Seal of Soloman, 2008 - “This Too Shall Pass”
Light black ink, ahar paper dyed with log wood, ebru paperr, gold
Mohamed Zakariya
Fine Art Group, LLC., copyright 2020
This text goes back to the early ages of calligraphy. As the story goes, the angel Gabriel came to the Prophet King Soloman with a gift—a ring inscribed with the words “This too shall pass.” The angel said the inscription refers to life, whether you are happy or grieving. The text was translated into Turkish some time in the 19th or 20th centuies and became a motto in times of distress.
The art of calligraphy can make the same old thing new again, and this is my version of the text from 2008. The piece is a levha (panel) written in ink on specially prepared and dyed paper. It is wet-laminated with marble paper borders made with indigo pigment The script is Jeli (large and clear) Talik.
When the corona virus pandemic appeared, most of us realized it would be an event of Goya-esque proportions. Indeed, those who are familiar with the terrible plagues that have affected Europe and Asia in the past have some sense of what we are facing. That is why I chose this simple phrase. We can all chip in, do our part, and be as brave as we can be. Help is around the corner. It will pass.
When the plague of 2020 struck, some old people like me were hardly hit. We didn’t suffer as did the many who lost jobs and went hungry or those who, sadly, perished and ended up in mass graves. We won’t forget. We marvel at our friends who survived, grieve those who were lost, and worry about what’s to come. Now is now.
As for me, cut off from my loving students and friends, I simply have to work. For my wife and myself, that is our nature. Studying and writing essays and correspondence have become my daily tasks. I hope my recent minor surgery will allow me to practice calligraphy again, which will mean learning it anew. Pen, pencil, paper, books, things to learn, life goes on …
As I was writing about Sheyh Hamdullah, the founding father of Ottoman calligraphy, I came across this hadith (saying of the Prophet), which he copied in a murakkaa (album). It seems particularly apt for these days of quarantine, and this is it:
“The Prophet of God, may God revere and greet him, said, ‘Be in the world as if you are a stranger, or crossing a road, and count yourself among the already dead. Whenever you wake up, don’t talk about tonight, and when it is night time, don’t talk about the morning. Take from your health for your illness, and from your youth for your old age, and from your ease for your labor, and from your life, for your demise. Because you don’t even know what your name will be tomorrow.’”
Photo Credit: Frank Wing
In 1960, Mohamed Zakariya began working as a machinist in a small Los Angeles factory catering to the aerospace industry. During this period, he refined his interest in the Islamic religion’s art and culture and began informal studies of the Arabic language and Islamic calligraphy. A man of varied interests, his work and studies took him to Morocco, Europe, and England, where he studied Islamic manuscripts at the British Museum. At the same time, he was performing slapstick comedy with the zany British group Bruce Lacy and the Alberts, a precursor of Monty Python. His interest in music, which involved making musical instruments, was profoundly affected by his many long stays in London.
Zakariya returned to the United States in 1967 and worked with the antiquarian impresario Oscar Meyer, for whom he crafted a variety of instruments from the history of science, as well as other artistic constructs. In the early 1970s, he moved to Virginia, where he found a wife, some cats, and a home.
In 1984 Zakariya went to Istanbul at the invitation of the Research Center for Islamic History, Art, and Culture to study Arabic-script calligraphy with two Turkish masters. He subsequently received icazets in Sulus/Nesih scripts from Hasan Celebi, in 1988, and in Talik script from the late Ali Alparslan, in 1997. Since then, he has pursued the calligraphic life at home and abroad, concentrating primarily on calligraphy in classical Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. He has had numerous exhibitions and fulfilled many commissions and teaches the art to a circle of serious students.
From 2004 to 2012, Zakariya was a member of the Joint Advisory Board, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by the university in 2012.
Zakariya is represented by Suleyman Cooke, Salon D’Art. His work may be seen at www.MohamedZakariya.com.