the pen & The Inkpot: A Muslim woman’s spiritual Art, through the Science (ilm), of

knowing the heart (Qalb)

©2005 Uzma Mirza

A traditional Islamic saying goes:

"Calligraphy is the Geometry of the spirit"

Islam lives on the principle, to create is to reverberate. Hence, humans are the Creator’s
reverberations. It is through the inner and outer reflection of the human’s struggle towards
balance, as a phototropic being articulating with the voice, the pen and the ink her instruments,
which celebrate the creating eminence of the Sustainer and Creator.
The idea of Islamic art, a Spiritual art extending to the arts of Architecture with the
embodiment of science and the natural world and the principles which brought this art into being,
must be related to the world view of Islam, and the Islamic revelation-the Quran, one of whose
emanations is the sacred art of calligraphy or the reverberation of the Word. This art is borne of
the sustainable symbiotic relation between the daily contemplation and glorification of her
Creator and Sustainer, which is governed, by the natural cycles of the sublime universe, which
punctuate the day and night and break the trance of the stage of illusions, upon the soul,
establishing a proximity to virgin nature as the primordial Mosque with the constant recitation
and repetition, of Quranic phrases of revelation, which rejuvenate the soul of the Muslim. This
creates a mosaic of spiritual mannerisms, actions and instruments, with an emphasis upon the
grandeur of the Creator, which prevents any Promethean humanism from taking place. Islamic
Spirituality has influenced Islamic Art by evoking an inner sustainable consciousness of a
sustainable humanism with certain attitudes and manners, as preventive medicine and eliminating
‘other’ artistic expressions, within the mind and soul of those Women and Men who created this
art.
“If a ‘conscious’ Muslim finds the Titanesque statues of a Michelangelo crushing and
Rococo churches stifling, it is because of that sense of peace and submission to The Creator, in
her soul by Islamic spirituality and her horror of human self aggrandizement and exaltation, at
the expense of the Divine presence… It is not that no Muslim could imagine nor create a titanic
and Promethean art as the Enlightened or Modern period demonstrates, but that no Muslim
would do so as long as the imprint of spirituality and consciousness of her Sustainer, upon the
soul of the Muslim remained strong. This attitude is also seen in the approach and application of
most Islamic Sciences, Architecture and craft. (Nasr. Islamic Art & Spirituality)

The world of Islamic Art and Architecture sprouts from the recitation and writing of the
Word which is the Word of revelation- the Quran. Islam bases its fundamental position for
Humanity on an entirely monotheistic way of life and the role of being a vicegerent in this
Universe to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave and maintain peace and justice, with
nature and their humanity, with cradle to the cradle balanced instruments, in their respite on the
earth. Where the Muslim begins her journey by the Shahada or profession of faith, by 'Negating'
and 'Affirming' the existence of One Creater and Sustainer of the Worlds: La-illah-ha-illallah-
"There is no God but One Creator epitomized by the name Allah". This statement reflects an
opposition, which forms the essence of all spirituality in Islam and the making of Islamic art and
the further extension –Architecture as craft and craft as architecture. This statement reflects the
struggle of the Muslim to be in balance with her 'Inner' self and the 'Outer' natural world her
palette, in order to truly know peace. It is through the action of Inner self reflection called
'Tasawwuf' or the (ilm) science of knowing the heart through remembrance, upon the soul and an
outer application, as a Verb not Noun, upon the natural world within the community of humanity
that the human achieves balance and fulfills the role given to her as the Vicegerent of the
Designer in the Universe. Through this action of negation and affirmation the root meaning of
Islam is maintained which, comes from the root word for peace and submission to a natural way.
In the Quran the world of Nature as a sign or ayah is constantly used for the human to know the
reverberation of their own creation. As seen through chapters in the Quran called the Bee, the
Ant, the Spider, which use examples of small marvels of creation and their habitat, as examples
of community, cooperation, humbleness as metaphors signs of the pattern of creation reflecting a
Divine Designer.
As the Muslim Mystic Rumi said, "The harmony between opposites is the principle of
this World”.
It should be emphasized that in order to understand Islamic Art and Architecture it is vital
to understand that mainstream Sufism (the English word) and its actions is a transformation of
'Tasawwuf' through Dhikr (remembrance), and is not and never has been, a doctrinal system, or a
school of thought (madhab) nor a sect of Islam. It is a tool of Islam of understanding the
body(jism), the mind(aql), the spirit(ruh) and the self(nafs)towards developing a sound and
balanced heart. It is a system of various practices and sciences or 'ilm', and it or Sufism was never
known by name in the age of the Prophet or his companions.
Islam consists of a Divine Law (Shariah) or the outer framework, a Spiritual Path(Al-
Tariqah) or the Inner framework and the truth(Al-Haqiqah) which is the origin of both law and
the way. In essence the yearning of the Muslim to be with her Creator is accompanied by the
recognition of the need for outer structures, characters, morals and standards with a natural
diversity of melodies and reverberations not uniformity.
In Islam for the Muslim the letters the words and the verses of the Quran are not just
elements of a written language, but mystical profound entities of a sonorous space for which the
calligraphic form is the physical and visual vessel for the human entering this space of spiritual
consciousness to know the One, from which she is a reverberation. It is within the inner
dimensions of Islamic tradition that the Muslim seeks the origins of Islamic Art.
As Hossein Nasr says:" The primordial creative act was at once the Primordial Word
which is the origin of all sound and of the noble Quran as a sonoral universe, and the primordial
Point which is the origin of the sacred calligraphy that is the visual embodiment of the sacred
Word. The Primordial Word was not only the single Kun of Be! Whose echo created the whole
universe and which is contained in the noble Quran as sound. It was also crystallized in the ink
with which the Divine Pen(al-Qalam) wrote the realities of all things upon the Quran as the
'Mother of Books.'"(Ibid. Nasr.p17)

The Quran mentions the Pen or 'Qalam' in the first verses revealed to the Prophet
Muhammad(pbuh) from the Sustainer, through angel Gabriel in the chapter(sura) Al-alaq(The
Clot), where the Prophet is ordered to "Read-Iqra!: And thy Lord is most bounteous who
teacheth, with the Pen". While the chapter entitled The Pen (Sura al-Qalam) opens with the
Arabic letter 'nun' followed by the verse: "By the Pen and the record, which humans write". The
Letter nun in Arabic resembles an ink-pot, which contains the divine ink with which the
archetypes of all beings are written upon by the divine Scribe-the Creator as the Divine Intellect
and Designer.
In Islamic spirituality and mysticism the Sustainer first created the Pen or Qalam, then
the Ink-pot or nun. The sustainer begins the chapter, of the Pen with the lines 'nun' and then Pen.
In some traditions or Hadith the Qalam symbolizes the tongue and the 'nun' the mouth. The
Persian Muslim scholar Kamal al-Din Husayn Kashifi, in his Quranic commentary relates letter
'nun' to the first Light (al-Nur) as the first thing The Sustainer created and the last was Al-
Rahman, the Divine Mercy upon Humankind.
Maria Montessori in her revolutionary approach to teaching changed the course of
modern education discovered, through her work in 1907, with the poor children of San Lorenzo
in Italy that children learn to write several months before reading as she said following this
‘eureka’ discovery:
“Where did it come from?.… “ No one enforced it; and what is more, no one could have
obtained it by external means. Had these children, maybe found the orbit of their cycle like the
stars that circle unwearying and which without departing from their order, shine though
eternity”…And the stars have given light in their watches and rejoiced: They were called, and
they said: Here we are, and with cheerfulness have shined forth to Him that made them”. (Maria
Montessori, Her Life and Work, by E.M Standing p52,1957. Lee Havis 1998)
Islamic Calligraphy is seen as the human emulation of the Divine Act. Each letter has a
science, melody and personality, without an anthropomorphism, of its own and symbolizes, in its
visual form a particular Divine quality since the letters of the scared alphabet correspond to
features and qualities of The Sustainer as the Divine scribe.
It was upon the death of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in 632 AD the successive leaders
called Caliphs began putting to writing the Revelations uttered by the Prophet. It was during the
Caliph Omar where the compilation of the Quran began in writing. It was the scribe, Zaid ibn
Thabit who also had served as a secretary to the Prophet during his lifetime, who was assigned
the role to collate, compile the revelations into a book.
Hence begins the Islamic civilization and the development of calligraphy styles and the
Art of Islam which radiated as a continuum through Architecture, illumination, textiles, ceramics
and the writing of the Quran itself, where the word itself was used as the adorning motif keeping
the Muslim soul and body in constant Dhikr of their Creator and balancing the human as the
reflected Divine intellect, from The Sustainer.
But there was an amazing happening, which had been introduced at a timely manner,
conveniently and coincidently which as a Muslim I call an occurrence not by chance but by a
Divine purpose. It was the introduction of paper in the Islamic world. Paper was introduced from
China in 751 via Samarkand. It was a turning point in the art of writing. It was a powerful
medium for the transformation of knowledge and the effects are seen in such diverse realms of
human activity expressly at this time in Islamic world, as literature, mathematics, geography,
astronomy, sciences, commerce and the arts, in the 8th and 9th century; it spurred a change in the
arts-metalwork, ceramics and particularly textiles. It played a significant role in the countless
human inventions and would re-form Arabic calligraphy. It also allowed the common Human
access to writing and it was no longer held a place for the wealthy, as Papyrus being expensive
had maintained thus far, as a monopoly, in the world of languages and writing. Paper created an
unprecedented event, in world history as the Islamic Civilization spread. Unfortunately the
present Muslim world does not emulate the wisdom (Hikmah) of Islam though Muslim, as the
early communities tried to espouse.
Paper was invented in China a century or two before the Common Era. Nearly a
millennium would pass before Europeans would first use paper and did not make it themselves
until the 11th and 12th century. European Christians learned about Paper from the Muslims, the
moors of Spain, who established the first paper mills in Europe. The paper makers transformed
rags and other waste fibers into strong and supple writing material.
So as Papermaking was being improved, simultaneously the world of the sciences and
philosophy was being improved and documented and styles of calligraphy, its geometry and the
recording of the Quran became a vibrant art form throughout the entire lands of the Islamic world
each cultural region developing its unique style.
In fact quite interestingly, like the Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Islamic lands has
access to paper as soon as it was made. One of the earliest examples of 'Arab' paper is a Greek
Manuscript on the teachings of the church fathers, probably copied at Damascus around 800 AD,
only a few decades after Muslim papermakers had set up shop in Baghdad. In the nineteenth
century some 300,000 documents (known in Hebrew as a geniza) of the Palestinian Synagogue in
Fustat (old Cairo). The geniza documents, largely from the mid tenth to the mid thirteenth
centuries, pertain specifically to the Jewish community but have an enormous implications for
understanding medieval Islamic commercial society. The documents show how paper supplanted
papyrus, which had been used in Egypt for 4 millennia, and became an indispensable medium of
communication.
Calligraphy styles openly fit into two broad categories with some minor variations: the
'Wet style' rounded or Cursive and the 'Dry style', rectangular or Kufic which variations are used
to this day. These were established in the first dynasty of the Islamic world-The Umayads of the
7th and 8th century. As times evolved each style developed a distinct sub style or variation within
each major form, based on regional influences and ruling dynasties from the Ummayad, and
Abbasid dynasty in Persia, to the Sejuk, and Ottoman Turks of Anatolia the Moors of Spain,
Fatamids and Mamluks of Egypt and the Mongols in Persia and China to the Safavids of Iran.
Different scripts were used for copying anthologies, epics, miniatures, for commerce and
all official documents state registrars, and philosophies and sciences.
It was in the Abbassid Dynasy of the 9th and mid tenth century, that Calligraphy entered
its phase of glory used to this day as a geometry. Ibn Muqlah created 6 styles: Kufic, Thuluth,
naksh, Riq'a, Deewani and Ta'liq and laid the basics of the Art, upon firm principles. He was
known as the prophet in the field of handwriting. His geometric principles established an order.
It's called his khatt al-mansub (proportional script) offered for the first time in Islamic calligraphy
a fixed unit of measurement-the rhomboid point of ink lift by the pressure of the reed pen in one
spot. The upright vertical stroke of the 'Alif' was to be measured in its terms-some 3 to 5 to 7
points high. And the curved shaped as the 'nun' would be the diameter of the 'Alif.' So every letter
stood in a fixed place in relation to the 'Alif' or Rhomboid point. The mystical nature of the Alif
is the first letter of the most beautiful name of the Creator-Allah which means one, which is a
reverberation of all the names or attributes of the Creator of which 99 are the most beautiful.
These are qualities which upon inner reflection and outer application the human can qualify
herself …a life long journey since it entails testing and a struggle to evolve a sound moral
character, 'with' the grain of Nature and the Nature of the Human-hence a sound heart.
Inks used to write and record the Quran were of many colors based on the soot or lamp-
black mixed with water and gum Arabic. Other ingredients are indigo, minced gall-nuts and
henna. Then the ink was strained through silk. The pen- its power to preserve knowledge and
extend thought overtime and space was a divine gift; Ink was compared to the water of life that
gives immortality while human beings were likened, to so many pens in The Creators script. So
calligraphy is the plainsong of the Divine as the Muslim struggles to learn the ability to tune
herself into the voice, of the Divine in all spheres of action.
This is just an introduction to a drop of the vast knowledge partaken in the Islamic World
in terms of the Islamic Art.
This introduces the thesis of this writing upon the Pen and Inkpot. The Pen and the
Inkpot is not just the Divine pen and Divine ink, but can be metaphorically viewed as an
extension of the human from the inner spiritual world to the outer contextual world as one who
makes marks on the universe with the materials on the universe. This Human is likened to an
Architect, as a pen who builds for humanity to create a sustainable Earth. This human begins with
her pen as the tool of marking the Earth; as a vicegerent using the natural palette with its
resplendent materials each with a vibrant tune. This Pen being a reflection of The Sustainer or
‘Rabb’ has a choice to either make sustainable and democratic marks with her technologies or
instruments, in balance with the natural world and qualify herself as a sustainer building a world
and safeguarding its resources and human dignity or she can deliver herself, as a conqueror of the
universe. This human can articulate marks, with her invented pens or instruments, on the earth as
she dips into the inkpot of the earth, by simultaneously dipping into the inner soul, consequently
partaking in knowing the heart through the Words and sound, of the Divine on a palette or she
can leave her inner self unnourished and subjugate herself and humanity. To understand the outer
(Batin) and inner(Zahir) of the Designers attributes and presence can reverberate the pen and the
inkpot as emanating from the divine Pen and the Inkpot from the seat of the human heart.(Qalb)
I ask you my humanity should it not be our responsibility to preserve our Earth and be
balanced with it and ourselves? All prophets and revelations and philosophies, in time past taught
that which is balanced. In other wards the pen are the tools or instruments or technologies and
the inkpot is the materials of Nature. Presently, from the pens we build, and the ink of the Earth
we use, we are running out of ink and our pens are subjugating, humiliating and scratching,
through the paper of our Earth and the dignity and oppression of humanity, to eventually tear….to
leave fallow in waste our blue celestial sea.
So I leave you with the note from a Muslim woman and your fellow human…can we dip
our pens and use our pens as they dip into our inkpot of earth and our humanity, which do not tear
nor tear? Or do we prefer to go dry where these pens will no longer siphon any more ink from the
earth or let our hearts harden, as conquerors of the universes alchemy?
Islamic Art is one vehicle for an expression, which basis its contemplation on the
balancing of the inner and the outer human to establish a humanity as armaments of peace and
justice. This thesis leads to the concept of the inner and outer struggle of humanity from a child to
adult and their resultant articulations. All humanity materially began from a small clump of flesh
to a fetus, a baby, a child then to form an adult.
But the adult today is unbalanced. The inner and outer is fragmented in a world against reason.
Maria Montessori upon the revelations of writing and reading observed, from teaching
small children:
“A Natural discipline of this kind seems to transcend its immediate environment, and to
show itself as part of a universal discipline ruling the world. It is of such discipline that the
prophet speaks as something men have lost…One has the impression that this natural discipline
must provide the foundation for all other forms of discipline, determined-like that of social
life…this fact of order and discipline being so closely united as a to result in freedom… “ Of such
is the kingdom of Heaven”. (Maria Montessori, Her Life and Work, by E.M Standing p.52,1957.
Lee Havis 1998)

The Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) said: ” Heaven Lies beneath the Mother’s feet”.

Ultimately, Islamic Art a spiritual art is a reflection of the inner soul and using the
science of knowing the heart to know the inner world, which reverberates an outer world, is the
contemplative understanding of an Art form which encourages and celebrates not the making of a
Renaissance Man or Promethean Man, but the stitching of a Sustainable Human (Insan).