ZANUYAY

CONTEMPLATIONS
Tu e s d a y, A p r i l 7 , 2 0 0 9

MEDITATIONS ON THE VEIL

MEDITATIONS ON THE VEIL
Five Images of Contemporary Islamic Calligraphy
That Transcend the Boundaries of the Eye
by Aaron Vlek

(click all images to enlarge)

Few native English speakers can comprehend the

possibilities, the depth of meaning and subtle
implications inherent in the concept of the living
sacred text, language, and alphabet such as that of
Qur’anic Arabic. We write and read, even our most
elegant treatises and love letters, often with a sterile
and utilitarian efficiency that prefigures and starkly
illustrates the highly prized transitory and disposable
quality of our culture, our ideas, and perhaps even
our very aspirations.
Drawing from the works of five contemporary
examples of Islamic calligraphy, I will provide a brief
examination of the traditional Qur’anic, personal and
sigilistic, and even one piece which appears seemingly
wholly abstract. Yet, as radically distinct from one
another as these individual works appear at first to
be, as divergent from the ritual formality of what is
typically considered Islamic calligraphy, all share
three important features. The images are
constructed, crafted, drawn, and evoked from the
body of the written Arabic script. Each work possesses
a bold and imposing visual composition that
challenges viewers to abandon their habitual default
modes of looking and seeing as they are compelled to
confront and contemplate that which is being
presented in each image.
And most importantly, each image seductively
illuminates the mystery of the Arabic script as it both
veils and reveals the secrets it wishes to share with
us. In each of these works here under discussion, the
artist has employed the Arabic script as a master
composer might create a complex and intricate
symphony. Where the English and Western languages
seem to lay flat upon the page, divesting themselves
quickly of their contents and then waiting silently, as
if to say, that is all and nothing more, the Arabic
calligraphy is never static, never quiet, always
tempting us with this, and again perhaps, with so
much more.

Image #1

Al-Waqfa (2006)
Al-Arif – The man of Knowledge
Nazar Yahya (b. Iraq, 1963-)
Handmade book, 10 digital prints with collage

Yahya has
crafted a
handmade
book
featuring ten
digital prints
and a bound
cover. As
contemporary
as this piece
may be, with
its slick, high-
tech
execution , it
recalls the
elegance of a
near monastic
care and meticulousness in what is clearly a cursive
style of personal Arabic penmanship and not a formal
and traditionally Qur’anic calligraphic style at all. The
color palate is quite reminiscent of both Zen and
Shinto painting styles with the bold and dramatic hand
against the royal glow of a warm and sunny
background. As with Shinto and Zen works, the
prominent solar sphere commands the viewer’s gaze
and forces the eye to penetrate through the
distracting veil of the thickly and carefully rendered
sacred and mystic text.
In Yahya’s piece, al-Arif, the Man of Knowledge, the
text derives from al-Niffari, a 9th century mystic from
the artist’s native Iraq known for his passionate
evocations of God. The viewer is invited to transcend
the material reality in which he is seemingly forever
entrenched, through the protecting veil of the written
and visible exoteric text, itself perhaps looming like
the Sphinx before the gates of the gnosis, ready to
turn away the unworthy, or the unprepared. Niffari
states in the text upon the page,, “Whenever the
vision is broadened, the words become narrowed." Are
Yahya and al-Niffari suggesting, or hinting, that
regardless of how beautiful the calligraphic script may
be, it is but the outer husk of the meanings and
Reality hidden behind the veil of the text? And
perhaps even this, the hidden meaning itself which
the trained eye, the scholastic theologian, or the
mystic may comprehend, is merely another veil of
many yet to part as we transcend the limitations of
the senses, the reasoning mind, and all knowledge
which we may smugly call our “own” and come finally
to encounter that which destroys forever the clamor
of the mind.

Image #2

RITUAL SIGNS II (1999)

Iman Abdullah Mahmud
(b. Iraq, 1956-)

Ritual Signs II is
a clear and
typical example
of the ancient
form of table or
tablet of
corresponding
mystic symbols,
elements, and
images. Almost
a cookbook or
roadmap for
attempting to
decipher the
inner nature of
deepest reality,
and navigating
the intricate connective relationships between all
things in creation, this type of formula was developed
and used extensively in the ancient world among the
Hebrews, Egyptians, Chaldeans and many others and
has survived into modern usage in forms little changed
in either style or content.
Some examples of this form which thrive today are
the anagrams and other common amusement puzzles
found everywhere in popular culture from Barnes &
Noble to the back pages of The New York Times. As
with the tarot cards and their mundane cousins the
playing card deck which lacks the major arcane or
trumps, these modern puzzles and anagrams offer
seemingly only amusement and distraction.
The intriguing feature of Mahmud’s table of sigils, is
that it truly appears to be a “working magician’s”
drawing board. It’s old and worn, tattered and frayed
at the edges and clearly shows evidence of fevered
erasings and mad scribbling, one can almost imagine
by candlelight at the midnight hour. The bold and
almost violent strokes across the surface of the work
seem disturbingly new, perhaps the ink still damp,
giving evidence of a final and triumphant AHA!
Moment as these dramatic dark symbols almost leap
from the page to preeminently wipe out all that has
gone before, or has lead up to, this final secret and
private revelation.
Even a light comparison between this work and other
similar examples from cultures as disparate as the
Hebrew, the Caribbean, and of the 16th, 19th, and
20th century European, as well as those of neo-
occultists of the John Dee, Austin Osman Spare, and
Aleister Crowley schools of thought, will reveal an
uncanny similarity. One cannot easily dismiss the
haunting universality of man’s attempt to categorize,
symbolize, and then manipulate his observations and
theories of the non-spatial and spiritual realms with
the same hunger and precision, and with a similar
methodology, as do the empirical scientists who scoff
at them.

Image #3

SALOME (1993)
Rachid Koraïchi
(b. Algeria, 1947-)
Gold and indigo hand-woven silk

Koraïchi’s Salome evokes

similar ritual styles from
diverse cultural sources as
does Mahmud in the
previous image. Disdaining
the canvas, the high-tech
digital program, and the
calligrapher’s nib and
parchment, Koraïchi traces
his arcane and
indecipherable formulae
on azure silk with gold
lettering and symbols.
These three mediums tell
us a great deal. Silk is very
costly and exquisite, azure
is the color of heaven and
indeed even “the gods,” and gold is the most precious
of material elements. Although Koraïchi is an artist
from the “Islamic” world, his stretched and twisted
calligraphic renderings resemble the Japanese kanji
figures far more than the Arabic script from which
they are derived. The figures at the top of the work
bear a remarkable resemblance to the classical
hieroglyphic depictions of the gods seated within the
Barq of Re as it makes its journey across the heavens
twice daily, at dawn and at sunset. Dawn and sunset
are two of the Muslim times of prayer as well. Also
similarly to the Mahmud piece, Koraïchi utilizes the
table schema in the central portion of the work with
the left portion of the panel resembling the rayed
chart of the Zodiac, and the entire central portion
similar in style to typical ancient Egyptian stelea or
formulaic devotional tablets. Together these
provocatively suggestive images create a delightful
mélange of surprisingly cohesive cross cultural
references.
At the very outset, we know that Koraïchi’s
configurations are of the utmost import. However, the
artist forever locks us out of these formulae by
creating a completely private and interior secret
script, which he then flaunts defiantly and gloriously
before our eyes. We may glean certain hintings from
the composition and the execution materials, but we
will never know with certainty what Koraïchi has
discovered by merely sitting passively in our chairs
and gazing upon his travel notes. The artist seems to
be suggesting that we must go forth and embark upon
our own explorations, carve unique inroads towards
the unknown, and devise our own private and interior
languages with which to communicate our discoveries
to ourselves and to the world. And perhaps Koraïchi is
again like the Sphinx, retaining his silence as a final
sacred oath.
Comparing other examples of similar models such as
Tibetan prayer flags, ancient and contemporary, as
well as Buddhist Thanka sacred paintings on cloth, we
find silk and gold used frequently to convey the
sacredness of the inner teachings and to beautifully
decorate outward texts for the less initiated eye.
Modern day “occultists” from the 19th and 20th
centuries and well into the present have often
endeavored to create secret working languages
decipherable only to their creators to express and
symbolize the expanse of the inner drawing board.

Image #4

The Attributes of Divine Perfection (1987)

Ahmed Moustafa
(b. Egypt, 1943)
Oil and watercolor on paper

This work is
perhaps the
most intriguing
of this grouping
under
discussion.
Moustafa’s
central image
depicts a cube
highly
reminiscent of
the Ka’aba at
Mecca to which
Muslims turn in
prayer five
times a day. Yet
the clever and
almost playfully reverent use of the Islamic imagery
extends provocatively to every element of the work’s
composition. The dark blue background of the piece is
subtly worked with the Throne Verse (Ayat al-Kursi
2:255) of the Qur’an. This backdrop is textured
ambiguously to suggest the lovely appearance of a
vast hanging curtain or veil, its folds almost visible
and rippling, again reminiscent of the fabulously text-
embroidered curtain that shrouds the exterior of the
Ka’aba.
Furthering this idea of the deepening layers, inside
the blue veil is the Ka’aba itself, but the walls of this
Ka’aba are protected with yet another layer, this time
with the second half of the shahada, or declaration of
faith, that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah. Once
inside these protecting veils, the interior of the cube
is opened, or revealed, to display the 99 Beautiful
Names, or Attributes of Allah modeled intricately and
suggestively into a pattern evoking the molecular
structure of everything in the material creation from
gross matter and crystalline structures to that of the
highest of animal life, Mankind himself. These
Attributes of Allah, the artist seems to declare,
aggregate in countless wondrous combinations to form
the basis of all existence, and display the mystery of
seemingly diverse multiplicity of creation through
differing mixtures of these subtle essences of Allah’s
nature.
The remaining element of the work, the foreground
which leads from the image of the cube outwards
right off the canvas towards the viewer like a royal
road, is worked with yet another Qur’anic passage
admonishing, inviting, calling upon man to call in
return upon God by any of these beautiful names. The
result, we are promised, is that this road will open
before us and guide us through the veils to the final
personal revelation of the Mystery. This lovely image
bridges the seeming gap between the heights of
modern empirical knowledge and the often quoted
ancient and sacred tenet of faith: Wheresoever ye
shall look, there is the Face of God.

Image #5

A FINE FRENZY (2004)

Shirazeh Houshiary
(b. Iran, 1955-)
Black and white aquacyl, white pencil
and ink on canvas
This final
piece almost
needs no
words. Similar
images
emerge
frequently in
many times
and cultures.
Always, it
seems a
meditation
upon the
descent of the
soul as it
turns away from the external realities and closes in
upon its own concealed center. As Houshiary explains
this work, this piece is created from a single word
that is written over and over and over again upon the
surface of the canvas, and then erased, written again
and erased, smudged, and then written over and
erased again producing an almost impossible to
believe texture and symmetry. It recalls Moustafa’s
Divine Attributes as this single word becomes the
distilled substance of the entire work, but which loses
any continuity with an actual written word of human
origin and script. Again, this harkens back to Nazar
Yahya’s work Al-Arif, which points beyond the veils to
where the word ceases to have meaning as the
rational mind is taken from itself.
Houshiary removes veils by removing the rational
meaning of the word without diminishing the purity of
its essence. She declares, and rightly so, that this
method transcends culture and speaks deeply to us all
at a level that ravages the conditioned meanings we
all live by. If one gazes into the center of this piece,
there is very much something there to be seen. Is it
the intent of the artist? A hallucination on the part of
the viewer? Or is there something there that each of
us might discover by focusing intently on the center of
A Fine Frenzy as it works like an Escher maze upon the
brain and plays its tricks upon the supremely
malleable human consciousness? Houshiary states
openly that it is her hope, through this work, to allow
the viewer to set aside the rational consciousness, to
rend this veil that separates the viewer, all of us,
from the Real that we all share at the core of our own
inner fine frenzy.

What these five works all share in common, what they

all tantalizingly suggest and challenge us to explore
and discover for ourselves, is that there is indeed a
great and beautiful mystery, a commanding and
defining Truth to all of this great Thisness that
surrounds and fills us. But that it is, as we are so
often maddeningly reminded, hidden in plain sight,
and that we must be transformed into creatures that
can apprehend, see, taste, encounter, and Be with
that Mystery. But that to undertake this great
adventure, we must courageously chart virgin
territory, the inner core of our own unique beings, and
set aside those veils so that we may abandon
ourselves to something so much more. Each of these
five works both veils, and reveals that Mystery.

Zanuyay at 4:24 PM

2 comments:

Anonymous April 22, 2009 at 9:29 AM

Hello, Zanuyay!

The images are most impressive...

As you may recall from some of my comments on

Tahir's blog, I'm engaged in a very old, ongoing
struggle with nafs-i-ammara --you seem to have
experience in this matter, and I was wondering
whether you might be willing to share some of it with
me. To be quite specific, on ways to outwit it in
everyday life, before it's too late (I often realize it got
the upper hand once again after it did :(
I wish I could realize it before!

With deep thanks and all my very best wishes,

Julio
PS Just in case, my e-mail address:

juliorivas@gmail.com
Reply

Anonymous April 22, 2009 at 9:42 AM

Image 4 (The Attributes of Divine Perfection) is simply
beyond words to praise --out of this world, if I may say
so
Reply

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