Description

This highly interesting pamphlet with attractive pages in red and black photolithography is a facsimile of a manuscript on the Thuluth, a script of Islamic calligraphy, written in 1862 (1278) by Seyyid Mehmed Mecdi Efendi.

The text was prepared in Medina by one of the most prolific Islamic calligraphers of the 20^th century Mustafa Necateddin–elErzurumî (1912-1991) and published in Medina

The text is an elegant combination of the description of the script and examples of the letters with ligatures, carefully put in the system of red dots in margins. Thuluth (sülüs in Turkish, meaning one-third) is a script of Islamic calligraphy, named after the height of the lower loops, which embrace the three lower dots.

Not much is known about Seyyid Mehmed Mecdi Efendi, except that he was a member of the Mevlevi Order and probably a dervish of the Galata Mevlevi Order. He was a student of Mehmed Şevki Efendi (1829-1887), who modernized the Thuluth script to the form, known today.

This is possibly the earliest manual on the form of the script, still widely popular until the modern times.

The man, responsible for the publication was Mustafa Necateddin-elErzurumî, a famous Turkish calligrapher of the 20^th century, mostly active in Medina. In the tradition of the Ottoman calligraphy, which represented the roots of Mustafa Necateddin’s education, he still used Ottoman language on the title page.

We could not find any institutional examples.