Atia Jilani: Writing the Qur’an
Atia Jilani is a self-taught calligrapher, a painter and a writer living in the village of Mohammad Abad. She is the first Asian woman to inscribe the entire Quran in the elegant calligraphic style of Naskh, despite never attending an art school. She inscribed the verses of holy text on cardboard paper with the help of two handmade calligraphic pens. The entire project took seven years to complete. Her calligraphic Quran has been compiled in six volumes, each containing five Quranic sections (paras). Her exceptional talent has been widely recognised, and her Qur’anic art has been exhibited twice by the Al Hamra Art Council.
Jilani belongs to a family that is deeply connected with art in its various forms. Her great grandfather, Syed Bilal Shah Jilani, grandfather, Syed Mubarak Shah Jilani, and uncle, Syed Anees Shah Jilani were prominent writers. But her major inspiration comes from her mother Syeda Ameer-un-Nisa Jilani, who not only recognised Atia’s artistic talents but also encouraged the artist within her. Ameer-un-Nisa was a thoughtful observer, a realistic poet and a fluent narrator of feelings and thoughts; and Atia has discreetly adopted her nature and qualities.
During her childhood, Atia fell deeply in love with words, their shapes and the feelings that are associated with their appearance. She spent her childhood drawing alphabets in the air and on the surface of waters, adoring the vivid movements of her hands when they drew words instead of just writing them. These alphabets drawn on water in water tubs, gradually transformed into words and then sentences; and the artist inside her grew stronger with the passage of time. Later, she practiced different approaches for drawing words with simple pens on pieces of paper, on water with handmade waves, and by melting candles on cloths. To satisfy her passion, she also worked on her handwriting skills, to make sure that the words she wrote were drawn beautifully on the paper.
Later, she started inscribing Quranic verses for her grandmother, who gave them to anyone who wanted them. Arabic words and letters have their own unique composition, which openly exhibits artistic style. And it is the splendid architecture of Arabic letters that inspired Atia to pay more attention to Arabic calligraphy.
Once she decided to inscribe the entire Quran, says Atia, she found herself thinking about the purpose of her project. ‘Why am I doing this?’ She did not know. Was it for fame? To stand out as an individual? Her questions brought vague and obscure answers. In the end, she says, she realized that the purpose lay somewhere in her love for God. She thought only of God, and never thought of reasons and purposes again. Calligraphy became a consistent element of her daily routine; she finds it impossible to separate it from her own self.
She lived in the countryside with no access to art supplies or painting accessories. So she made her own pens. In her entire project, she used only two pens, which she dipped in and wrote with regular ink. She drew on ordinary paperboards, which are rough and rigid, bought from the local market. At the beginning of her project, Atia found it quite hard to arrange the chapters of Holy Quran as they are arranged in conventionally published copies. She wanted an arrangement which left no empty space on the page, a task that turned out to be exceptionally hard. She kept changing the font size and rearranging the order but to no avail. Finally, she decided on a sequence of two-page spreads. It worked.
Atia wrote every day after breakfast. She had to be extra conscious of her work: a careless mistake would mean disrupting God's message. As she inscribed holy words, she says, her shoulders grew heavier, as if they were carrying the weight of God’s message. She found herself engraving these feelings in the form of words. Some invisible force empowered her and the appetite for perfection kept growing. She used a Qalmi Quran from Mubarak Urdu Library and a copy of Quran published by Taj Company for help, as they had been certified and checked already for any kind of printing mistakes.
She started her project in 1985 and completed in in 1991. When she finished writing the final chapter of the Qur’an, she called everyone in family and showed them her achievement. Her mother cried, her brother cried, and along with them, she cried. ‘It was the most blessed day of my life’, she says. She still remembers her mother saying, ‘When I realize that you have inscribed the entire Quran, I’m enthralled’. But Pakistan itself did not recognise her achievement till 2006, when Atia family moved to the city of Lahore and her work became widely known.
Atia is now working on a new project, calligraphing the Quran in bigger font thus making it easier to read for people with eyesight problems. But this project is an even bigger challenge. Inscribing Quran in life-sized letters requires more skills and perfection and she did not consider herself qualified enough to give a professional touch to this project. It was time to learn from a master calligrapher. She has successfully completed the first five parts of the Holy Quran, in two of which she was helped by her elder brother, Syed Ahmed Shah Jilani.
Atia Jilani says her work would have been recognised much earlier if she had lived in a city. But then in a city, with all its distractions, she might not have succeeded in keeping her promises even to herself. Country life is like the air; and its peace, like water. Because it helps you breathe, and satisfies your thirst. She believes that.
