Islamic Calligraphy
- LAST MODIFIED: 07 January 2025
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0313
- LAST MODIFIED: 07 January 2025
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0313
Introduction
In Islamic contexts, khatt, or calligraphy, refers to the intricate art of inscribing texts written in Arabic script in aesthetically appealing styles and forms. Scholars and practitioners use different terms to describe the practice. Some refer to it as “Arabic calligraphy” due to the script employed. Others, however, prefer the broader term “Islamic calligraphy” to also recognize the other languages employing Arabic script (e.g., Persian, Urdu, Pashtu, Ottoman Turkish, Malay) and the diverse cultures that the calligraphic works inscribed in these languages represent. Further distinctions are made through designations such as “North African calligraphy,” “Persian calligraphy,” and “Ottoman calligraphy,” which denote dynastic and regional idiosyncrasies. Since the advent of Islam in the seventh century, calligraphy has been an integral part of Muslim intellectual pursuits, from literature, theology, and philosophy to music, astronomy, and medicine. As early as Late Antiquity, thanks to its visual appeal and applicability to varied subjects, Islamic calligraphy transcended cultural, linguistic, and religious boundaries, and attained prestige beyond Muslim territories, particularly in Christian Europe. There, from the late tenth century on and throughout the Renaissance, calligraphic inscriptions featured in Arabic script were incorporated into the decorative programs of religious and non-religious architectural monuments, luxury objects, and paintings. Islamic calligraphy is a living tradition preserved by present-day calligraphers, one which has been expanded by modern and contemporary artists, including graphic designers. Islamic calligraphy has moreover adapted to technological developments and an array of media, including painting, printing, sculpture, photography, installation, street art, and digital art. The conceptual ambitions of modern and contemporary artists are equally as diverse, engaging with notions of personal, ethno-linguistic, and national identity, as well as cultural, social, and political critique. This bibliography begins with General Overviews, followed by Primary Sources, and Catalogues and Surveys. Studies that are concerned with specific themes are organized under four headings: History, Aesthetics, Function and Meaning, and Cultural Heritage. History includes works on the development of the practice and individual artists. Aesthetics presents a compilation of sources on terminology, tools, media, style, design, and creative process, and works exploring Islamic calligraphy’s often misunderstood relationship with figurative painting and decorative arts. Scholarship investigating the social, political, cultural, and religious contexts of the practice, and its theoretical interpretations is listed under Function and Meaning. Finally, Cultural Heritage includes publications on issues of ownership and protection of calligraphic works. This bibliography prioritizes studies that take calligraphy as their main topic and limits itself to secondary sources in English and primary sources available in English translations. Catalogues without interpretive essays and instructional and technical manuals for practitioners are excluded.
General Overviews
The geographic and temporal scopes of Islamic calligraphy are as large and wide as those of Islam itself, spanning from East Asia to the Americas, and from the seventh century to the present. Early examples of art historiographical writing on Islamic calligraphy include texts written under the Abbasids and the Mamluks, such as Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi’s epistle on penmanship, and Zayn al-Din Ibn al Sa’igh’s Tuhfat Uli al-Albab. In the fifteenth century, texts composed in Iran and dedicated to the study of the arts of the book (e.g., painting, calligraphy, illumination, binding) incorporated sections on calligraphers’ biographies and work. This corpus proliferated in the sixteenth century in Persian and Ottoman domains as evinced in the production of anthologies of book artists and prefaces to painting and calligraphy albums. Primary sources written between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries set the framework for most scholarship on calligraphy in the centuries that followed; and up until the twenty-first century, the scholarship has concerned itself primarily with the development of calligraphic scripts, styles, and techniques, and artists’ biographies. Among the plethora of introductory studies on calligraphy, Blair 2006 stands out on account of its broad temporal and geographical coverage, as well as expert synthesis of primary and secondary sources on the topic. It was around this time, in the early 2000s, that scholarship began to consider Islamic calligraphy as an artistic form that not only reflected, but also shaped, the cultural, intellectual, and political fabric of Islamicate communities. Gharipour and Schick 2013 and Blair and Bloom 2017 presented examples of such a thematically and conceptually broad approach. In general, though, scholars have limited their research to local, regional, and dynastic perspectives, granting disproportional attention to art of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires at the expense of African, East and Southeast Asian, and Andalusian traditions. The calligraphic traditions of these previously neglected regions have recently been explored in Kalus 2017 (cited under From Antiquity through the Early Modern Period) and Bongianino 2022 (cited under Calligraphic Styles), among others. Puerta-Vílchez 2017 features a compilation of and commentaries on primary sources of premodern Arab aesthetic thought, with sections dedicated specifically to calligraphy. Some midcentury artists also wrote about the art of calligraphy and their own practice, but many of these works have yet to be translated into English. Texts dedicated exclusively to calligraphy in modern art emerged in the 1990s, first in Arabic and French, and then in English. Ali 1997, Shabout 2007, and Daghir 2016 represent general studies in English. Following these publications, modern and contemporary artworks, including calligraphic examples, began to appear in broad survey exhibitions of Islamic art. Following the lead of these publications, the works of modern and contemporary artists who integrate calligraphy into their art have been explored in various monographs, journal articles, anthologies, conference proceedings, and essays within museum surveys and exhibition catalogues.
Ali, Wijdan. Modern Islamic Art: Development and Continuity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.
This survey text places special emphasis on the unwavering prevalence of calligraphy in 20th-century art with two chapters exclusively dedicated to the topic. The author proposes the name “Calligraphic School of Art” (al-Madrasa al-Khattīya Fi’l-Fann) as an alternative label to the “School of Letterism” (al-Madrasa al-Hurufiyya), coined by Sharbal Daghir, to acknowledge both modern art’s indebtedness to and departure from traditional Islamic calligraphy.
Blair, Sheila S. Islamic Calligraphy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
A foundational work on the history of the Arabic script and the practice of calligraphy, Blair’s text is one which every student and scholar of Islamic calligraphy will find beneficial. The book offers information on the materials and mediums of calligraphic arts, including a brief introduction to graphic design, and outlines dynastic and regional stylistic variations observed in Arab, Persian, Ottoman, Mughal, and North African lands.
Blair, Sheila S., and Jonathan Bloom, eds. By the Pen and What They Write: Writing in Islamic Art and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.
This valuable collection of papers presented at the 6th Biennial Hamad Bin Khalifa Symposium represents scholars’ ongoing efforts to diversify the field of Islamic calligraphy in terms of its temporal, spatial, and thematic coverage. Collectively, the essays reveal a shared interest in object-based analyses and serve as a reminder of the immense tasks that await researchers, from balancing research on the over- and under-studied aspects of the history of the practice to devising new conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of contemporary calligraphy.
Daghir, Sharbal. Arabic Hurufiyya: Art and Identity. Translated by Samir Mahmoud. Milan: Skira, 2016.
Originally published in Arabic in 1990, this full-length English translation presents the rise of calligraphic art in the twentieth century as a pioneering continuation of the abstract qualities of premodern Islamic calligraphic ornament, a movement that the author dubs the “School of Letterism” (al-Madrasa al-Hurufiyya).
Gharipour, Mohammad, and Irvin Cemil Schick. Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013.
Twenty-eight chapters organized into six sections discuss the sites, styles, content, commissioners, and regional idiosyncrasies of Islamic calligraphy, including modern-day practices. Striking an ideal balance between conventional topics, such as writing types and mediums, and interpretive analyses that explore function and meaning, the book is an essential read that introduces the reader to the depth and breadth of Islamic calligraphic arts and offers new avenues for further research.
O’Kane, Bernard, A. C. S. Peacock, and Mark Muehlhaeusler, eds. Inscriptions of the Medieval Islamic World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023.
Contributions in this edited volume cover a wide range of topics presented by both established and emerging scholars. The book’s twenty-two chapters covering the calligraphic production of various medieval dynasties (e.g., Ilkhanid, Fatimid, Ghurid, Seljuq, Marwanid, Persian, Ottoman, Mamluk) are organized into five parts, arranged thematically: royal patronage, piety, history and society, portability, and style and function. Of particular interest are the chapters that present novel research on issues of aesthetics and design.
Puerta-Vílchez, José Miguel. Aesthetics in Arabic Thought from Pre-Islamic Arabia through Al-Andalus. Translated from Spanish by Consuelo López-Morillas. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017.
This unprecedentedly comprehensive and in-depth study of Arabic aesthetic thought of the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods is an essential handbook for researchers of Islamic calligraphy. Systematic discussions of a wide variety of primary sources provide insight into premodern Arab thinkers’ (e.g., the Brethren of Purity, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldun) ideas on subjects as diverse as beauty, harmony, mimesis, and rhetoric. Ibn al-Sid’s commentary “Calligraphy among the Sciences of Language” is of particular interest since it directly pertains to calligraphic practices.
Shabout, Nada. Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2007.
This book includes two chapters on calligraphy. The first, titled “Situating the Arabic Letter in the Artistic Creation,” examines the history of the Arabic script, considering both secular and sacred contexts. The second chapter, titled “Contemporary Experiments with the Arabic Letter,” provides a detailed exploration of the diverse methods, styles, and perspectives of modern and contemporary calligraphic artists.
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