Sini calligraphy
- Bronze Incense Burner
Calligraphy has always been a revered art form in China, which concurs with the ideal of Islam. Qur’ans from China follow a universal pattern, albeit with a sinicized effect. This point is demonstrated by the opening folio of a seventeenth-century Chinese Qur’an in the British Library wherein the calligraphers used a variation of muhaqqaq script, but the pen strokes show hints of Chinese calligraphic techniques. It was also decorated with a Chinese lantern with pendulous tassels attached to the hooks on the outer side of the structure. Chinese artistic style is also visible in the swirling lettering of the basmala inscription in a shamsa (sunburst) medallion appearing in a folio and the binding of an eighteenth-century Qur’an.
When considering the Arabic script’s extraordinary flexibility which allowed the calligraphers to adjust its shapes to different aesthetic principles, it seems a natural progression that Chinese Muslims would incorporate some characteristics of Chinese calligraphy into Arabic calligraphy.
To the untrained eye, it may not be easy to recognize what makes Arabic script Chinese in style. Shandong-born Master calligrapher, Haji Noor Deen, explained that in Chinese style, the Arabic script is not only written from right to left, but is also written from top to bottom, or from the middle and into different directions. The rules of proportion and ratios between letter height and width in writing the different types of Arabic scripts are not necessarily followed when writing in the Chinese style. For example, in writing the name of God (Allah) the letter (‘ lef) can be written and elongated in various ways (see images above). The Muslim calligraphers who write in the Chinese style follow whatever is most beautiful.
According to Haji Noor Deen, Chinese-Arabic calligraphy borrows elements from certain techniques of Chinese art, for instance, the technique of curving, of juxtaposing positive form and negative space, and the mode of the thin and the thick. In terms of shape, it incorporates the rectangle, square, circle, rhombus, fan, triangle, polygon, flower fruit and medallion into its visual vocabulary.
Examples of the types of brushes used in sini calligraphy include: a broad brush made of bamboo or wood (usually wrapped in cloth), a flax brush (with the shape of broom), and a straw brush.