The three secrets of this divine art -as quoted by Ali b. Ebi Talib (The 4th Caliph) - are hidden; the first one being in the hand of a master, the second one in making practice following the master’s instructions, and the last one being in living a righteous life as a good muslim.
Before writing the actual composition, the calligraphers would make many practices to find out the best forms of the letters and the words for their compositions. This was quite necessary for checking the quality of ink, the paper and the qalam (the reed pen) as well as heating the hand to write later without any hesitation. As the paper was very expensive and respectably valuable the calligraphers would never waste any piece of paper and cover it all with letters while making their practices. While these practice sheets had been simply neglected for years even by the calligraphers they suddenly became even more attractive and important in terms of exploring the creation process of a calligrapher on his way towards a well balanced calligraphic masterpiece. It is now an art form named “karalama”.
Here are some verses from The Qur’an, some lines from poems and a saying from The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that I find rather inspiring in explaining the importance of being “you, the unique”, while living with all the others. “Who pretends to look like the others is already considered as of them”.
The letters are all individuals and happen to be part of all that mixed chaotic composition like the human beings on earth who are affected by the globalization.
Black soot ink on paper.
Thuluth and Naskh scripts.
