Familiarity with Recitation Helps Enrich Quran Calligraphy
Speaking to IQNA, Mohammad Mahdi Mirzaee said he, himself, began learning Quran recitation to get acquainted with the Divine verses before starting calligraphy of the Quran.
He was born in 1974 in Ghazni, central Afghanistan, into a religious family. Several of his brothers are memorizers of the entire Quran.
He started Quranic calligraphy 18 years ago and has been a Qari for a longer period of time.
Mirzaee says reciting the Quran and reading Tafseer (Quran interpretation) help him better contemplate the meaning of the verses and better calligraph the verses.
“I have listened to 100 CDs containing speeches by Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli on Tafseer and have also read Al-Mizan Exegesis of the Quran by Allameh Tabatabaei and Noor Quran Exegesis by Hojat-ol-Islam Mohsen Qara’ati.”
He says the art of calligraphy has been in his family for generations. “My grandfather Mirza Ebrahim calligraphed the Quran,” he says. “My brother Mohammad Javad, who is currently a school principal in Pakistan, is also a good Quran calligrapher. My other brother Ahmad, a Quran teacher and Qari, also is active in the field of Quranic calligraphy.”
Mirzaee, who lives in Iran, says he has learned a lot from Iranian calligraphy masters like Hamid Ajami, Mohammad Ali Qorbani, Rasool Moradi and Esfandiar Sattarpour.
He says Quranic calligraphy is growing in Afghanistan and there are many talented youths active in this field.
