Earlier this year, the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi invited a Turkish calligrapher, Deniz Bektash, to teach its students the art of calligraphy. In a series of Zoom classes, she successfully trained a number of students by teaching them the foundations of calligraphy and helping them recognise the nuances of the Naskh script. 

The Naskh script is one of the many types of scripts used in the field of Arabic, Persian and Urdu calligraphy. Each form of calligraphy is unique to a region in the Islamic world. The Naskh script is used mainly for the Quran and is also very popular in Pakistan for transcribing Sindhi. Another script that is popular along with the Naskh script in Pakistan is the Nastaliq script, which is widely used for Urdu in newspapers, on banknotes and in textbooks.  

Deniz Bektash, who hails from the Ottoman Turkish School of Calligraphy, practises calligraphy in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. 

Her writings in Naskh script are known for being small, crisp and consistent. This is a welcome departure from the dominant trend in the field of calligraphy, where many calligraphers are drawn towards producing bold and monumental scripts such as Sulus. Deniz’s ability to write in small and neat script using a pen with a nib as small as one millimetre (mm) sets her apart from the rest.  

Renowned Turk calligrapher Deniz Bektash recently inspired students in Karachi to appreciate the dedication and skill required to take up the art form…

Born to a Dutch mother and a Turkish father, she sees herself as a cross-cultural figure, as she was educated in Istanbul and the United States of America (USA). She speaks fluent Dutch, Turkish and English. Today, she has students in different parts of the world, including Türkiye, the USA and Pakistan.  

“During my years as an undergraduate student of English at the Boaziçi University in Istanbul, seeing my unilateral focus on academics, my mother encouraged me to pursue a hobby outside of my demanding studies to be more well-rounded,” she says. “I took up lessons in Islamic Illumination (tezhip), that is the art of page ornamentation using patterns of flowers, leaves and geometry.” 

During this time, she discovered that she had good pen control and did well at illumination. However, she was yet to stumble upon a different form of art that required pen manipulation — one that she would soon consider her calling. 

She grew closer to the art of calligraphy during her time in the States. 

After completing her undergraduate degree in Istanbul, Deniz went on to Georgetown University in Washington DC to pursue her Master’s in Communication. On a visit to Chicago to attend the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Conference, Deniz met Ustad Mohamad Zakariya who was displaying his calligraphy. 

Deniz did not have an affinity for calligraphy until she met Zakariya. 

Ustad Zakariya introduced Islamic Calligraphy to the US. Trained by the great calligraphy hoja (teacher) Hasan Chelebi in Istanbul, Zakariya has practised calligraphy for over 40 years and successfully trained numerous students, won multiple awards and completed projects commissioned by the US President’s Office, including the iconic ‘Eid Greetings’ stamp for the United States Postal Service. This stamp with Eid Mubarak in flowing gold calligraphy was welcomed by Muslims across the US.

CALLING TO CALLIGRAPHY

 At that meeting in Chicago, Mohamad Zakariya advised Deniz to learn calligraphy and became her first teacher. 

He trained Deniz in the Riq’a script, which was originally a chancellery script used in the Ottoman court for writing everyday official documents. It is characterised by fluidity and a lack of embellishment. Riq’a is traditionally taught first to help students gain familiarity with the traditional reed Qalam (pen).

Deniz learned from Zakariya for two years, after which she returned to Istanbul and started training under Hasan Chelebi, who was Zakariya’s own teacher. With Zakariya’s blessings, Deniz continued her journey under the guidance of Hasan Chelebi, who is a revered figure in the field of calligraphy. He is viewed as a great master and a towering figure in the community of Islamic artists. 

Deniz spent four hours at a time at the atelier of Hasan Chelebi, practising cutting qalams, getting corrections from the ustad and observing the work of other students. During this time, Deniz met the leading calligrapher Davut Bektash and the two married in 2004. He naturally became one of her teachers, as Deniz continued to work on mastering the scripts. 

One day, six years after she first started calligraphy, Hasan Chelebi told Deniz she would receive the ijaza or diploma. 

The quality of her piece written in Naskh with a heading in the flowing, rounded Sulus script left no doubt that she had attained a high level of expertise and the ustads were ready to acknowledge this.

This gave Deniz permission to independently practise calligraphy, to sell her work and to teach. An ijaza is a cherished milestone for students of calligraphy and not everyone makes it this far. But it is by no means the end of the journey. The quest for improving and refining the hand is lifelong.

Today, Deniz is especially admired by women for breaking barriers in a field previously dominated by men. She has received many awards at various international calligraphy festivals and competitions, such as the seventh International Calligraphy Competition organised in 2007 in Istanbul and the Calligraphy Biennial Sharja in 2008. She was recognised by the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey in 2015 for her writing of several pages from the Quran. 

CALLIGRAPHY IN PAKISTAN

Deniz’s encounter with students of IBA became instrumental in reviving the status of calligraphy practice among young people in Karachi. The course was at maximum capacity with a waiting list. Calligraphy in Pakistan has declined in the face of Eurocentric influences on artistic practices and tastes. The ijaza system has ended and there is no sense of connection to ustads and only a handful spaces where aspiring calligraphers are able to enter to learn.

Calligraphy as an art that has often been ignored by all institutions in Pakistan that archive knowledge, be it museums or schools. This became evident when IBA students treated the course taught by Deniz lightly at first, treating it as a menial skill that can be picked up through YouTube tutorials. It was after their encounters with Deniz’s training workshops that they came to appreciate the fine nuances of the art of calligraphy.

“I did not think much of calligraphy, so I confidently filled in as a calligraphy teacher at my local madrassah despite having no training,” remarks one of the students. “After taking this course with Deniz, I have come to deeply appreciate calligraphy as a form of art.”

The students’ interaction with Deniz also inculcated in them an appreciation for local calligraphy. They learnt to read intertwined inscriptions on the Shah Jahan mosque in Thatta, a script that is hard to decipher for an untrained eye.

With major universities such as IBA creating courses in calligraphy and offering them to their student bodies, one hopes that the progress over the last decade in developing the art of calligraphy in Pakistan continues to be sustained.

 The author is an aspiring calligrapher and a faculty member at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA). 
She can be reached on her website www.hattadenizbektas.com and on Instagram @hattatdenizbektas

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 18th, 2023