Arabic Hurufiya

Arab Hurufiya: Art and Identity is a book, which recollects the history of a modern art movement in the Arab world, called “Hurufiya”. Re-inventing calligraphy, and focusing on the formal elements of the Arabic letter, it is one of the most significant art movements that took place in the Arab world beginning in the 14th century, and peaking again in mid-twentieth century. This movement fuses the traditional and the contemporary, the letter and the sign, in a way that the letter is perceived as an artistic form and does not require to be read or decrypted. Written by Dr. Charbel Dagher in 1991, this is the first time that these texts are published in English, and are accessible to a non-Arabic speaking audience.