By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: In the art of inscriptions Islamic calligraphy stands unique in its panache and point, as it evolved with a sense of compassion to give an expression to the word of Allah. Islamic style of calligraphy consisting of decorative art started to gain prominence in the Muslim society as figural paintings were not permissible in Islam.
In Hyderabad, a gracious attempt had been made to revive the dwindling popularity of Islamic Calligraphy. An art exhibition titled ‘Art of Islamic Calligraphy’ has been jointly organized by Salar Jung Museum and Siasat Art Gallery an initiative by Siasat Urdu daily.
The exhibition at Nawab Mir Turab Ali Khan Bhavan at the Western Block of the Museum, witnessed a constant flow of excited visitors. So much was the publicity received that Museum authorities was made to extend concluding date twice. Art gallery which was inaugurated by Hassan Nourian, Consul-General, Islamic Republic of Iran on August 17th after extensions was open till September 8th.
Apart from traditional Muslim crowd, many others also visited the art gallery. From Hindutva politicians to surrendered Naxalities every one that was heard of in the city, queued up to observe 1000 years of tradition drawn into beautiful verticals of 1 meter sheets.
Nearly 600 calligraphic boards on display at the exhibition were simply breathtaking, one could definitely feel the urge and passion of the calligrapher’s in the every ascending and descending horizontal curves. The art gallery presented the best of work of any handwritten pattern scripts like Kufic, Naskh, Thuluth, Nastaliq, Shikaste, whose alternate just cannot be found on any search engine.
The best of generations of evolution of Islamic script might have been the reason that herd of young tech savvy visiting the gallery doesn’t missed a point to save the scene they never witnessed before. Many of them didn’t even understand what was scripted but for them it was a visual delicacy.
For Mohd. Feroz, an engineering student visiting the art, didn’t understand much of what was drawn, but it was hard for him to apprehend that everything actually is handwritten. “I am not well verse in Urdu, can read little Arabic. But after seeing this art now I understood there is more elegance to just tradition of what we learn. Now I really want to learn some of this.”
Mr. Ahmed Ali, Head of the Department of Manuscripts of Salarjung Museum seems the busiest man in the gallery, hundreds of students from different schools and Madrasa’s were flowing in and Mr. Ahmed is taking his time out to explain or giving a sort of lecture to students sitting on floor explaining the art of calligraphy and its minute details.
Mr. Ahmed Ali addressing one such group of student explained the unique factors of Islamic calligraphy according to him this art apart from conveying message of God; it’s also a source of mental harmony for the seeker.
Such was the impression created that many young students visiting the gallery made a point to sit in front of their favorite draw up and scribble in their note books trying to make a copy of it. Some veteran artists present their, was kind enough to help the jubilant young blood.
The showcased work in the exhibition was of five handpicked veteran artists Syed Naseeruddin Viqar, Abdul Naseer, Abdul Nayeem Saberi, , Raziuddin Iqbal, and Abdul Lateef Farooq. But as with the passion it wasn’t an easy job to create the world’s finest art. Abdul Lateef Farooq resemble sort of M.F. Hussain, standing near his art work, he is explaining to visitors the efforts he put in to produce what he called the best of his script career.
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Abdul Lateef Farooq said he devoted 3 years of constant and concentrated hard work to deliver the best of Islamic calligraphy. Most of his work, he chalked out with black ink was fine and persistent in its draw that for many onlookers it was hard to deem that this kind of work can be obtained without a lesser printer. Abdul Lateef explained, “Calligraphy especially its Islamic form consisted of Arabic script is really tangible and evolving in nature. One can compact a whole verse in a single word or stretch a single word to give an impression of sentence. We artist from Siasat Art gallery gave our best effort to present each and every form of Islamic calligraphy with all its flair.”
Mr. Zahid Ali Khan, the editor of Siasat Urdu Daily and the patron of the art gallery said that the basic aim of the exhibition was to save the dying art, “Islamic calligraphy is nearly vanishing from the scene, there was an urgent need to give it a new life. We took a step in this direction and started Art school appointing best five calligraphers mastered in different style of script. Soon the bulk and valued work produce by them was preserved in the form of art gallery.”
Mr. Khan explained that most of the work in the gallery, the art designers tried to present the situation in Quranic world. According to him nearly 2 lakh people has visited the gallery in just 35 days.
The huge response of public according to Zahid Ali Khan was as the “finest of our work was put on display”, he said, “In three years of our art school we formed a treasure of nearly 2000 paintings. And the handpicked 600 were chosen to win the hearts and minds of public.”
Zahid Ali Khan said that after the huge success in Hyderabad he is receiving invitation from many Muslim countries to hold its art gallery exhibition and he is seriously considering doing so. But for now Siasat Art gallery has made plans to take this exhibition in every major Indian cities. Mr. Khan is hopeful that from 14th September they will begin preparation for organizing Islamic Calligraphy exhibition in Bangalore.