Fatimatullah

In The Splendor of Islamic Calligraphy, the relationship between Arabs and calligraphy is conveyed in the following statement, “art is the geometry of the soul expressed through the body – a metaphor that can be taken literally and concretely with the literal design of its inspiring spirit. This metaphor refers back to an established language as, so to speak, its reflection, its language of love” (Khatibi and Sijelmassi, 1995). Hence, to express not only the language of love that is a necessity in calligraphy in this context, but more profoundly to have that language elaborate a relationship of love between the Creator and His creation, I thus, cannot think of a concrete object to express that, other than the heart and its beats that are illustrated through the red hue and brush-strokes demonstrated in the video. Moreover, my choice to begin with a heart is based on God’s words, through which He describes Himself as being closer to His creations than their jugular veins: “And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein” (Qur’an, 50:16). Furthermore, among the 132 times that the Quran mentions the word heart, excluding the times it mentions Alfouad, it describes it as the center of rationale and intentions, and it describes it as one’s soul, but it also states that with this love bond, the heart shall rest: “Verily in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest” (Qur’an, 13:28).

While I could have used blood vessels to branch out, I chose to have a plant with roots branching out from the heart, symbolizing growth and connectivity. Moreover, the recitation of the Quran in the background and the slow-motion video recording portray the longing and the reaching out to God. However, although the word Allah is drawn at very end, it is still the most apparent, situating it at the center with the branches folding their arms around it, in complete longing, in complete surrender and submission.

Allah Calligraphy