{"id":38,"date":"2014-02-25T04:54:11","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T04:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/?p=38"},"modified":"2014-05-05T23:20:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T23:20:46","slug":"one-word-for-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/2014\/02\/25\/one-word-for-words\/","title":{"rendered":"One Word for Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calligraphy as explained by Abdelkebir Khatibi and Mohammed Sijelmassi in The Splendor of Islamic Calligraphy\u00a0<\/em>is seen as a “reading and a writing in the second degree… The actual meaning of the statement here becomes secondary, so that the imagined reader is like a dreamer awakened, whose vision is woven within a context of art.” In my artwork in this blog entry, I am inspired particularly by the calligraphy work of Mohammed Salem Bajunaid, a Saudi calligrapher who in response to those who praise his work says: “I never believe I have achieved anything. It is all Allah’s work.”<\/p>\n

Bajunaid uses verses from the Quran as basis for his illustrations, through which he uses a visual manifestation shaping the verses to portray a hidden or a metaphorical meaning. For example, in the following work, he write the verse: “We raise in degrees whom We will, but over every possessor of knowledge is one [more] knowing” “\u0648\u0641\u0648\u0642 \u0643\u0644 \u0630\u064a \u0639\u0644\u0645 \u0639\u0644\u064a\u0645” (Yousuf:76). Bajunaid here begins with the word fawq<\/em> “over” as the basis for his design, through which he concludes with Aleem<\/em> “one knowing” at the peek of the structure, to portray the Holy God as being Most Knowledgable.<\/p>\n

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Work of Salim Bajnaid<\/p><\/div>\n

Based on the connection between the form and content, I have chosen to use the ink on a hand rather than on paper, a medium that becomes temporary when applied to skin, to write the word\u00a0kalima<\/em>\u00a0“word,” however, as we have come to see, one word may carry several things, one word may have a meaning that is\u00a0thaher<\/em>\u00a0and another that is\u00a0batten, yet alone that in the design I chose, this\u00a0kalima\u00a0<\/em>“word” could also be read as\u00a0kalimat<\/em>\u00a0“words.” In addition, I have\u00a0<\/em>portrayed the diversity of metaphorical and literal meanings that could be understood from a single word through the arrows that are used as punctuations.<\/p>\n

I find the following narration suitable for this artwork, thus, by it, I conclude. \u00a0Ali said: “If I wished I could load seventy camels with the exegesis of the Opening Surah (al-Fatiha) of the Koran.” What is the meaning of this, when the exoteric interpretation [of this surah] is extremely short? Abu al-Darada said, “A man does not truly understand until he attributes [different] perspectives (wujuh) to the Koran.” A certain scholar said, “For every [Koranic] verse there are sixty thousand understandings (fahm), and what remains to be understood is even more.” Others have said, “The Koran contains seventy-seven thousand two hundred sciences (ilm), for every word [in it] is a science, and then that [number] can be quadrupled, since every word has an outward aspect, an inward aspect, an end and a beginning.” (Classical Persian Sufism, from its Origins to Rumi, 239).<\/p>\n

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Word: Definite or Indefinite – Ink on Skin<\/p><\/div>\n

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Calligraphy as explained by Abdelkebir Khatibi and Mohammed Sijelmassi in The Splendor of Islamic Calligraphy\u00a0is seen as a “reading and a writing in the second degree… The actual meaning of the statement here becomes secondary, so that the imagined reader is like a dreamer awakened, whose vision is woven within a context of art.” In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[905,120934,882,64075,120937,120936,120939,120940,120938],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-calligraphy","tag-design","tag-form","tag-implicit","tag-ink","tag-interpretation","tag-islamic","tag-tawil"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fatimatullah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}