Selected writing on Arabic calligraphy, manuscripts, and the history of Islamic art, drawn from the work of Dr. Mohamed Hassan.
One of the finest Fatimid marble tombstones, its floriated Kufic inscription marking the height of mastery under the Fatimid state — bearing the name of Abu al-Makarim ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Misri ibn Ashur.
Continue readingA sultanic ferman that brings together three scripts — the tughra, jali diwani, and diwani — and opens a window onto diplomatics, paleography, and the calligraphic study of Ottoman chancery documents.
Continue readingThe Ottomans handled the nasta'liq — the script Egyptians call 'Persian' — with great artistry. Beyond its celebrated jali form lies a less-studied story: its exclusive use in the correspondence of the Şeyhülislam.
Continue readingThe Mahmudiyya Canal text is among the rare inscriptions of Lower Egypt, written by the military judge Yesarizade Mustafa Izzet (1849) — a model of Ottoman Taʿliq, the Persian script in the Ottoman-Turkish manner.
Continue readingShikaste — the beauty the eye never forgets and insight never misses — among the finest and most splendid manifestations of the art of Persian calligraphy.
Continue readingSpecimens written in the Diwani — and the Ghazlani Diwani in particular — are rare. This artistic script is among the most distinctive features of the art of the Muhammad Ali dynasty (1805–1952).
Continue readingThe masthead of the noble al-Azhar magazine, designed by the calligrapher and artist Ismail Abdo, who chose the Mamluk Thuluth script as the visual language and identity of this venerable magazine.
Continue readingThe Mamluk manuscript and its various arts played an important role in shaping the Arab-Islamic book, and greatly influenced the output of non-Muslims who lived under the Islamic state.
Continue readingThe most monumental, magnificent, and resplendent — the Qur'an of Sultan al-Ghuri. The Mamluk Qur'ans remain a living testament to the brilliance of the Mamluk school of Arabic calligraphy in Egypt.
Continue readingThe day I was honored to behold and read in the Qur'an attributed to the Rightly-Guided Caliph ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan, may God be pleased with him.
Continue readingOne of the most beautiful Qur'ans I have worked on — copied in the late Abbasid period and illuminated in Mamluk Egypt, a manuscript that renewed my research thinking.
Continue readingʿUmar al-Aqtaʿ presented a Qur'an so small it could fit inside a signet ring, which failed to impress Timur; so he designed an enormous Qur'an, 1.5 × 2 meters, in the Muhaqqaq script.
Continue readingThe Mevlevi lodge — the dwelling of Sheikh ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Rifaʿi in the heart of Cairo — an enchanting place where the sheikh wrote and gilded the Qur'an of King Fuad in the 1920s.
Continue readingThe story of a Qur'an that Sultan Abdülhamid II gave to his wife on their marriage — opening it to choose her name from a verse — a glimpse of the human romance within every piece of art.
Continue readingThe book of Prof. Muhammad ʿAbd al-ʿAziz Marzouk (The Noble Qur'an: A Historical and Artistic Study) uniquely describes the external form of the 'Safini' Qur'an — named after the ship for its resemblance to its shape.
Continue readingThe first steps in learning to read old or uncommon scripts — comparative reading between similar texts, with Qur'anic texts as the most useful basis for comparison.
Continue readingProf. ʿAbd al-Sattar al-Halluji defined the fields for studying the Arabic manuscript in six pillars, from the history of the manuscript to editing and publishing.
Continue readingAmulets are among the most beautiful written objects and an authentic paleographic source — where the historical, the human, the archaeological, popular piety, and sociology all intertwine.
Continue readingThe inscriptions of Hajj Ahmad al-Kamel, chief of calligraphers, in the mosque of Prince Mohamed Ali at the Manial Palace — a state of artistic and spiritual serenity that renders the talent of the last chief calligrapher of the Ottoman state.
Continue readingSanglakh al-Khurasani, calligrapher of Muhammad Ali Pasha, wrote the tomb of Ibrahim Pasha — fusing Arabic, Ottoman, and Persian language, scripts, and ornament in a codified state art.
Continue readingIt is related that when a merchant brought the young amir Badr al-Din Bilik to Sultan al-Zahir Baybars to sell him, the youth wrote a verse so apt that the sultan raised his price.
Continue readingSayed Ibrahim, dean of Arabic calligraphy and one of the foremost calligraphers of the twentieth century, was born in Cairo's Arab al-Yasar — a quarter of rich culture now subjected to systematic erasure.
Continue readingSayed Ibrahim, dean of Arabic calligraphy, kept a copy of every seal he designed — leaving three large volumes containing hundreds, even thousands, of seals for the most important Egyptian and Arab figures and institutions of the early twentieth century.
Continue readingIn an event that recurs only once every twenty years, Professor Uğur Derman comes to Egypt — born in Bandırma in 1935, a leading authority on Ottoman calligraphy and its history.
Continue readingThe calligrapher Mustafa Hilmi Efendi, known as 'Hakkakzade,' author of Mizan al-Khatt, placed Imam al-Suyuti within a calligraphic lineage — yet al-Suyuti himself wrote of calligraphy in a different sense.
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