İsmail Zühdi (Yeni İsmail Zühdi, İsmail Zühdi the Second)
d. 1806 · Ünye & Istanbul
İsmail Zühdi was born in Ünye on the Black Sea coast. He is called 'the New' or 'the Second' to tell him apart from an earlier calligrapher of the same name. In the early 1750s his father, Mehmed Kaptan, took him to Istanbul, where he memorised the Qur'an and studied thuluth, naskh and riqa with Moralı Ahmed Hıfzı Efendi, a pupil of Eğrikapılı Rasim. His earliest known work is a Qur'an of 1175/1761. Under Sultan Mustafa III he became calligraphy teacher of the palace school, the Enderun, and kept the post until his death. He wrote thuluth and naskh in Hafız Osman's manner and was known for letters that needed no correction; he also made close copies of Şeyh Hamdullah and Hafız Osman. His pupils included his younger brother Mustafa Rakım, whom he licensed, and İbrahim Şevki. He died in Istanbul on 12 December 1806 and was buried at Edirnekapı; Rakım wrote his gravestone.
Achievements
- Taught calligraphy at the palace school (Enderun) from the reign of Mustafa III until his death.
- Wrote thuluth and naskh in Hafız Osman's manner; later masters praised letters that needed no correction.
- Taught and licensed his brother Mustafa Rakım.
- Qur'ans dated 1218/1803 and 1219/1804 are in the Topkapı Palace Library (Emanet Hazinesi 128; Medine 29).
- Wrote jali thuluth inscriptions, including the tomb of Şah Sultan, sister of Selim III, in Eyüp (1215/1800).
- One of his albums led Sami Efendi, a century later, to change his own jali thuluth.
Taught by: Moralı Ahmed Hıfzı Efendi, Hacı Mehmed Emin Efendi
Taught: Mustafa Râkım, İbrahim Şevki, Şanizade Mehmed Ataullah
His work
1795 · Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
1804–1805 · Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
1790 (1205 AH) · McGill University Library, Montreal
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
1790 (1205 AH) · McGill University Library, Montreal
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Write in the tradition this hand shaped.
Write in this tradition now →Living calligraphers you can buy from — signed originals on paper, from AED 550: Anwar Alhulwani (Thuluth) · Ahmed Alhawary (Jali Thuluth, Naskh) · Rasha Kasim (Kufi) — or every Thuluth piece the store makes: Thuluth collection.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 'İSMÂİL ZÜHDÜ, Yeni' (2001): life, teachers, palace post, works, inscriptions, students, death islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
- English Wikipedia: life, Mustafa Rakım, about forty Qur'ans en.wikipedia.org
- Turkish Wikipedia: same facts (tomb named wrongly) tr.wikipedia.org
- Arabic Wikipedia: Arabic name ar.wikipedia.org
- Wikidata item wikidata.org
Written by the MASHQ studio · last updated 2026-10-05. Further reading, the standard references in English: Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) · Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New York University Press, 1984) · Yasin Hamid Safadi, Islamic Calligraphy (Thames and Hudson, 1978).