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O C TO B E R 1 8 , 2 0 2 1 B Y Y U S H AA A B D U L L A H

The Arabic Script in Nigerian

Hands: Ustadh Yushaa
Abdullah on Arabic
Calligraphy Education in
West Africa

: Two of Yushaa Abdullah’s artworks were exhibited and

sold at the Dubai International Arabic Calligraphy

Exhibition, 2017

Although Latin has become the dominant

script in West Africa, one Nigerian
calligrapher, Ustadh Yushaa Abdullah, has
made major efforts to bring back the culture
of the Arabic script to the region. Yushaa,
who completed his studies in Turkey, is West
Africa’s first certified calligrapher (he holds
an ijazah). Here, we talk to him about his
work, what led to his interest in Arabic
calligraphy and the school he founded to
teach various Arabic calligraphy scripts to
students in Nigeria and the Republic of Niger.
Yushaa also plans to develop a teaching
technique alongside Nigerian scholars to
more widely disseminate the rules for writing
the traditional Arabic Hausawi script, which
was developed in West Africa and is still
taught to children in Nigeria today as part of
their Islamic studies training.

What drove you towards learning Arabic

calligraphy? Did anyone influence you in
this direction?

First copied calligraphy sketch, Yushaa Abdullah, 1989

During my secondary school days, I

subscribed to the Iranian monthly news
magazine Echo of Islam, which contained
beautiful calligraphy artworks. This led me to
become so passionate about calligraphy and
my passion pushed me to try my hand in
imitating those calligraphy artworks using
ordinary pencils. The replicated artworks
attracted the attention of people in my
community. They started placing orders, and
their patronage became a source of income
for me, allowing me to develop a strong
interest in the field. I pledged to further my
academic career in Arabic calligraphy.
Unfortunately, though, I could not find any
institutes or learning centers that offered
training in Arabic calligraphy in the Black
African region. Upon graduating from
secondary school in 1987, and being the best
chemistry student and winner of a chemistry
competition in Bauchi State in Nigeria, I
secured automatic admission to study
chemical engineering at Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, but declined the admission
in order to not allow anything to divert my
attention from calligraphy. I continued to
work as a full-time artist, offering calligraphy
artworks to mosques, schools, homes and
other Muslim buildings. Over the years, I
became well known in the mosque
decoration business in Nigeria and
neighboring countries.

Decoration of Bashir Yuguda Mosque, Gusau, Zamfara

State, Nigeria, Yushaa Abdullah, 1993

In the meantime, I continued searching for

admission overseas through correspondence
to further my education in Arabic calligraphy.
After 20 years of struggle, I became
successful only in December 2007 when I
got an invitation from the Research Center
for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA)
to study with Grand Master Hasan Çelebi in
Istanbul, Turkey, giving me the opportunity to
become his first Black African student. By
virtue of being his first Black student, I took it
as a challenge to return home and spread
what I would learn from him and other
supportive teachers.

You have an ijazah in Arabic calligraphy and

you have granted students ijazat yourself.
How and with whom did you learn Arabic
calligraphy? How have you applied your
knowledge of Arabic calligraphy in Nigeria
outside of teaching?

I studied both the Thuluth and Naskh scripts

with Grand Master Hasan Çelebi, Hattat
Ferhat Kurlu, and Hattat Mumtaz Durdu from
2008 to 2013, so my ijazah carries three
endorsements from three different masters. I
also took some lessons with Hattat Davut
Bektaş and Hattat Efdaluddin Kılıç. I granted
ijazat in both the Thuluth and Naskh scripts
to three of my students in 2018, five years
after my own graduation.

Before acquiring formal knowledge in

Istanbul, I had been practicing calligraphy as
an amateur artist, and as such, I had a lot of
experience working with mosque decoration
and producing calligraphy frames for homes
and offices. So, after obtaining my ijazah, I
revisited my previous artworks and
restructured them with authentic letters and
compositions in accordance with the rules
governing the art of calligraphy, making my
present projects more standard than the
early ones.

You run an IRCICA regional calligraphy

center in Kaduna that is dedicated to
teaching Arabic calligraphy and
disseminating your expertise in Nigeria.
Can you tell us more about it and its
pedagogical structure? What sorts of
students do you get? How do you advertise
the center?

After my graduation from IRCICA, and upon

my return to my country, I organized a two-
day workshop for the general public in order
to create awareness around the art of Arabic
calligraphy. Many of the participants showed
interest in learning Arabic calligraphy and
becoming calligraphers, which led to my
decision of opening a training center that
would allow any interested participant of the
workshop to learn Arabic calligraphy. I was
able to achieve all of this through my own
personal effort.

Eleven of Yushaa Abdullah’s (third man in the back row)

students, who completed the Arabic calligraphy curriculum

this year, holding out their ijazat in front of the IRCICA

regional center, Kaduna, Nigeria, 2021

After five consecutive years, three students

were able to complete the curriculum and,
therefore, obtained their ijazat in 2018. I took
their ijazat to Istanbul for approval from the
Grand Master Hasan Çelebi and they were all
approved. The three ijazat were also
presented to the then Director General of
IRCICA, Professor Halit Eren, who was highly
impressed by the students’ performance,
leading to his decision of allowing the training
center to be managed by IRCICA. He later
came up with the idea of expanding the
center’s training activities to allow it to
encompass the West African region. I have
been given a contract appointment as
IRCICA personnel to carry out the project. In
the same year, an official launching of the
center took place in Abuja, the Nigerian
capital, and it should begin activities shortly.
Upon his assumption of office, the new
IRCICA Director General, Professor Dr.
Mahmud Erol Kılıç, emphasized the
importance of the project: students from
West African countries will be admitted to
the training center in Nigeria under the
sponsorship of IRCICA. We now have about
11 licensed calligraphers who can teach, and
it is my hope that the project will be executed
smoothly. The students are mostly young
talented artists who have already developed
their passion for the art and are searching for
a way to develop their skills. I also have
students who are graduates of different
disciplines, such as Medicine, Law, and I even
have one student who is a Professor of
Archaeology.

I advertise the training center through

brochures containing pictures and text on
the center’s training activities as well as the
achievements attained by me and the
center’s most senior students. The
production of printed calligraphy frames
carrying our contact information also attracts
media houses that come for interviews,
allowing the training center to gain more
popularity.

You’ve
worked
on

Professor of Archaeology Mohammed Kabir

receiving his lesson from Yushaa Abdullah

decorating mosques in Nigeria. Can you tell

us more about this?

The mosque decoration business started in

1990 when I was an amateur artist. After
conceiving of the idea of decorating a
mosque, I contacted the management of one
mosque in my neighborhood and asked them
to permit me to decorate the mosque free of
charge. However, as this was entirely new to
the culture here, the committee of the
mosque debated the issue thoroughly before
they finally granted me permission. It gave
me the opportunity to execute the idea I had
conceived of and it also became an example I
could give to other clients.

After the completion of my first mosque

decoration project, I took some pictures of
my work and started going around the city
with the sample, searching for more projects
but only in 1992 did I succeed in finding
another project. It was this second project
that got noticed and from there on, I started
receiving commissions from across the
country and the neighboring Niger Republic.
The mosque decoration tradition has
become very popular amongst Muslim
communities in both Nigeria and the Niger
Republic.

What Arabic scripts do you work with the

most? Which scripts are your favourites?

Th
ul
ut
h
Jal
i is
m
y
fa
vo
rit
“Huwal Hayyul Qayyum,” Thuluth, Yushaa Abdullah,
e
2016
sc
rip
t because of its beauty and flexibility. I use it
in almost all of my mosque decoration
projects and creative art compositions. I love
the Naskh script too but I used it infrequently
in my previous work. I am currently receiving
training in the Diwani, Riq’ah and Nastaliq
scripts from my Turkish masters so that I can
give our students a range of options for
scripts to learn.

Although the Arabic script is not common

today in Nigeria, there are Arabic scripts
that were used prior to the adoption of the
Latin script, like the Hausawi script. What
can you tell us about their development,
appearance and use?

Surat from the Quran, Hausawi script on plaque, Sheikh

Abdullahi Gokaru (Yushaa Abdullah’s father), Nigeria, 1967

Islam came to Northern Nigeria from North

Africa through trade and the script used by
North Africans was Maghribi, making it the
first script known to our scholars. The same
Maghribi script was later modified to suit our
local language for easy written
communication. As such, the Hausawi script
is a modified form of the Maghribi script. For
many centuries, the Hausawi script was
popular in the whole region of West Africa
and it was used to write numerous copies of
the Holy Quran and other Islamic Books. In
the late 1950s, when Muslim students in the
region started having opportunities to study
abroad in Arab countries, they started
bringing back books that contained Arabic
scripts other than the Hausawi script.
However, at the time, these scripts were
considered foreign and, therefore, they were
not given much attention. My own father was
an Islamic scholar and expert in the Maghribi
script, and while receiving my Islamic
education at home at an early age, I was
taught to write and read in the Hausawi
script. My father wrote some verses of the
holy Quran on a plaque in the late 60s and
kept it as his masterpiece because of his
passion for beautiful writing. Alhamdulillah,
that piece of artwork was passed on to me
much later by family members after they
noticed the career path I had chosen for
myself.

Besides calligraphy, you have also done

logo design work. How has this background
in graphic design influenced how you
produce Arabic calligraphy artwork? How
has the digital medium influenced your
work?

Ibrahim Jimoh (from Yushaa Abdullah’s first class of

students) alongside his ijazah that displays Surat Al-Fatihah

in Thuluth and Naskh, 2018

As young as 8 or 9, I was curious about all

sorts of artworks in my surroundings,
including on walls, billboards and banners. I
wondered how the graphics were created
and I tried copying many of them myself.
Since then, I started creating drawings that
attracted the attention of my immediate
community and I taught myself how to draw
the Latin letters. When I decided to become a
graphic designer, I designed a logo for my
own business in March 1989, and this was my
very first logo design. The name of the
business –which combines the names of my
parents Abdullahi and Khadijah– is
ABDUKHA GLOBAL ARTS. The logo
impressed many people who commissioned
me to design for them as well. I designed my
logo with the big dream of seeing my artwork
circulating across the world, and by Allah’s
permission, today I am living my dream,
alhamdulillah.

Logo
desi
gn is
a
sort
of
art
form
that
requi
res a
high
sens
e of
Very first logo design for personal business, Yushaa creat
Abdullah, ABDUKHA GLOBAL ARTS, 1989 ivity
beca
use
it involves bringing something that has never
existed into existence for use as an identity
for either individuals or organizations.
Although I am a self-taught logo designer, my
previous logos –both those completed
manually and those digitized– have been
examined and commended by a graphic
design professor in the Graphic Design unit
of Ahmadu Bello University, alhamdulillah.

Having had long experience with both Arabic

calligraphy and Western art through self-
taught practice, I believe that many forms of
art can be learned and practiced individually
at a high level by a gifted artist, but that is not
possible with Arabic calligraphy. I started
practicing Arabic calligraphy as a profession
in 1989 and I decorated many mosques
across Nigeria and produced countless
posters until 2007. However, upon my arrival
in Istanbul, I discovered that no letter I had
ever written was in accordance with its rule.
The art of Arabic calligraphy is hidden in the
hands of its masters.

“I believe that many

forms of art can be
learned and practiced
individually at a high
level by a gifted artist,
but that is not possible
with Arabic calligraphy.”

Buyers (Swedish diplomats) of “The Green Dome of

Medinah” (left) and “Migrating Goose” (right) by Yushaa

Abdullah, Istanbul, 2012

The creativity involved in logo design has

influenced my calligraphy compositions a
great deal because, like logo design,
calligraphy brings together the idea of
coming up with a never-seen-before concept
and the importance of the ability to
communicate visually. For example, there
was a call for artwork submissions for an
international art exhibition in 2012 by the
International Organization for Migration
(IOM) in Istanbul where the theme of the
exhibition was the Art of Migration. In order
for a given artwork to qualify for the
exhibition, it had to be visually related to the
concept of migration and an essay had to
describe it. One of my submissions, titled Ark
of Beauty, depicts an imaginary ship –a
calligram composed using an Arabic
calligraphic style– which I metaphorically
used to migrate to Istanbul to study
calligraphy, the art of beauty. The other work
I submitted, titled Migrating Goose, is also a
calligram of a goose, which is known to
exhibit behaviors associated with migration
from one location to another. Amazingly, I
emerged as the only calligrapher in the midst
of other visual and conventional artists in the
event. The two artworks were sold during the
exhibition period and I also received three
orders after the exhibition, two of which
came from non-Muslim Swedish diplomats.

It was an exciting and unique event in which

the visual effects of Arabic calligraphy and
other conversational paintings were
displayed together hand in hand to convey a
common message. It was during this
exhibition that I was noticed by the
organizers of the Islamic Art Festival of
Malaysia, and I was eventually invited by
them in 2013 to participate in their festival
with two artworks. I am also displaying three
artworks in an exhibition taking place next
year (2022) from March 7 – 11 in Paris, in sha
Allah.

“Al-Azeez Jalla Jalalah,” Thuluth, Yushaa Abdullah,

2012

consider digital tools as modern means that

allow us to serve the needs of our digital age.
If you trace back the history of tools used by
old calligraphy masters, the early ones had no
access to the tools we have today –like
ordinary calligraphy paper, tracing paper, and
pencils– to sketch out compositions, so they
used the available tools of their time. If the
aesthetic nature of the original letters drawn
by these old masters is to be maintained in
the process of mass production printing, the
calligraphers of today should master the use
of computer programs for graphic design, so
that they can manipulate the letters they
draw professionally without requiring other
hands. I learned how to use the CorelDRAW
program by enrolling in a computer training
center in the 2000s, and by later employing
the service of a CorelDRAW specialist who
came to my house to give me lessons. I
mastered the program after a series of
assignments that involved producing graphic
designs. Having accumulated enough
experience using the program, I then started
using it to digitize my calligraphy
compositions. The program makes it easier
to measure, position and mirror my letters.
The Karalama method was used and is still in
use by some calligraphers where the
calligrapher writes numerous letters and
selects the best ones for insertion into their
composition. This method is so tedious, but
using a computer can be a substitute and
easier tool for carrying out the Karalama
exercise.

“… the calligraphers of