Qaligraphy

Beautiful calligraphy is an honoured tradition and high art in many parts of the world, especially in Asia from Japan to Turkey.  For a boy being educated in Canada, for me calligraphy simply meant good penmanship, of which I was proud, but it certainly didn’t imply any dimension of actual artistic merit, just neatness (and perhaps a hint of a good character).  In the Muslim world, which eschews graven images, calligraphy is elevated to the status of high religious art, the apotheosis of which is the adornment of mosques with holy words from the Qur’án.  Since the Bahá’í Faith was born, suckled, and weaned in this environment, it is therefore not surprising that the Scriptures of the Bahá’í Faith have been hand-copied and recopied, framed and illuminated (decorated with intricate borders, often golden), and often admired almost as much for their artistry as their spiritual content.  Bahá’u’lláh’s father and Bahá’u’lláh Himself were noted calligraphers.  Perhaps the most famous Bahá’í calligrapher contemporary with Bahá’u’lláh was Mishkín-Qalam, pictured below (the spit and image of John Lennon, no?), and his enduring legacy in the Bahá’í world at large is his rendering of the “Greatest Name” or “Most Great Name”:  “Ya Bahá’u’l-‘abhá” (“O Thou the Glory of the All-Glorious”).  Most Bahá’ís have this symbol is some form in their homes, from plaques to tapestries to bookmarks for selected books.

All well and good so far.  However, Bahá’ís, who fearlessly confront all manner of social and religious issues, often skirt the fact that the majority of the world does not read Arabic, nor that Arabic, like Persian and Hebrew, is read from right to left.  Many more people, however, can read English, and if one looks at Mishkín-Qalam’s masterwork, it seems blatantly to say “EVIL”  -- you simply can’t not see it, and by the time you explain it away, the initial effect has made a cicatrix difficult to heal.  This is not only fodder for anyone opposed to the Faith, but off-putting to anyone else as well.  One can only speculate as to how it works on the imagination, but it can’t be good.  We can’t just sweep this under the rug, for it is often the first impetus and conversation piece for teaching about the Faith.  I opine that we really ought to be more discreet in our use of this symbol and instead field questions about photos of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on our walls and end-tables, as people are always curious about our great-grandparents.

For eighteen years I had a music school in Markham, Ontario, and on a wall opposite the piano I had a beautiful Navajo sandpainting of Mishkín-Qalam’s Greatest Name on a brilliant turquoise background and surrounded by nine eagle feathers.  Dozens of people saw it daily.  One day a student of mine piped up and asked, “Why does it say ‘Elvis’?”  I don’t know if he was dyslexic, but clearly the musical training was progressing nicely.