Arabic Calligraphy : Naskh style for beginners

Rating:
Summary: Arabic Calligraphy 101
Review: This introductory workbook is for those who have no previous knowledge of Arabic and want to try writing in Arabic writing for the first time. Writing is in this case a misnomer because as the title suggests the emphasis is on calligraphy. The workbook, which is about the size of a standard magazine, starts with how to make a reed pen for calligraphy. The next part concentrates on the mufradaat (single letters), followed by murakkabaat (joined letters) and kalimaat (words). The book finishes with a gallery of beautiful examples of naskh calligraphy taken from throughout history. The presentation within each section is jumbled and unsystematic but not so much so that the text isn't worthwhile. The book is especially good at depicting the correct stroke order and the letters are large sized which a great help when just starting out. If you are a novice you will probably be happy with this book but will have preferred a more methodical, step-by-step presentation of the material.

For those without who want to learn to read as well write in Arabic The Arabic Alphabet by Awde and Samano is about as good of an introduction as one can find, however it doesn't have the beautiful examples of scripts and the large-size lettering that Arabic Calligraphy has (both books are cheap so go ahead and get the two of them.) If Arabic Calligraphy stimulates your appetite for more check out the richly illustrated Arabic Script: Styles, Variants, and Calligraphic Adaptations by Gabriel Mandel Khan. It depicts many of the styles besides naskh, traces their historical development, and discusses the latent symbolism that is present in many of these beautiful forms.

Rating:
Summary: A Must For Calligraph-a-holics!
Review: Though I've only read through this book, not yet having 'road-tested' it, I am thoroughly delighted in finding this slim volume and hope that further series (amateur, advanced, specialised) are forthcoming.

For starters, I think it should be stated that this book is not for someone who wants to gain an understanding of the Arabic alphabet, i.e. pronunciation. This is a book for someone who knows what the letters sound like and has a pretty good understanding of which letter is which. I don't see this as a fault at all and I hope no one else does. At some point, you have to stop second guessing your audience. That said, this book carefully details, just as Roman alphabet calligraphy books, the finer points of how to scribe each and every letter of the Arabic alphabet. All in all, this book is excellent for someone wanting more than the average 'how to write arabic' primer. It gives proper form as a guideline, while expressing that of course ideals cannot be exact on every writing. It gives hints on how to perfect the line of each letter and the best part: it carefully goes over possible forms and joinings of seperate letters with each other. There is a brief display of ligatures, which the author states is a whole new subject outside the scope of the book. I can only hope that is his way of hinting at a sequel!