Calligraphy

By:  Kaylah Cruz-Herrera

 When I began learning Arabic, one of the most intimidating aspects of the language was the alphabet.  The Arabic alphabet has more letters than the English alphabet, no short vowels, connecting letters, letters that never connect, and- the scariest- is read from right to left.  In Morocco, I mastered the Arabic alphabet in two weeks.  Unlike English writing, Arabic is completely phonetic.  Now, I actually prefer writing in Arabic to writing in English.  But, it wasn’t until I started learning Arabic calligraphy that I really started to appreciate it.

            

The CLC began offering calligraphy classes to NSLI-Y students in October.  I have been in the class since the beginning.  At first, I hated it.  I hated sitting in the class for two hours writing “ب ب ب….” over and over while my teacher kept saying, “Slowly! Slowly!  لالا لا!!”  It was frustrating.  Calligraphy is demanding and requires a sharp eye for the subtle differences between good and bad letters.  Luckily, I have a good teacher.

            

He’s been practicing calligraphy since before I was born and a master of the Moroccan style of Arabic calligraphy.  He’s also a little weird, but that’s only because he loves calligraphy so much.  He likes to show us beautiful examples of calligraphy that he’s done, often written on scraps of old paper and store receipts.  Once, he stood up in the middle of class and performed Thai Chi in order to illustrate to us how calligraphy is like many other arts.  He also loves to give us random lectures.

          

  Once, he told us about the history of the Arabic alphabet, why it is written the way it is, and how it helped non-Arabs understand Islam.  The Arabic alphabet was developed before Islam.  There were no dots (which, in case you can’t read Arabic yet, distinguish many different sounds from another) and no short vowels.  After the Quran was revealed, people realized that the alphabet needed to be easier for outsiders to understand.  Arabs could read the Quran easily because they had the necessary language background, but non-Arabs could not.  One linguist was finally convinced to restructure the Arabic alphabet after it was pointed out to him that without short vowels (which, at that time, were absent from the Arabic alphabet) a non-Arab could misinterpret the sentence “God absolves himself of criminals, and His prophet (also absolves himself of criminals)” as “God absolves himself of criminals and His prophet”.  An easier-to-read alphabet was developed to ensure that the Quran could not be misunderstood.

            

I also learned from my calligraphy teacher about the origins of the short vowels and why they are written the way they are.  Basically, short vowels are modeled after long vowels, only a lot smaller.  

My advice to new Arabic students is to really enjoy the Arabic alphabet.  It is easy to read and really helps you understand the language and culture.