Bridging Cultures, One Letter at a Time

Through Arabic Calligraphy, Students Gain Understanding of Islam and Middle East

Holland writes Arabic letters. Some who participate in the workshop have no working knowledge of the language but admire the script. (Photos By Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)

The Arabic Calligraphy Workshop at the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center wasn't about the Arabic. The flier for the class said no knowledge of the language was required.

Aishah Elinor Holland, the teacher, said sometimes when she teaches the one-day workshop, non-Arabic-speaking students fear that the graceful, swooping letters will spell something bad. "People are like, 'Well, what is this letter? What is it that I'm writing?' " she said.

Part of Holland's mission is to show these students there is more to Arab culture than what they read in the news -- in this case, a fine art that has flourished for centuries across the Muslim world.

"If they see that everyone whose name is Muhammad is not an Islamic terrorist, that's a start," she said. "During the war on terror, in this age, this is something totally non-threatening which is totally Arab-Islamic."

Holland has thought about bringing a carpet and serving Turkish-style tea to help set the tone. But in last Wednesday's class held in downtown Washington, after starting to explain that the Arabic alphabet has 28 consonants, she realized that all 17 students had some background in the language -- from the Army cultural instructor to the New England college student to the Fredericksburg security analyst.

"Wow, I thought that New York was cosmopolitan," said Holland, who usually teaches there. "So everyone in Washington knows Arabic? That's really cool."

The students may have shared a language background, but they had different reasons for being there.

"I spend all my time studying the negative aspects of Islamic-Arabic society -- terrorism, all the hard stuff," said the analyst, Jesse Bannister. "This rounds me out."

Rebecca Kusserow of Alexandria said that she had traveled extensively in Arab countries in the 1970s and that the calligraphy had fascinated her. Elizabeth Ridout, who recently spent a semester in Oman with the School for International Training, said she had jumped at the opportunity because it was free.

Although Arabic calligraphy was developed to celebrate the Koran, it doesn't have to be about Islam, Holland said. "You can write anything you want, but you are probably not going to take the time to write your shopping list."

Holland's calligraphy seminars have drawn a range of responses. At Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., one year, no one signed up. At the Sultan Qaboos center, a year-old organization that is part of the Middle East Institute and funded in part by the government of Oman, there was a long waiting list.

The art of calligraphy is still alive in the Middle East and has a following among young people. "There's a whole crop of what I would call kids in Istanbul who are doing this instead of going to college," Holland said. "They basically eat, drink and sleep khat, as it is called."

Baghdad has had a long tradition of calligraphy, she said. "There were a lot of good calligraphers in Iraq. Fifteen, twenty years ago they had a big conference there. I don't think they're doing that anymore."

For many Westerners who have abandoned handwriting in favor of computer keyboards, calligraphy is a throwback to another century. It requires time and patience and is distinctively low-tech. Traditionally, the calligrapher sat on the floor with one knee folded. He ground gold to illuminate his manuscripts, carved reeds for his pens and gathered soot for his ink from mosque lamps.

After watching a slide presentation of the work of master calligraphers, Holland's students dipped bamboo pens in inkwells and began to painstakingly copy the letters of the alphabet.

Aziz Rraziqi, a native of Morocco who teaches cultural awareness about the Arab world for the Army, said calligraphy could be harder for people such as himself who had grown up writing the language but didn't learn the art.

"If you start from scratch, you just copy what you see, but if you're used to writing, it's going against the grain of what you've been doing for years," he said .