Intricate art of calligraphy brought to life

IMAGINATIVE . . . Agha Nisar Ali Khan blends Islamic calligraphy in a drawing

OLDHAMERS got the chance to master an exquisite kind of art rarely seen outside mosques.

Naveed Aziz, ethnic minorities services officer at the Oldham Library and Lifelong Learning Centre, invited Agha Nisar Ali Khan, from Pakistan, to run Islamic calligraphy workshops.

The poet and artist works in a diversity of themes and techniques and has several national and international solo exhibitions based on Islamic calligraphy to his credit.

He has modernised the water colour calligraphy art and gave more than 90 visitors a chance to learn the special Arabic art.

Mr Aziz said: “Agha demonstrated basic calligraphy to the guests who were mainly from the Muslim faith.

“He had displayed between 40 to 50 examples of his work in the performance space. It was the first time we ran such a workshop in Oldham.

“Many people got to see for themselves the work created by Agha and loved to watch. We will be organising more Islamic calligraphy events at the library.”

Islamic calligraphy is the art of artistic handwriting and is especially revered among Islamic arts since it was the primary means for the preservation of the holy Qur’an.

Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish calligraphy is associated with geometric Islamic art — the Arabesque — on the walls and ceilings of mosques across the world.

Contemporary artists in the Islamic world draw on the heritage of calligraphy to use calligraphic inscriptions or abstractions in their work.