by Rafik Schami
Hassan Barak spoke, straight out, about the decline of Arab culture. “Hamid Farsi was a prophet. And so you see,” he said, hoarse with agitation, “a prophet in Damascus ends up as a rumour. We are a nation damned by God. We attack and persecute our prophets. They are banished, crucified, shot or sent to lunatic asylums, while other civilized countries revere them. Hamid Farsi is living in Istanbul to this day,” he said solemnly. The man who, as a little errand boy over thirty years ago, had taken Hamid Farsi’s advice to turn his back on calligraphy amd become a motor mechanic instead was now the best known and richest garage proprietor in Damascus. He was slow to calm down. He went on to tell the astonished radio listeners how, on holiday in Istanbul, he had by chance recognized a piece of calligraphy as the work of the master Hamid Farsi, and paid a high sum for that unique piece. The owner of the gallery where he bought it described the calligrapher precisely. But when he, Hassan Barak, asked if he could see his old master, the gallery owner dismissed the idea. The master calligrapher, he said, laughing as if it were a joke, would not see or speak to any Arab.
A little while later the radio journalist said that the garage owner had shown him, as well as other reporters and visitors, the calligraphic painting. Professor Bagdadi, an expert, had confirmed that it was certainly from the pen of the man who had signed it. He could also decipher the signature. It took the form of a rose of Damascus, and read: Hamid Farsi.
Three hundred and sixty kilometres from Damascus, a young married couple had moved into a little house in Arba’in Street in the April of 1957.
The street was in the old Christian quarter of Aleppo, the Syrian metropolis of the north. Soon the husband opened a small studio for calligraphy, opposite the Catholic Assyrian church. His name was Samir, and hardly anyone was interested in his surname of al-Hau-rani. He was particularly notable for his friendly nature and the way his ears stuck out. His talent was not above the average, but you could see the pleasure with which he went to work.
Mosques and Islamic printing presses rarely commissioned anything from him, but as he charged less than other calligraphers he got enough work in the way of signboards and posters from cinemas, restaurants, and Christian printers and publishers. Father Yousef Gamal commissioned him to design all the books for his recently founded publishing house. In return, Samir sold pictures of the saints in his studio as well as postcards, ink for calligraphers, and stationery. And at the priest’s suggestion the calligrapher bought a small machine with which he could make the stamps for offices, schools, clubs, and associations.
However, that was only the way he earned his living. In every leisure moment he worked on his secret plan. He wanted to devise a new kind of calligraphy in Arabic script. Characters of a clarity that would make reading easier, show elegance, and above all breathe the spirit of modern times hovered before his eyes.
His wife Laila, as their women neighbours quickly discovered, was an excellent dressmaker and was the first in the street to own an electric Singer sewing machine. Soon she was better known throughout the Christian quarter than the young calligrapher, and after a year Samir was already known as “the dressmaker’s husband.”
Like the majority of Arab men, Samir wished for a son, but after several miscarriages Laila gave birth to his only child Sarah, a healthy little girl.
Later she became a famous calligrapher.
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
First published in 2010 by
ARABIA BOOKS Ltd
70 Cadogan Place, London SW1X 9AH
www.arabia-books.com
First published in German as
Das Geheimnis des Kalligraphen by Rafik Schami
© 2008 Carl Hanser Verlag München
Translation copyright © Anthea Bell 2010
Typeset in Minion by MacGuru Ltd
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eISBN : 978-1-906-69731-0
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