By Mehak Mansukhani
After practicing calligraphy in this class before I gained a lot of
interest in it. This is why I chose to do calligraphy for my final project.
Coincidently both the artworks were God’s name- “Allah”. I gave the project
title “Peace in the name- ALLAH”
because I believe that just chanting the name Allah or remembering him brings
peace to our minds and hearts. Everything seems perfectly fine at that time.
That is one reason why we always call out God’s name in fear and sadness
because we believe he is the only one that can bring back peace to our lives.
Islam is "submission to
God, accepting His authority as well as obeying His orders"; "one's
total submission to God and serving only Him"; "embracing the
messages of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and abiding by them."
This is why I chose to write God’s name as my project. I wrote “Allah” in
calligraphy because Islam is all about following the right path that Allah has
laid. There is nothing above Allah.
The root of the word Islam,
silm, refers to "making peace, being secure, reaching salvation, well
being and submitting the self and obeying, respect, being far from wrong."
The "submitting the self and obeying" here means "submitting to
justice and righteousness in order to reach peace and safety and being in a
peaceful environment by one's free will."
I particularly chose this project because I am a non-Arabic speaker
and took this art as a challenge as it has no steps or dimensions. It is a free
hand work. Also the shape and design is very beautiful and I thought I could
make it look good on a black canvas and use the glitter to give a magical
effect that illustrates God’s power. To
do this I used an A3 sized black foam board, drew the calligraphy (free-hand)
and then covered it with silver glitter. I used gold glitter on the borders of
silver glitter so that the design is focused on. I used
no colours in the making of this artwork, as I wanted it to be as pure, natural
yet beautiful.
The artist that influenced me was Khaleelullah
Chemnad. He is a
journalist, a poet, a calligraphic artist, a cartoonist, and a short-story
writer. He had started publishing stories, poems and cartoons in children's
magazines at a tender age. He is the
only person in the world who has specialized in anatomic calligraphy. Anatomic Calligraphy is a style in which the
portrait of a person is drawn using the person's name in Arabic. He does not speak Arabic yet
all his work are Arabic-related, mainly from the Quran. He received an
entry to two World Records for the biggest Anatomical Calligraphy of His
Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashed Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime
Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai. He inspires me because his calligraphies
are simple yet very powerful. They are not something that can be easily copied
and they look beautiful. He also influenced me because I can relate to him, as
I am also a non-Arabic student trying to do Arabic calligraphy.
In addition, I
was influenced by Salman Khattak, who is famous for the combination of the
Arabic calligraphy and texts of the names of God.
I am Mehak Mansukhani, a last year business
student in American University In Dubai. I never showed interest in art and
Islamic culture before taking this MEST course. Now I know a lot more about the
teachings of Islam and can relate to how the answer to everything is Allah. Also
I have learnt that art is not just a way to show different shapes but to show
different expressions and beliefs in life.
The
references I used were:-
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