A beginner’s guide to Andalusi calligraphy

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You might have heard of al-Andalus, that 800 year period of Islamic Spain where the arts and sciences flourished beyond the wildest imaginations of the time, but have you ever wondered how all that knowledge was transmitted?

Andalusi script, said to be Europe’s only indigenous way of writing the Holy Qur’an, is a style that is at once arrestingly beautiful and astonishingly easy to pick up. This latter feature was what made it the vehicle for the production of literally millions of copies of books in al-Andalus, from works on the Islamic sciences to botany, medicine, astronomy, poetry, chemistry, agriculture and much more. This was in turn the catalyst for the Enlightenment in Europe, opening the doors of knowledge to all.

But with the fall of Al-Andalus in 1492, and the abolition of Arabic in Spain shortly after, this script had to go underground, with documents hidden in false walls, or into the diaspora, reaching places as far afield as Morocco, Turkey and even Mali. Cut off from its native Spain, however, it gradually fell into disuse – until the modern era, when calligraphers, many of them Western-born, recognized the value of this bridge between East and West and began to revive it.

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From the history of the script to the techniques and materials involved, this is the story of how something as simple as pen and paper can transform the lives of individuals and societies at the broadest level, preserving and conveying that most valuable of treasures: knowledge.

To do this unsung script justice, a new multimedia label called Barzakh is seeking to tell its story, and the story of the Andalusi Muslims it worked so hard for, through a documentary film set in Andalusia itself. Narrated by experts in the fields of Spanish Islam, art and history, it will also follow one modern-day practitioner of this script who will show us the bold, simple elegance of the script in real time. Zakariyya Whiteman, the director of the film said, “Despite all its merits, this singular calligraphic style has received almost no attention. We believe it deserves homage, a film that looks at its origins as well as its amazing legacy.”

In a world where Islam is increasingly portrayed negatively in mass media, it is of vital importance that we revisit the times when Muslims defined sophisticated society, and create high quality visual media in our own voices that balances out the stereotyping.

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Zakariyya also mentioned that, “We feel this script is really a way to reconnect with the Muslims who lived in Europe more than 500 years ago, helping us to feel rooted in our own time and place. Apart from that, it’s a beautiful script that’s very quick and easy to pick up, making it a very democratic way to learn Arabic calligraphy.”

Barzakh have created a crowdfunding campaign at LaunchGood and are currently raising the funds to ensure that this documentary is made.

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