Visual Dhikr™
returning to remembrance

Abu Dhabi will host the second edition of Al Mahabba Awards festival, aimed at promoting cultural and artistic renaissance of the Muslim world, from April 17 to 19.

The event is meant to encourage, promote and honour creative and artistic works on the life of the Prophet Muhammad such as songs, movies, television programs, documentary films, books, photography and painting, said the organisers.

Al Mahabba Awards are being organised by a group of young men and women from the Arab and Muslim world under the supervision of a select group of scientists, clerics and artists with the support of several UAE and Saudi Arabian companies.

The event is being held under the patronage of Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces.

The award festival recently set up its board of trustees, comprising several imminent public figures.

The members includes Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE minister of foreign affairs, who will serve as chairman of the awards, Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayah, Shiekh Al Bouti, Dr Abdal-Hakim Murad, Al Habib Ali Jafri, Dr Mohammed Abdo Yamani, Professor Abla Kahlawi, Noha Azzam, Dr Amal Kubasi, Sheikh Hamdan Al Mazroui, Dr Walid Fitaihi and Yousf Ali.

The judges committee is chaired by Professor Abdal-Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter) professor of Sheikh' Zayed chair at the University of Cambridge in Britain, where he, in his capacity as head of the Committee, will select a group of experts for award categories to select winners in each category.

Abu Dhabi TV will support the festival by broadcasting the activities of the festival and launching a publicity and advertising campaign to generate greater awareness, the organisers said.-TradeArabia News Service.

source

For Kouichi Honda, writing a beautiful line is what life is about. Getting every detail right — the subtle curves, the varying thicknesses and the density of the ink — matters to him as much as life itself.

The 61-year-old professor of international relations at Daito Bunka University in Saitama Prefecture is Japan's leading authority on Arabic calligraphy, a devotional art form that has evolved over the course of 1,400 years and has detailed rules determining every single facet of the practice, whether the script is executed on paper or vellum or is fired into the gorgeous ceramic tiling that can hardly fail to astonish any visitor to a mosque.

Full Article

I have to say, Honda is an exceptional calligrapher, his style is unique and his khatt is very accurate. He does not try to write Arabic in a Shodo style, but rather is influenced by Japanese art and composition.