May 28, 2007
Sad day for Arabic calligraphers
Below are few Al-Zahawi works from my collection, click on the image to enlarge
Again another coward attempt from the US-Zionists to wipe out our culture and heritage, master calligrapher Khalil Al-Zahawi was killed yesterday.
It is said that anyone in Iraq who wanted to be considered proficient in Arabic calligraphy had to have his seal of approval.
In his last interview on Fonon Al-Zahawi said:
Its lack of beauty, computer fonts are destroying Arabic calligraphy, lines are far from the rules.
13 Comments, Comment or Ping
bARABie
LB thank you for the al jazeera video of the “great” merkava, ROFLMAO.
It’s as “great” as the colonizer humanity. I just absolutely love the way you write and how you put things to your readers.
May 28th, 2007
bARABie
Sorry LB, my last post was meant to be under the al jazeera video. oops.
May 28th, 2007
O'Briain
Why blame ‘US-Zionist’s when the truth is that Khalil al-Zahawi on only the latest Iraqi artist to be killed by the Iraqis themselves? Milita, Sunni or Shia, or mindless thug- all they value is greed and hate. They destroy even their communities by looting power cables and threatening rebuilding works. All they have achieved since the war is adapting to destruction, not rebuilding or creating. And by killing Khalil al-Zahawi they show that even culture, and art is valueless to them.
May 29th, 2007
LadyBird
O’Briain
Why don’t start with reading this
link is here
May 29th, 2007
Heller Asagiri
Good God. I’m American, Protestant and I’m far more fond of Israel and her people than anything else within 1500 miles in any given direction.
I don’t have much sense for the aesthetic; I can’t read Arabic, I’ve no eye for art. I only went looking for examples of his work for my friend, who loved it and, through it, came to respect him a great deal. News of his death hammered her; truth told, I’d like to hurt the people who did this myself.
You mar his work by setting it down with such hate in your heart and mind.
May 30th, 2007
jennifer
sadly , world history is chock full of angry, hateful people wiping out art and beauty and culture in their senseless rampage to destroy. this is a sad example. i don’t know that it’s Bush’s fault (Iraq has a unique history of violence and horrors) but he’s an easy target for the frustration, that’s for sure.
Jun 6th, 2007
Michal
I came across this webpage looking for good Islamic calligraphy. I adore Arabic calligraphy and architecture , and when I lived in Jerusalem I went a lot to the old city looking for good Arabic calligraphy in mosques and just around the streets. looking at the external walls of the golden-dome mosque felt to me like God is talking in typographic shapes, no less. I am a Jewish-Israeli-Zionist typographer who finds inspiration in other cultures in the middle-east, and respects them a lot. I am sad to hear about Al-Zahawi’s death, but even more sad to read that you relate it to a zionist plot against your culture. my greatest wish is that jews and Muslims finally realize how similar our traditions are and how much Hebrew and Arabic languages and scripts are alike. my thesis for the art academy I studied in was just about that, please check out my website, you’ll see it. Jews and Muslims inspired one another for centuries, from Moorish Spain (until the reconcista, 1492) to the grand and prosperous Baghdad community (until the early 1950’s) I believe that art and typography can bridge over hate, but this post almost changed my mind.
Sep 30th, 2007