Calligrapher (khattat)

The khattat (calligrapher) writes the Arabic script as an art and teaches it, keeping to the measure of the dot and to the principal hands with their rules of form and composition. ¹ The script became an art in its own right in Islamic civilisation, with masters, schools and teaching traditions. ² UNESCO placed the practice of Arabic calligraphy on its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2021. ³

The Turkish encyclopaedia traces the word to the verb hatt, meaning to write, to mark and to lay out, and defines the hand as writing the letters of the Arabic script according to aesthetic rules. ¹

The word khattat was not the first name for a writer of the script. The oldest title given to a writer of the Arabic hand was katib (scribe). In the time of the Prophet ﷺ, scribes handled revelation, secret correspondence, letters and treaties, and the title was later given to those who practised the hand as an art. ² The entry reports that Yaqut al-Hamawi records Umar ibn al-Husayn (d. 552 AH) as known by the title Hattat, and that Nihad Cetin dates the word's use to about the sixth century AH. ²

Orientalists, the entry reports, have shown from pre-Islamic inscriptions that the Arabic script continues the connected Nabataean script, which goes back to Phoenician. ¹ In pre-Islamic times there were two styles, called jazm (angular and geometric) and mashq (quick, for daily writing). The first book written in the form of a mushaf was written in the angular hand on skin, in black ink, without dots or vowel signs. ¹

Several centuries after the hijra the phrase "Arabic hand" came to be a shared value of the Islamic community, and the art also came to be called "Islamic hand". ¹

In the Umayyad period the cursive exercise hand (mashq) developed quickly in Damascus and was copied faster, and new styles began to arise from it, among them the large jali hand and the tumar for large official documents. Dividing the tumar pen gave two hands, the thuluthayn (two-thirds) and the thuluth (one-third), which became two separate pens and two separate scripts. ¹

In the Abbasid period copyists (warraq) spread, above all in Baghdad. They copied books and sold writing materials, and their hand was called warraqi or muhaqqaq. Then came the proportioned hand (mansub), whose rules Ibn Muqla (d. 328 AH) set down. Ibn al-Bawwab (d. 413 AH in the entry) changed the course of that method, which continued until the middle of the seventh century AH. In the early eleventh century the muhaqqaq, rayhani and naskh hands appeared, and Ibn al-Hazin (d. 518 AH) guided the tawqi' and riqa'. ¹

In the seventh century AH Yaqut al-Musta'simi (d. 698 AH) fixed the six principal hands: thuluth, naskh, muhaqqaq, rayhani, tawqi' and riqa'. They are arranged in paired families: thuluth and naskh, muhaqqaq and rayhani, tawqi' and riqa'. His great change was to cut the reed pen at a slant where it had been cut straight, which gave the hand a new lightness. ¹

In the Ottoman period Shaykh Hamdullah (d. 926 AH) refined Yaqut's manner, and it became known as the shaykhi manner, which held sway for more than a hundred and fifty years. Ahmed Karahisari (d. 963 AH) revived Yaqut's approach in the tenth century AH, but his influence was forgotten within a generation. In the second half of the eleventh century AH Hafiz Osman (d. 1110 AH) formed a manner of his own. He was followed by Ismail Zuhdu (d. 1221 AH) and his brother Mustafa Raqim (d. 1241 AH), who perfected the large thuluth, carried Hafiz Osman's manner from thuluth to jali, and refined the tughra until it reached the highest grace. ¹ Sami Efendi (d. 1912) applied Ismail Zuhdu's thuluth letters to the jali, and brought fresh skill to the vowel signs, the filling marks and the numerals in the jali. ¹

Other hands came from Persia and from the Ottoman state. Ta'liq emerged from tawqi' in Iran in the fourteenth century, and from it came nasta'liq, which reached Istanbul in the second half of the fifteenth century under the name ta'liq, without a real link to the older ta'liq. The Ottoman divani was born in the late fifteenth century, inspired by the older Iranian ta'liq, and the jali divani took shape in Istanbul in the sixteenth century. The rik'a was used for daily writing in the Ottoman state. ¹

The tughra took its first complete form under Mehmed II and its classical shape under Suleiman the Magnificent. Mustafa Raqim's measures made it a model of proportion from the early nineteenth century, and after the reign of Abdulhamid II the plain tughra was the usual form until the end of the empire. ¹

Among the early figures the entry names Khalid ibn Abi al-Hayyaj, famous in the Umayyad period, and treats him as the earliest figure the sources name as a calligrapher. ² Malik ibn Dinar (d. 131 AH) is the first known member of the copyists' trade, and Qutba al-Muharrir (d. 154 AH) is the first known to use the title muharrir for the craft. ¹

From the Abbasid period: Ibn Muqla (d. 328 AH); Ibn al-Bawwab, whom the entry places in the eleventh century and dates to 413 AH (1022 CE); and Ibn al-Hazin (d. 518 AH). ¹ Among those who set the six principal hands stands Yaqut al-Musta'simi (d. 698 AH). ¹

From the Ottoman period: Shaykh Hamdullah al-Amasi (d. 926 AH), Ahmed Karahisari (d. 963 AH), Hafiz Osman (d. 1110 AH), Ismail Zuhdu (d. 1221 AH), Mustafa Raqim (d. 1241 AH), Mahmud Celaleddin (d. 1245 AH), Mustafa Izzet (d. 1876 CE), Mehmed Sevki (d. 1304 AH), Sami Efendi (d. 1912), Hasan Riza Efendi (d. 1920), Hacı Kâmil Akdik (d. 1360 AH) and Hamit Aytaç (d. 1982). ^{2 1}

Persian masters of ta'liq include Mir Ali Heravi, Mir Imad al-Hasani (d. 1024 AH), Sultan Ali Meshedi (d. 926 AH) and Shah Mahmud Nishapuri. ¹

Rulers patronised the art from the Abbasid period. The Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim billah gathered forty masters of the book arts in a palace workshop called the kitabkhana. Among the patrons named were Ghiyath al-Din Baysunghur, a grandson of Timur, and Husayn Bayqara, sultan of Herat, with his vizier Ali Shir Nava'i. ¹

In the Ottoman state several sultans practised the hand themselves, among them Bayezid II, Murad IV, Mustafa II, Ahmed III, Mahmud II, Abdulmecid and Reşad. ²

Teaching given at home was often free: a master did not accept a gift, and the entry calls this the zakat of the craft. Masters appointed to schools were paid a daily or monthly wage. The entry, citing the Menakib-i Hunerveran, gives thirty akçe a day for Shaykh Hamdullah and fifteen to sixteen akçe a day for Ahmed Karahisari. ²

Some endowments set aside rooms called meşkhane or yazı odası (writing room) in certain colleges, where writing masters sat on fixed days of the week for a wage fixed in the deed of endowment. ²

The copyists' trade was paid work: they copied the Qur'an and books for a fee, and sold writing materials in their shops in Baghdad. ¹

Damascus under the Umayyads was the home of the cursive exercise hand from which the script developed. Baghdad under the Abbasids was the centre of the copyists and of the rise of the proportioned hands. ¹

In Iran ta'liq emerged from tawqi' in the fourteenth century. The older ta'liq reached the Ottoman state in the fifteenth century through the Aq Qoyunlu. Herat was a centre of patronage under the Timurids. ¹

In North Africa the Kufic hand became rounder, and under the name Maghribi it held its place especially in the Maghrib and al-Andalus. ¹

In the Ottoman state Istanbul became the centre of the art from the late fifteenth century. The entry records Istanbul's place in a saying current across the Islamic world, which holds that the Qur'an was revealed in the Hijaz, read in Egypt and written in Istanbul. ^{1 2}

Shaykh Aziz al-Rifai, a pupil of Arif Efendi, was invited to Egypt, and through that work the manner of Mehmed Sevki Efendi spread across the Islamic world. ¹

After the reform of the alphabet in Turkey the art entered a period of rapid forgetting. Few people now practise it, but it kept its place in Turkish art as a historical necessity, and interest in it is growing in the West. ¹

Since 1986 the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) in Istanbul has held competitions every three years named after masters of the past, and interest in calligraphy and calligraphers has grown in Turkey, across the Islamic world and in some Western countries. ²

UNESCO placed Arabic calligraphy on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, as "Arabic calligraphy: knowledge, skills and practices" (no. 01718). Sixteen States Parties nominated it. UNESCO describes the practice as transmitted through formal and informal education and through apprenticeship, and practised by professional calligraphers, artists, designers, teachers and artisans, men and women alike. It names among its contemporary forms writing with markers and paint, and spray-paint lettering on walls. ³

UNESCO also describes the traditional tools: a pen of reed or bamboo, ink of honey, soot and saffron, and handmade paper treated with starch, egg white and alum. ³

In Istanbul, calligraphy was taught in official and endowed institutions. The entry names the Enderun (the sultan's palace school), the Divan-i Humayun (the imperial council), Galata Sarayı and the Imperial Band (Muzıka-yi Humayun), as well as madrasas and schools. ²

In the elementary schools (sibyan mektebi) writing was taught along with recitation of the Qur'an. In some schools a separate writing master came on set days and wrote a line for the pupils to copy. ²

Some masters taught in their own houses one or two days a week without pay, and well-to-do families invited a master to teach their children at home on fixed days. ²

In 1914 the School of Calligraphers (Medresetü'l-hattâtîn) was opened to revive the art, and Hasan Riza Efendi was appointed teacher of naskh and thuluth there. ^{2 4}

The hand is written with a reed pen and black soot ink. The entry gives a rough measure of the nib: about 1 mm for naskh, rayhani and riqa', and about 2 to 2.5 mm for thuluth, ta'liq, muhaqqaq and tawqi'. ¹

Letters are measured in units of a dot, a diamond or square shape the pen makes when its full width touches the paper. Its sides are set with two vertical and two horizontal edges, and the length of the dot is the unit by which the letters, their curves and their spacing are measured. Lines are set with a ruler called the mistar. ¹

For large jali work the master made a template (kalip): the outline of the letters was pricked with a needle through several sheets, and the surface was dusted with charcoal or chalk so the design passed to the sheet below. On dark paper the jali was written in a yellow ink the Turks call zırnık, which does not build a thick layer and can be covered with black ink where a correction is needed. ¹

Gold is applied as gold ink, or as gold leaf (varak altın) fixed with an adhesive made from seed oil (bezir yağı), and then burnished with a stone called zermühre. ¹

The main output is books, above all the mushaf (the Qur'an) and its parts, then prayers, guides, collections of hadith, divans and poetry anthologies. Old books were restored by the craft of vassal, which rewrote worn pages: the leaf was cut, thinned and laid onto a new sheet. ¹

Other forms are the single-sided sheet (kıta); the murakka (album) of mounted decorated pieces, common from the eighteenth century; the tumar, a scroll kept in a leather case, which declined after the sixteenth century; the framed levha, popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the hilye, a panel describing the Prophet's appearance and character, whose first examples were arranged by Hafiz Osman. ¹

Architectural inscriptions were written in jali thuluth, on marble and tile, in mihrabs, on the bands around walls and the drums of domes. The earliest famous example in the entry is an inscription of 883 AH (1478 CE) by Ali ibn Yahya al-Sufi on the Bab-i Humayun. The entry counts Sami Efendi's set of inscriptions for the Mihrimah mosque at Edirnekapı among the most complete. ¹

Official documents carried the tughra, then the decrees (ferman), patents (berat) and edicts. ¹

The two entries read for this record name no guild (lonca) for calligraphers, so the guild part of this record waits for a source that names one. The craft passed down through chains of masters and pupils, through schools and court offices, and through the licence. ^{2 1}

At court a writer held the title kâtib-i sultânî (writer of the sultan), and some calligraphers bore that title. ²

The title reisü'l-hattâtîn (chief of calligraphers) was granted officially to two men only, Muhsinzade Abdullah Hamdi Bey (d. 1317 AH) and Hacı Kâmil Akdik (d. 1360 AH), with an allowance of 500 kuruş. The title şeyhü'l-hattâtîn (shaykh of calligraphers) has no official basis, and is given to the oldest living calligrapher as a mark of respect. ²

Teaching is called meşk (practice). The master writes a model line in a lesson, the pupil copies it and shows it to him. If the master finds a fault he writes the corrected letter or word beneath the line; if he approves the line he sets beneath it a mark of effort formed from the letters sîn, ayn and yâ, or writes âferin (well done). ²

Training has two stages: meşk of the letters, in which the letters are written one by one, and meşk of the compounds, in which joined words are written. The first ended with a formula saying the letters were complete, the second with lines of verse. ²

Thuluth and naskh are learned together, one line each. The riqa', whose old name is "the hand of the licence", is learned separately. ²

The licence (icâzet) is given once the pupil has copied a piece by an old master chosen by his teacher. The licence is then written in riqa', naming the teacher and granting the pupil leave to set his signature beneath his writing. A ta'liq licence is written in small ta'liq. ²

The licence is given at a ceremony before a jury of calligraphers, who endorse it in writing in Arabic in an act called tasdiq al-ijaza (endorsement of the licence). A pen name agreed in advance is given during the ceremony and written into the licence. Ottoman sources credit Zeyn al-Din Abd al-Rahman Ibn al-Sa'igh (d. 845 AH) with first setting this custom. ²

From 1914 the School of Calligraphers issued its licences in divani, with the teacher's seal. ²

Some masters limited their numbers: Mehmed Sevki (d. 1304 AH) taught only ten pupils, and admitted new ones only as pupils were licensed. Yesari Mehmed Esad (d. 1213 AH) had so many pupils that his practice became known as the practice of students. ²

Training usually begins in youth, but some began after fifty, among them Receb Revani Çelebi (d. 958 AH), who reached high distinction. ²

Sami Efendi learned naskh and thuluth from Bosnali Osman Efendi, his writing master at the mosque school of his childhood, and took ta'liq from Kıbrısızade Ismail Hakki, with a licence in 1857. He was licensed in naskh and thuluth by Mehmed Sevki and by his maternal uncle and teacher Mehmed Hulusi in 1864, for the blessing. ⁵

Hasan Riza Efendi took ta'liq from Sami Efendi, and began calligraphy with Mehmed Şefik Bey in the Imperial Band. ⁴

Calligraphers keep lineage charts, called the "tree of the hand" or the "chain of the licence", which run from a pupil to his master and up to Ali ibn Abi Talib, whom the craft counts as its patron. The six great hands have their chains, and ta'liq has a chain of its own; the other hands were not arranged in chains. ²

It is a saying of the craft that only death separates master and pupil. A pupil honours his master and returns to help him with practice in his old age, even if he has surpassed him. ²

A calligrapher enters his master's manner by imitation: he copies an old master's piece exactly and says so in his signature. Once he is secure he writes in his own manner. ¹

A signature usually opens with the formula ketebehû ("he wrote it"), adds humble words such as "the poor" and "the lowly", names his father and his master, and asks forgiveness for himself and his mother. Practice pieces are signed meşekahû ("he practised it") and copies kalledehû ("he imitated it"). ²

Many calligraphers left work unsigned out of modesty, so a master is recognised by his manner and the shape of his letters rather than by his name. ¹

It is reported that court calligraphers were sworn never to write divani or jali divani outside the imperial council. ¹

The licence ceremony was held in a mosque or a large house, and in summer at Kağıthane, and it often ended in a feast. ²

At the ceremony a body of calligraphers, the jury, endorses the licence in writing and congratulates the new master. ²

Since 1986 IRCICA's competitions, named after masters of the past, have been held every three years. ²

The text read for this record does not cover the travels of calligraphers, so this section is not yet written.

• TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "HAT", M. Uğur Derman, vol. 16, pp. 427–437. ¹
• TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "HATTAT", M. Uğur Derman, vol. 16, pp. 493–499. ²
• TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "SÂMİ EFENDİ, İsmâil Hakkı", M. Uğur Derman, vol. 36, pp. 72–74. ⁵
• TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "HASAN RIZÂ EFENDİ, Hacı", M. Uğur Derman, vol. 16, pp. 344–346. ⁴
• UNESCO, Decision of the Intergovernmental Committee 16.COM 8.b.35. ³
• Works named in the entries, not read for this record: Ibn al-Nadim, al-Fihrist; Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu'jam al-udaba'; Mustafa Ali, Menakib-i Hunerveran; Mustakimzade, Tuhfe-i Hattatin; Habib Efendi, Hat ve Hattatan; Cl. Huart, Les calligraphes et les miniaturistes de l'Orient musulman.