A workshop in association with the exhibition Lines of Faith: Astronomy and the Art of the Astrolabe in the Islamic World.
Joumana Medlej leads this afternoon event where we learn all about the Abjad numerals (hisāb al-jummal): their origins, how they work, and how they came to be replaced with today’s Indian system, dismantling a few myths along the way. After visiting the exhibition to see them used on actual astrolabes, we will practice writing numbers using the 28 Arabic letters and look at a few Kufi styles devised to write tiny numerals. We’ll finish by applying these new skills to fill out a paper astrolabe, to then take home.
This workshop is open to all. Knowledge of the Arabic script is helpful but not necessary. All materials will be provided, including pencils - but if you have a preferred mechanical pencil do bring your own.
About Joumana Medlej
Joumana Medlej is an artist from Lebanon whose connection with early Arabic calligraphy was awakened by years spent working with master calligrapher Samir Sayegh in his Beirut studio. She specialises in the Kufi scripts, roughly corresponding to the Abbasid era, and in the materials of the time, having abandoned store-bought paints for the old ways of natural colour-making. She studies both scripts and art technology directly from primary sources, and is now drawing on her practitioner’s experience to translate medieval Arabic manuals and bring the voices of past masters to a general audience.
Her book Stories of Abjad was published in 2023, and she has just completed a new project as Visiting Research Fellow in Creative Arts at Merton College, Oxford.
See more at her web site.
