Painting of Kalima-E-Tayyib

Radhia Firfirey,

 Painting of Kalima-E-Tayyib,

 2010.

 60cm×44cm, A2 size paper.

 Crawford, Cape Town.

This paining is done in the Naskh Islamic style and it is placed in a landscape format. Naskh is another name for a Qurán script. Naskh was one of the first forms of scripts to be developed. This Naskh style is found in mosques all over the world today. There are many calligraphers that still practice this type of style. The text is the Kalima-E-Tayyib (Code of purity or declaration of faith) and it means “No one is worthy of worship, but Allah, and Muhammad (peace be upon him) is true and final Messenger of Allah”.

The language of this text is in  Arabic. Arabic is written from right to left. There are 18 distinct letter shapes, which vary slightly on whether they are connected to another letter before or after them. There are no “capital” letters. Islamic calligraphy is a visual expression of a highest art form for all the Muslims. This type of calligraphy literally means writing beautifully and ornamentally. Islamic calligraphy is the art of writing, and by extension, of bookmaking.    

I used blue paint as the background and place light green above the blue to bring the shapes forward. The yellow colour is the focal point of the beginning of the sentence. The letters are outlined in gold paint. The contrasting shapes work in harmony with the script and the different colours in the sentence.

Firfirey, R. 2011. Painting of a Kalima-E-Tayyib. Crawford, Cape Town.