The Master Calligrapher of Aleppo 

Mohammed Imad Mahhouk in conversation with Marius Kociejowski

The slight feeling of vertigo the citadel of Aleppo produces, especially at night, might just as easily be the whole of the city's past bearing down on one. History is everywhere here. There is no escaping it, not even when gossiping over tea at one of the cafés opposite. It is felt not only from above but also from beneath. 'Take care where you walk,' says the blind 11^th-century poet al-Ma'arri, 'because you walk upon the dead.' Something else he said must surely have raised a few eyes in his time: 'The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains.' And still, cynic though he was, they love him. You can go and visit his tomb in Ma'arat al-Numan, a few miles south of Aleppo.

Across from the rising entrance bridge to the citadel, several yards to the east, is the Madrassa as-Sultaniye, which was begun by one of Saladin's sons, Sultan al-Zaher Ghazi, and completed, after his death, in about 1225, by Ghazi's son, Governor Sultan al-Aziz. Together with the citadel in its present form, the mosque stands as a fine example of Ayyubid architecture, combining boldness and grace. It is also one of the final expressions of the glorious period initiated by Saladin, which, by 1260, soon after Ghazi's death, disintegrated in family squabbles. The mihrab in the prayer hall is one of the finest of its type, and at the rear is a modest chamber containing the cenotaphs of Ghazi, his wife, Diafa Khatoun, and their son al-Aziz. Ayyubid power ends here, in a small room, which maybe is as it should be. After all, when the great Saladin died he did not have money enough to pay for his own funeral.

Within the madrassa's thick walls one feels locked away from the world and its vicissitudes. There is one man who has made it the condition of his working existence to be at such a remove. All night long, in a small cell off the central courtyard, the calligrapher Muhammed Imad Mahhouk pushes his reed pen until the 85-year-old caretaker arrives, dragging the sun behind him. The cell is so silent all Imad can hear are the sounds of his own breathing and the squeaking upon paper of his reed pen made from the slender thorn of the Javanese palm tree, a material noted for its durability. The reed pen (in Arabic qalam) is often dubbed 'the ambassador of intelligence'. The two sounds merge into one: each breath Imad takes is registered in the swell of the letters he produces.

It struck me as a perfect illustration of what the monastic life must have been like in mediaeval times. Imad agrees. 'It is the same struggle,' he says. 'It all comes from the same source ― it's just a different façade. This glorious spirit is for everyone, whether it comes in the name of Islam or Christianity.' When I ask him whether he is a Sufi he says that although he belongs to no one branch of Sufism he considers himself 'a Sufi with a pen'. I ask him his age and he tells me he dates back to Ugarit, when, circa 1400 B.C., the first alphabet was produced there. Imad, in our historical time, is about fifty. Austere, he wears designer glasses; abstemious, he stops every few minutes for a smoke; disciplined, he is ramshackle as to the comings and goings of daily existence; a master calligrapher, almost incredibly he has had no master of his own.

I began by asking him how he came to be in this sacred space.

'This small room is one of many in the mosque which, of course, is already a sacred space. This was a typical old school or madrassa where young people were taught religion and sciences. The mosque no longer has the role it once had, as a university. The rooms that once housed students are now mostly used for storage. I had connections to the head of the religious board in Aleppo, which owns land and mosques. This man admired my work and at first arranged for me to have a shop at the edge of the old souq. There were too many distractions though. I would begin to write and someone would come along and interrupt me. Isolation is essential for this kind of work. So finally I was given this room for free. This space connects me to all our history and at the same time, because it is isolated behind thick walls, it keeps me away from modern society. This chamber of energy gives me peace and it has just the right atmosphere for getting into the proper mental state. I may be in isolation but I am not alone. I have no clock or watch here. I have no time or, rather, the only time I recognise is when I can't hold my pen anymore. My prayer mat is always next to me. Usually people pray together but because for me this space brings me even closer to the Supreme Being I prefer to pray alone. When I first enter here, I do my ablutions (wudu). The Qur'an must not be touched if you are unwashed. Also you must wash before prayers. I cannot start if I have not washed externally, but also I need to be internally clean, my head clear of troubles or the arguments of daily life. When I am ready, the challenge is in front of me. I know the paper's dimensions, its height and width, and yet it is almost as if I were walking into infinity. Somehow this small room gives me unlimited space in which to write. When I'm fully engaged, I do not even feel the chair beneath me. On the other hand, if I'm working on a commission and I am not interacting with the words, it can feel like a prison, as if the world has collapsed on me.'

I asked Imad what first drew him to calligraphy.

'There was no one stage or point when I decided to become a calligrapher. It was, rather, a gradual process. But to go back to the very beginnings, my father was a clerk and although he would never consider himself a calligrapher he had the most beautiful hand. My first love of calligraphy came through his writing. I was about five or six at the time. I would copy him and for me it was a fantastic game. The first beautiful thing I ever saw in my life, which I remember clearly, was the letter wāw, which is a circle with a tail ― "و ".'

There is a famous story concerning that magical letter, which may or not be true, but as an illustration of the ascent the artist makes in his striving towards God it is not surprising the story has been kept alive in calligraphic circles. What Imad told me was clearly one of several variants of the story but clinging to just one detail, which is uniquely his, I shall try to reconstruct it here from several sources. In 1258, the Mongols invaded Baghdad, slew most of the populace, and destroyed much of the city including its magnificent library, Bayt al-Hikma or "The House of Wisdom", which contained some of the greatest treasures of Islamic culture. They threw the books in the Tigris, so many of them that for a whole week the water was tainted with ink. It was even said that at one point in the river the volumes lay so thick the horses of the Mongols could cross over them. Meanwhile, the city in flames, the greatest calligrapher of his time, Yaqut al-Musta‛simi, hid himself away in a minaret and all he did there was to practice, in Imad's telling, the letter wāw. Another source says he wrote out Qur'anic verses on a piece of linen. What is indisputable is that he survived the carnage. The image of Yaqut writing at the top of a minaret, just that little bit closer to God, appears in several miniatures.

'You can spend months on a single letter,' Imad continued, 'exploring all its dimensions. I spent five or six months going around the letter nūn ― " ﻦ ". I once heard of an imam who asked this calligrapher, "Are you going to see your lover nūn?" It is a delicate process. Sometimes when you stretch a letter, curve it just a bit more, you end up somewhere else, in another dimension altogether. If you want to see the beauty in calligraphy you need to come close to the letters to see how good a piece of work it is. You can see the calligrapher's breath, where it has been transferred to the ink, where it collects in one place or is shifted to another. You can tell how many times he held his breath before finishing a word or even a single letter. You will be able to see that he started here, went all the way and then stopped, and, in order to master the shape, went back with the finest point of the pen to produce those dark edges.'

It is almost unthinkable for a calligrapher of any standing not to have had the guidance of a master. One need only glance at the biographies of the great calligraphers to see that they are invariably part of a long chain of learning. As students they had to practice taklid or imitation and it is only after completing those studies that they would enter the ranks of the professionals or masters. Calligraphy in addition to being a spiritual exercise, an emulation of the Divine, is also a precise science of geometric forms and rhythms. I asked Imad how it was he was able to make his way alone. 

'Any answer to this takes me back to the 1990s, when I first went to Istanbul. It is often said the Qur'an came to the Prophet in Mecca, that it is most beautifully recited in Cairo and most beautifully written in Istanbul. Istanbul, for calligraphers, is the Mecca. It is where they all go. One of the living legends of the art is the master Hasan Çelebi, a student of Hamid Aytaç who was the greatest calligrapher of modern times, the last of the Ottoman line. When I went there my calligraphy wasn't as developed as it is now, and the techniques I employed were not those I'd use now. I had doubt in my abilities. I wasn't sure about the way I moved my pen, or even where to start and finish. Anyway I show my work to the master Çelebi and he said to me, "What you do comes of its own accord, but at least you are doing it the right way." At same time I met another master, Nihat Çetim, and when he saw my work he said to me, "You have chosen to learn the hard way. You are like a wild herb that grows out of a rock in a harsh environment. Yes, it is a herb … yes, it is green … but in a very wild way." Actually his analogy gave me a kind of confidence. Also it provided me with a fresh perspective. The majority of calligraphers who learn directly from masters tend to block themselves. They stay in the same cast and will never escape it. If their master says a letter should be of such and such a length they will continue to make it so, but because I was in the wilderness I copied everybody. This is how I learnt, by copying every style. I'd copy even bad calligraphy. This made me flexible. When you do restoration, for example, you have to be able to read the other man's work and know what's bad and what's good in it and to write in exactly the same spirit as that in which he wrote. You enter another dimension, even with a bad calligrapher, and you discover things you never knew about or experienced. You can't adopt another man's style without first changing the way you hold your pen. It is like getting out of your own town and going somewhere else and then coming back to safe ground. I could see the beauty in each master's work, but at the same time I was able to make my own way. When I went to Istanbul I entered a competition they have once every three years and which is open to calligraphers from all over the world. I wanted to prove myself. I completed the piece in a day and a half, which is nothing, and got one of the main prizes. After this, I lost interest. I never went back to Istanbul. It is almost like saying I didn't need this anymore.'

'Are you considered a master now?'

'Very few people know I exist! My aim was never to achieve that role. For me, it is a natural process. It is like prayer. It is something I do.'

Salah al-Ali in his essay Islamic Calligraphy: Sacred and Secular Writings writes: 'The calligrapher's work lies in search of the absolute; his aim is to penetrate the sense of truth in an infinite movement so as to go beyond the existing world and thus achieve union with God.' What is produced on paper, he concludes, is as unique as the personality of whoever it is holds the reed. When speaking to Imad it is immediately clear that for him the notions of calligraphy as an art and as a form of religious devotion are inextricable. The only way he can express his special love for God, he says, is through calligraphy. What happens, I ask him, when calligraphy becomes a profession?

'The calligrapher will lose his soul, he will become as a tool. What he produces will not be art anymore. There are so-called calligraphers who write out people's names. They do not even deserve to hold a pen. One can distinguish between an artist and a craftsman. The craftsman might produce fantastic workmanship but it is not necessarily art because the love ― the soul ― has been lost. There has to be a balance and there have to be rules, and although calligraphy is not all that open there is freedom. A good artist will balance those two things, freedom and discipline, and still produce something new. He will go into unknown territory without disturbing the rules. Calligraphy, ultimately, is the expression of a state of mind.'

This, naturally enough, brought us to the question of spiritual revelation.

'It is quite rare, but it has happened to me several times, that when writing the Qur'an, especially a really fantastic passage, suddenly I feel this weightlessness. I'm floating. I become united with the words, or, rather, I come to the paper and see myself copying out what is already there. It's as if I am moved by a kind of fate, with the text already there, in a certain shape. My privilege is in being the first one to see it being written. There are phrases in the Qur'an, the hadith, and elsewhere which are so poetic and intense, so full of music, for example the traditional saying we have that relates to the Prophet: "You are the stranger of all the strangers."'

'It has been said that calligraphy is "the geometry of the soul". Here you are, in this very special space, where you establish a relationship between al-qalam "the greater, divine pen" and your own. Given that inspiration passes through the body, to what extent, then, is the physical important?'

'The soul is physically realised through calligraphy. The key to this state is the human body which is the transmitter between God and the paper. So, yes, it is a physical act and holding the reed in your hand is absolutely essential to the process, but the true nature of this relationship becomes evident on paper. It is my alibi. It is my witness. It is comparatively easy to write a single line, but to do several pages in the same style, so as to maintain a harmonious whole, this is the big challenge. There is, of course, an endless struggle between body and spirit. The spirit wants to break through the physical frame, and to expand, to reach out and to fly out of its trap, but it always hits the walls of this body and brings one down. When I'm working and get thirsty the glass of water may be just two metres away, but I won't leave my pen and paper just in order to make this body of mine shut up. I might grab a biscuit to keep me going because I don't want my body to take over. "It is not your time, it is my time,' the soul says to it. "It is spirit time, so let me fly. I'm doing this now, so don't bring me down with silly needs."'

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, in his Islamic Art and Spirituality (Golgonooza, 1987) draws attention to the relationship between the reed as a writing implement and as a musical instrument (ney). 'The song of the reed,' he writes, 'is the sonoral counterpart of the letters and words of the calligrapher.' The great mystical poet Rumi invited his audience to listen to the song of the reed as it laments its separation from the reed bed. My raising the subject with Imad hit upon a happy coincidence.

'One of my friends is a great musician, and my plan is to put on a show with him playing the ney while I write. One will please the eye, the other the ear. The pen and the ney are made from the same material and in fact the word ney means reed. In some parts of Egypt the colloquial word for ney is qassaba, which is also the word for the throat. So there is this complex relationship whereby all these things will fit together to create a special state ― the ney is "seen" and the pen is "heard".'

'Would you consider yourself as defending a dying art? How do you see yourself in the tradition?'

'I do not see it as a dying art because the inspiration is much stronger. The Qur'an is the main source and its strength is such that it will inspire me or someone else. There is a line in it where Allah says, "Indeed We have sent down the Qur'an, and indeed We Ourselves surely are its Guardians" [Al-Hijr, 15:9]. The shape of the book will never change because it is protected. It is not for anyone to alter. I am merely an instrument for bringing those words to light. The beauty of calligraphy is what enabled me see the Qur'an. It is what taught me how to pray, what brought me closer to God. As long as it is there, it will not be the end of calligraphy. On the other hand, life is moving so fast people do not have patience anymore and that shifts them away from such kinds of activities. There are many ways now to produce work of almost the same quality, even on computer, but it is never the same. Calligraphy is a long and complicated process, which can't be mastered in a short time. You need to have the right background, the right inspiration.'

'When you use the computer, as I believe you sometimes do, does this not go against the tradition?

'I get cross with myself for using it, but this is merely a stage, an exploration of all the territories. I want to know everything and be everywhere. The computer is useful for technical matters ― small projects, medallions, postcards, or for scanning and printing work I've already done. It could never be instrumental in creating a mental or spiritual state. Anyone can use the computer but there will never be the same quality, the same interaction. Calligraphy is calligraphy, it's sacred, whereas I might use the computer to design a pattern for a border or a background design and so rather than redo the same border a hundred times I'll do it on the computer.'

There is a striking historical analogy here, which dates from the so-called "Tulip Period" of Ottoman rule. When Ibrahim Müteferrika, a Transylvanian convert to Islam, introduced the first printing press with moveable Arabic type to Istanbul on December 14, 1727 the calligraphers, illuminators and scribes, fearful for their future, demonstrated in the streets, carrying with them a coffin filled with the implements of their trade. When the mock funeral procession arrived at the Sultanahmet Mosque, where a prayer for the dead was said, Sultan Ahmed III who had allowed for the establishment of the printing house asked which of the masters had died to which the response was, 'It is not the master but the mastery that has died.' Although Müteferrika's printing venture amounted to only seventeen titles, all of a non-religious nature, this marked a turning-point in the history of calligraphy. It was, one might argue, the day the 'music for the eyes' began to die. Alternatively the advent of printing may have freed calligraphers from the drudgery of having to do things of no great artistic worth. Imad would concur with this, saying that the new technology has distinguished the real calligrapher from the one who merely writes or works on the computer. Now that things are set, he argues, calligraphy has acquired a still more prestigious status. 

'So how do you see the role of the calligrapher in the modern world?'

'It has become even more important in dark and difficult times. The main thing is that I be honest about what I do. Unfortunately, in today's world, it is not enough. You need publicity … you need to be in contact with people … you need media coverage, marketing, to put these things in front of everyone. I'm incapable of this.'

Imad has produced two major works to date, the first of which is an astonishing 10.65-metre scroll, which took him a year and a half to complete, and which contains selected passages from the Qur'an including Al-Ilkhas ("Fidelity"), the 112th sura in which Allah's absolute unity is proclaimed. It is written in different calligraphic styles, ranging from the classical to the modern, all produced in miniature, and is embellished with gold. Among the scripts employed is the miniscule al-ghubari, which translates as 'dust-like', and is used mostly in the borders. Imad smiled at the memory of his having made it to the end without any mistakes.

'I was so nervous doing the last twelve centimetres, which is in the Nasta‛līq or Farsi style, so-named because it comes from Iran, and because I was in such a state it took me a whole week to write.' 

'You said you managed to complete the scroll without making any mistakes, but aren't you supposed to leave an imperfection somewhere?'

'Yes, in our Islamic tradition we believe perfection comes only from God and that human beings are not capable of it. If you look at the geometric designs in a Persian carpet everything down to the smallest details is perfect, there are no mistakes, geometrically at least, but look closer and you will see the maker has intentionally left something out. After I finished the scroll I didn't feel able to carry on. I was ready to break all my pens and start on something much better, which means what I had just done was not perfect. At the beginning I was very ambitious, I put everything into it, but by the end I realised there was still so much to learn and that I would have to start all over again. It is an ever-evolving process. Another thing, and I'm talking now from the viewpoint of the observer, is that most people, because they have not had the chance to enjoy and appreciate the classical tradition, are easily impressed by phantasmagoria. Only when they have seen the right things will they see the real treasure. What you have now are people who don't have any basic knowledge or practice in real calligraphy producing things that may look impressive to those who don't know anything about how these things need to evolve. Anything new must come of real evolution. I am not after any bubble of fame.'

Also Imad completed a magnificent Qur'an in thirty sections, with only five lines to each page, its total of 15,000 lines adding up to 3000 pages. The Qur'an serves as the basis for a new project upon which he is currently working, which he reckons will take him fifteen months to complete. The identity of the person or the organisation who commissioned it remains a mystery. It will be, he tells me, the realisation of a dream project.

'I would like to think there is nothing called "calligraphy" and that there is nothing set in stone. There is only the calligrapher. As much as I appreciate the classical forms I would like to present something of my own, which is not like the script of x or y who came before, but which is my own style. What I'm doing now is inspired by a school of calligraphy that is almost forgotten, the muhakak, which dates mainly from the Abbasid period, but which started during the Umayyad period. The Abbasids developed it into its known shape and it was taken over, and then forgotten, by the Ottomans and then the Persians. It is the most glorious writing, with a balance between the very simple and the very complex unlike, say, the Ottoman scripts which are so complicated they become a challenge in themselves. I would like to bring this back to paper but with something of my own style. I will do something different with the rā' and the wāw and the 'alif making them longer so as to give more elegance in the balance. I have written out the Qur'an before and the idea I had then was for it to be published but then there was some kind of problem. When I finished my first Qur'an, I had a vision of an even more beautiful script, this being the one I have just described. What I was really after is this commission, the best of the best. There were others who might have been given it, but in the end God rescued me. What is important is that whoever does this it will be impressive. An idiot will see the beauty in it. Whether he would be able to distinguish it from other works doesn't matter as this will be left for scholars to evaluate. This is a commission from God and that's the way it will be realised.'  

'To what extent do you feel you'll be able to create something new?'

'I'm always accusing the schools of calligraphy, of which the Ottomans were the masters, of falling into a trap of abiding by rules they can't escape. They produce always the same shapes. Although I do not belong to any master or school, I think I am still very conservative in my approach. This is a relative matter. What is this bringing something new to calligraphy? Yes, I am trying to add things but I am still tied to, and have great respect for, the old teachings, the old regulations and balances. What I create is not seen by certain other calligraphers or those contemporary artists who bring calligraphy into their work as modern. They will force the letters out of shape, which for me is almost a sacrilege. You can improvise to a certain extent but you can't play with the backbone. We have already distinguished between those people who stick to the old traditions and do not move forward and those who modernise and jump about in the air whenever they think they have created something new. I do not see myself as belonging to either group. I try to be like a musician who before playing understands everything about his instrument and knows its capacities, so that it works in the way it has been designed for. What I think of as new comes naturally with things I have learned from the classical tradition. Anything additional should come according to what the tools and those teachings will allow. You don't try to play a drum with a violin, which is what some people try to do.'

When I left Imad and stepped outside, pondering whether such a combination was possible, the moon over the citadel opposite signalled bedtime for me but for the master calligrapher of Aleppo it meant only the beginning of another night's work.