S6E7: Pointed Tips: Maghribi Script and the Arabic calligraphic tradition, with Umberto Bongianino

Join Umberto Bongianino as he walks us through one of the western Islamic world’s least appreciated artistic treasures: its calligraphy. For years, Maghribi calligraphy has been treated as amateurish, archaic, and unruly in contrast with the highly theorised conventions of Mashriqi calligraphy in the so-called centre of the Islamic world of Egypt, the Levant, and Anatolia. In this episode, Umberto challenges this view, emphasising the interaction of Maghribi calligraphy with multiple traditions specific to its geographical milieu.Maghribi calligraphy is traditionally written with a pointed tip (Ar. قلم مدبب) meaning that the line is always of equal thickness. It features distinctive curved letter forms, extended horizontals, and notation of certain Arabic letters below the main body.Umberto’s work on Maghribi calligraphy forms part of CallFront, a collaborative research project that attempts to draw attention to the calligraphic traditions of the “frontiers” of the Islamic world, amongst them Maghribi, but also sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, and China.Umberto Bongianino is Samir Shamma Associate Professor of Numismatics, Epigraphy, and Material Culture at the Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford. His research focuses on Arabic epigraphy, palaeography, the aesthetic of inscribed objects, and the arts of the book in the western Islamic world. His recent monograph is titled The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West: Maghribī Round Scripts and the Andalusī Identity.This episode is part of our series Peripheries which seeks to push our understanding of the cultural heritage of the Islamic world away from the traditional centres that we associate with it. With a fantastic range of guests we will examine places and topics often considered peripheral to the Islamic world and understand why they are in fact of central importance to the region’s cultural heritage, from Armenia to England, from Ethiopia to West Africa.