The Guardian

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“Romeo and Juliet meets Arturo Pérez-Reverte and John le Carré in the dusty streets of Damascus… A rewarding and beautifully written, if blood-soaked, tale.” —Kirkus Reviews 46

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