Arabic calligraphy in Palestinian criticism
In December 1927, Professor Abdul Qader Al-Shihabi, the calligrapher of the Palestinian government at that time, sent a letter of protest to the Palestinian government regarding the poor quality of Arabic calligraphy in Palestinian currency. Mr. Abdul Qader Effendi explained in his letter that it was his duty towards Arabic calligraphy to express his opinion on it in a manner derived from his practice of Arabic calligraphy. He stated that a general look at the printed models reveals the unfortunate truth that the government, in choosing the forms of the new currency, neglected in its choice a matter that it should have placed in first place.
A new Palestinian currency was issued to the people, but unfortunately, it was a currency that had no connection to the art of criticism. If it can be described as such, it was merely a collection of metal coins for circulation, nothing more. He mentioned that the currency came to record pages of history with a flawed art and a sickly script. The latter was evidence of the extreme level of neglect that could be reached in the history of currency scripts. The government acted stubbornly in this matter, without seeking the opinions of the artists and experts it had. Furthermore, the inscriptions on the currency were deficient on all margins.
The letter stated: I do not know if it is due to excessive and unparalleled care that such egregious errors are committed, such that three dots are added to the word “Palestine” until it becomes as if it has been transformed into ”Palestine.” This is not the matter, for the factor of generosity and bounty that was bestowed upon the word Palestine has been applied in the opposite way to another aspect of writing criticism, so it disregarded the ”mim” of “fifty” until it cut off the numerical word, after which it became “fifty.” May God guide us to linguistic dictionaries that reveal to us the secret meaning of this: ”fifty.” So can negligence reach a greater extent than this?.
Mr. Abdul Qadir did not mention the banknotes, but he may have another message regarding them, which is the generally poor quality of Arabic script on the Arabic writings displayed on them.
Sources: Palestinian newspaper archives
Dr. Mazen Ibrahim
