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  • Jadval

    Jadval

    Jadval or “border” refers to the thin lines that surround the four sides of the text and separate it from the margins.  These lines come in different colors and are drawn by metal instruments known as qalam-e jadval or “border pens.”  Today, a European version of these pens, known as Terling, are used.  The thickness of the lines could be adjusted by turning a screw on the handle of the qalam jadval.

  • Qat‘ah Pardāzi

    Qat‘ah Pardāzi

    Qat‘ah makers would sometimes take one qat‘ah or chalipā and place it at the center of a page and would use cuttings from other qat‘ahs and paste them to the central qat‘ah in order to make a bigger and more attractive qat‘ah.  In this piece, this technique has been used with pieces of paper that are pasted along the border.

  • Raqam

    Raqam

    The tradition of signing or writing one’s name at the end of a manuscript or a piece of calligraphy is very ancient and dates back to the first centuries of Islam.  It is more common to find the name of calligraphers than other artists or craftsmen at the end of manuscripts and inscriptions since they, by their profession, were more involved with such means of writing.  There are certain phrases that have come to be customarily included in signatures or raqams; they usually point to the humility of the artists:  al-ḥaqīr (the humble), al-faqīr (the impoverished), etc.  Here, the artist, who had been imprisoned for political reasons, signs his name both as ‘Emād al-Kottāb and al-Mahbus (the detainee).

Siyāh Mashq, 1919 CE.  Archive of Iran's Association of Calligraphers

Text and Margins

The relationship between the text and margin is noteworthy when the paper used for the text and the paper used for the margin are different.

Margins are generally distinguished from the text with thin lines, called borders or jadval.  Depending on the fineness of the manuscript or book, it could have multiple margins of varying colors.  In fine manuscripts and albums, the paper for the text and the margin are usually of a differing type and color.  Sometimes, the text of a book would be written on two pieces of thin paper that were glued together so that there would not be a shadow from the text on the other side of the page.  For this reason, the paper used for the margin of the page would often be twice as thick as the paper used for the text.  When a single page was used to write on both sides, attention would be paid to choosing a paper with similar thickness with the text in order to avoid wrinkles.  

This is usually done when the margin is damaged.  A type of paper would be selected for the margin similar in color and thickness to the paper used for the text.  This way, the book would close flat, and there would not be wrinkles that would allow air to sieve through the pages.

This method of attaching a new margin would have been done with utmost care so that the paper of the text and of the margin were edge to edge and did not overlap.  Usually, the touching edges of the papers were then hidden from view with colored borders.  Because of the considerable degree of expertise and effort required to create these kinds of pages, this technique is found only in the finest of manuscripts or albums.

Siyāh Mashq

This refers to a stylized form of writing that incorporates the repetition of letters and words.  At first, calligraphers wrote siyāh mashq in order to warm up their hand before writing calligraphy earnestly.  Since the Safavid era, however, and particularly in its Nasta‘liq form, it has gradually become an independent genre of calligraphy and an artistic form in its own right.  In the modern era (since the Qājār period), it has become very popular as a calligraphic form of abstract expression.