| Message by Nagma M Mallick, High Commissioner of India to Brunei Darussalam |
THE High Commission of India in Brunei Darussalam and the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Government of Brunei Darussalam will jointly host the ‘Exhibition of Indo-Islamic Calligraphy’ as the inaugural event of the Festival of India in Brunei Darussalam in the year of the Golden Jubilee of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam’s Accession to the Throne.
The Government of India recognises the significance of the Golden Jubilee in the history of Brunei and desires to acknowledge the personal contribution of His Majesty in strengthening the bilateral relationship between the two countries with this Festival.
The Festival of India will be celebrated with varied events till March 2018.
“We have brought a narghile of perfume from Tatar,
“We have used rubies and emeralds in this work,
“It is said that calligraphy is better than a mine of gems,
“So we have brought a house full of jewels for you”
Thus does a Persian verse elevate the value of calligraphy! Islamic or Arabic calligraphy is the artistic practice of highly-stylised writing based on the Arabic language usually of words or verses from Al-Quran, or of the Names of Allah the Almighty.
It has flourished in lands with a shared Islamic heritage.
The letters are executed with one stroke of the pen, a broad-tipped traditional one called Qalam. It is probably the most respected Islamic art linking language, religion and artistic endeavour.
The essence of this art form is the balance struck by calligraphers between transmitting a text and glorifying it with artistry and beauty.
India has an ancient tradition of artistic embellishment and carving in stone, and a highly-developed aesthetic sense that showed in its music, dance, textiles and other arts of the ancient period.
With the arrival of the Islamic tradition in the Indian sub-continent, the two traditions began a slow process of integration that produced, by the 17th and 18th centuries, the incandescent artistic, musical and cultural blossoming of the Mughal period.
Islamic calligraphy was one of the arts which too blossomed in this efflorescence. Muslim artists had always glorified the Word of Allah the Almighty, but in the Imperial Mughal and the later-era princely courts, calligraphy reached new heights of beauty and virtuosity.
Stonemasons worked in their hundreds of thousands to inlay Arabic letters from Al-Quran in precious stones, into the marble and sandstone of the mosques, mausoleums and palaces of the imperial cities of the Indo-Gangetic plain.
More delicate calligraphy was also painted on paper and leather and embroidered in velvet to decorate the homes of the nobles and kings.
These were overlaid with gold paint; the calligrapher also made use of other more exotic materials like crushed rubies and emeralds or beetle-wings, to heighten the effect he was seeking.
Some calligraphers signed their creations, while most did not, since the artwork was usually meant to glorify Allah the Almighty.
Texts other than Al-Quran also began to be the subjects of calligraphy – poetry, usually in Persian and sometimes in Arabic, Hadith or sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), or sometimes just applications for jobs – doubtless to impress the selector!
Examples of all these types, and more, of calligraphy will be on display at the Islamic Calligraphy exhibition at the Malay Technology Museum from tomorrow until November 25.
The 36 photographs of rare pieces of calligraphy on display have been carefully curated from the large and extraordinary collection of the Rampur Raza Library, India.
This Library is one of the well-known traditional libraries of South Asia. It was founded in 1774 by Nawab Faizullah Khan.
The Nawabs of Rampur, the rulers of this former princely State of India, were connoisseurs of the arts and patrons of the ulama, poets, painters, calligraphers and musicians.
The Library possesses nearly 3,000 rare specimens of Islamic calligraphy, including by celebrated master calligraphers of Central Asia, Persia and India such as Mir Ali, Muhammad Husain Kashmiri, Zarrin Raqam, Sultan Ali Mashadi, Aaqa Abdul Rasheed Delami, Dara Shikoh, Mir Imad Al-Husaini Abdullah Mushkin Qalam, Gulzar Raqam, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Habib, Muhammad Masum, Mumin Al-Saini, Muhammad Rafi, Muhammad Hashim, Muhammad Amin Samarqandi.
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