Among them is a European who wrote the Qur’an ... calligraphy and creativity of Islamic art

Imran Abdullah

For centuries, Arabic calligraphy was the jewel of Islamic arts in early and modern Islamic times alike, and calligraphers created Arabic calligraphy used for ornamentation and decoration. Seventh-century Hijri calligrapher al-Musli said that "calligraphy is a spiritual engineering that appeared with a physical instrument."

While the writing of the Holy Qur’an represented the jewel of the crown of every writer and calligrapher, a large number of calligraphers and calligraphers went out to write it in the Ottoman dictum, including plans that did not take a chance of fame, and lived in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo in the 18th century, and her works took place in the name of "Amina, daughter of Mustafa Shalaby" .

The artwork created by the calligrapher shows that they were very active members of the calligraphy community, learned the calligraphy from the top calligrapher, and excelled in artistic masterpieces from early Islamic times to modern times.

In his book “Literature of the Writers” by Imam Abi Bakr Yahya Al-Sulli, the author who passed away in 335 AH reported on Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al-Ansari Abu Al-Hassan saying: “Ahmed bin Saleh described the writer as a writer and said: As if her line is the form of her image, as if her outfit darkens her hair, as if her stationary perpetuates her face, As if her pen had some fingers, as if her statement was the charm of her eyeballs, as if her knife was a sword of her moment, as if her cross was the heart of her lover.

Bosnian calligrapher
in Ottoman Bosnia - whose people converted gradually and voluntarily to Islam since the Ottomans entered it in the late 15th century AD, and it took more than a century for the number of Muslims to become a majority in the country - Amina lived in countries where all children used to go to schools that teach Islam and the Arabic alphabet .

According to the academician at the University of Sarajevo Hareth Druفيevi ،, male children continued their education in schools, and the female completed their education in the family home, and the Bosnian researcher demonstrates a document of Bosnian Endowments in the 17th century, in which a nobleman states that he gives additional money to teachers for the education of females who have excelled in the arts Sewing, embroidery, fabric, calligraphy and creative writing.

In his article in the Journal of Islamic Arts, Druويسeviتش shows a Qur’an dating from 1764, written by Amina Mustafa Shalabi, and kept in the Ghazi Khusraw Bey Library in Sarajevo as one of the most important holdings of the ancient library.

The manuscript contains 250 sheets, was written in naskh script, and it used black ink except for fence names and special reading marks, which were written in red ink, and the starting pages went, and the manuscript did not contain page numbers, but the first word of the first of each page was placed below its previous page to link Text, so that none of its pages is lost. 

Druysevich says in his article that Amina may have learned calligraphy at home, as her father's nickname was "Shalaby", which means that he was a prestigious citizen in Sarajevo, and he probably had the ability to provide special education for his daughter, and her handwriting shows that she was able to write the rules in a way True, it added the signs of recitation and reading, as well as the aesthetic value of the Quranic version.

On the last page of the manuscript, Amina signed her name, saying that she had finished copying it in Sarajevo in the "Zabljak" neighborhood that no longer exists at present, and she called on those who read the Qur’an to pray for her with mercy and recite al-Fatihah.

Calligraphers of the past and the present
In her book "Calligraphies ... the past and the present", the author Hilal Kazan provides a chronological account of the calligraphers and their works from early Islamic times until now, and is subject to professional rules (leave) in the calligraphy, which indicates the similarity of Islamic art with other sciences such as hadith, interpretation and jurisprudence; This shows the important place of the line between religious sciences and knowledge.

The author divides her book into two sections. The first discussed the work of calligraphers in the early Islamic era on a wide geographical area that included the adult caliphate, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, and others, and in the second the modern time calligraphers.

The author is exposed to the traditions of calligrapher in the lands of the Ottoman Empire, Iran, Baghdad, Samarkand, Egypt, Raqqa, Andalusia, Khorasan, Damascus, Tunisia, Kairouan, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kandahar, Shiraz, and others.

Kazan considers that there is a difference between scribes and calligraphers; Calligrapher is a distinguished artist, and in the Umayyad period in Andalusia, historical sources mention thousands of calligraphers, according to the author who cited three or four of them in her book.

The author notes that the palaces of the princes were a habitual environment for the calligraphers who desired in the court of the Safavids and Qajar who knew accomplished calligraphers, and the daughters of the princes such as Shah Ismail and the rulers of the Qajar were known calligrapher.

As Islamic countries like Morocco and Turkey witness a modern awakening of the art of Arabic calligraphy, manuscripts and ancient tombstones show the role of creative calligraphers since early Islamic times in preserving this ancient art and passing it on to the people of modern times.