Baghdad – IA – Aya Mansour
Taha Dukhan is a young man whose life has been filled with a passion for the art of drawing words and turning them into artistic paintings since his childhood, where he discovered his unique ability to transform letters into masterpieces, realizing from the beginning that he had a promising future in the world of calligraphy and its manufacture.
Taha’s teachers rely on him to write student records, using his amazing hand.
Today, Dukhan excelled in creating a new font, combining Arabic and Asian character, adding the font to the list of hybrid Arabic fonts.
Dukhan, who loves calligraphy in all its variations, confirms that he was following the instructions of his educational arts teacher when she asked him to imitate different styles of calligraphy.
Speaking to the (INA), he said: “The school was the one that discovered me, as my teacher was asking me to imitate paintings, in the Fatimid Kufic script, and when I was drawing them, I did not know how this art worked, meaning that I was drawing what I saw and it was beautiful.”
Language is the basis of everything
From here began Taha’s journey, as he began to feel that Arabic calligraphy was his artistic language, and he began to wander around mosques and get inspired by the art of Arabic calligraphy from the covers of books.
He added: “I began to imitate these works in drawing and not just as calligraphy, and this was the beginning of my journey in the world of artistic calligraphy.”
He confirms in his interview with (INA): “I learned Arabic calligraphy on my own after I had limited knowledge. I researched extensively and acquired books and notebooks related to Arabic calligraphy, and I began to study them with an individual effort.”
He explains, “After that, I got to know teachers specialized in this art and asked them for advice and guidance.”
At first, Taha faces difficult experiments in order to mature the calligraphy and to have rules that can be followed so that the calligrapher can work on them so that the calligraphy appears clearly.
He explains, “He has never visited Japan or China nor learned their languages, especially since they write with a brush.” But Taha invested hours of research in his own way, and added, “I have knowledge of all types of Arabic calligraphy. Over time, I have mastered them all.”
He explains, “In my beginnings, I used all available tools such as pencil and ink, but with development, I had to buy tools dedicated to Arabic calligraphy, and then I started making them myself at home, using ink, paper, and pens, until everything in my room was related to calligraphy, and it was of my own making.” “
Mixing cultures
Chinese or Japanese calligraphy attracted Taha’s attention with its strange shape, and he wanted to blend East Asian and Arabic cultures together.
He began designing this font after a long time, as he told the (INA): “The idea had been manifesting in my imagination since the beginning of 2015 after I joined the Iraqi Calligraphers Association. I started implementing the letters in mid-2017 and officially launched the font in 2019.”
Dukhan explains that this is the case, and in order to complete his calligraphy, he communicated with Japanese and Chinese artists via social media, and learned from them how to write their words and letters.
The font was named “Niho Arabic” using two syllables, where “Nihon” means (Japan) in Japanese.
The first syllable was taken as “Nihu” without the letter Nun, so that its pronunciation matches the pronunciation that follows it, “Arabic.” Hence, its meaning is “Japanese-Arabic script” (Ni-Arabic).
Dukhan believes that one of the features of this calligraphy is that it “inspires the viewer that it is Japanese or Chinese, but after focusing it becomes clear that it was written in Arabic letters.”
He explains, “The first word I wrote was ‘Freedom’ in Neho-Arabic script, as an expression of the freedom he found in this new script.”
Other languages in Arabic
The young calligrapher’s ambition did not stop there, but rather he continues his efforts to develop new types of Arabic calligraphy, inspired by various traditional scripts such as cuneiform, Aramaic, and Indian script.
He also publishes some of his works that are derived from these scripts, as he aspires to spread Iraqi culture through an artistic lens. He began publishing works that he borrowed from the ancient Aramaic script in its Mandaic branch, as he works to adapt them to suit contemporary Arab taste.
Dukhan launched two types of new Aramaic-Arabic fonts, which he called “Nasuriya” and “Dahaba,” which can be added to the fonts used in modern printing.
The word is a bridge between two languages
Calligrapher Jamil Muhammad said in his interview with the (INA) that “what Taha is doing is innovation and new creation in the wide world of Arabic calligraphy, and despite the classicism of this art, especially the Arabic one, many talented people have been able to pass the stages of creativity by adding new lines.” He added, “Taha’s script is useful for use in creative companies, because it is very modern.”
He continues, “I have never witnessed, throughout my career in the world of calligraphy, a calligraphy like this. What distinguishes it is that the way it is written and used is vertical, that is, like the way Japanese calligraphy is used, and carries the same drawings and lines. This requires high talent, creativity, and intelligence,” pointing out that “we aspire to To see new lines by Taha, enriching the Arabic language.”
Muhammad explains, “Taha was able to combine two completely different civilizations with one word, which is Arabic and Japanese. It is not easy for them to come together, but he was able to do so through language, and make the word a bridge connecting two worlds.”