Muhammad Badawi al-Dirani
1894–1967 · Damascus
Muhammad Badawi al-Dirani, called the master calligrapher of Bilad al-Sham, was born in 1894 to a family from Daraya that had settled in the Midan quarter of Damascus. He studied ta'liq with Mustafa al-Sibai for five years, then thuluth, naskh, diwani and ruqah for four years with Yusuf Rasa, the Ottoman calligrapher sent to Damascus after the 1893 fire of the Umayyad Mosque. He then worked for many years beside Mamduh al-Sharif, learning Kufic and jali diwani. In 1926 he opened a workshop near the Umayyad Mosque that functioned as a school for some forty years. His ta'liq, with its clear, balanced letters, became the basis of a Damascene style. He wrote inscriptions for Damascus mosques, the Ain al-Fijeh water building and the Parliament, and in 1939 placed a marble panel inside the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Among his many pupils were Mahmud al-Hawari, Muhammad Zarzur and Uthman Taha. He died in Damascus on 25 July 1967; Hashim al-Baghdadi wrote his tombstone.
Achievements
- Founder of the Damascene manner of ta'liq (farsi), with reworked letters and proportions.
- Opened a calligraphy workshop near the Umayyad Mosque in 1926 that served as a school for about 40 years.
- Inscriptions in Damascus mosques (al-Rawda, al-Mansur, al-Daqqaq and others), the Ain al-Fijeh water building and the Syrian Parliament after 1945.
- A marble panel with a Qur'anic verse in gold inside the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, 1939.
- Wrote the graduation certificates of the universities of Damascus and Aleppo.
- Syrian Order of Merit, first class, awarded after his death in 1968.
Taught by: Mustafa al-Sibai, Yusuf Rasa, Mamduh al-Sharif
Taught: Mahmud al-Hawari, Muhammad Zarzur, Ibrahim al-Rifai, Uthman Taha, Zuhayr Munayyini, Abd al-Razzaq Qusaybati
His work
His works are out of copyright, but no photograph of them with a free licence and a clear attribution was found on Wikimedia Commons; the only portrait is a non-free file on Arabic Wikipedia.
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 Nastaliq piece the store makes: Nastaliq collection.
Sources
- Arabic Wikipedia (citing al-Attari, Abqariyyat): family from Daraya in Midan, teachers Rasa and al-Sharif, works in Damascus and Medina, students, Order of Merit 1968, died 18 Rabi II 1387 / 25 July 1967 ar.wikipedia.org
- Syrian History Encyclopedia (syrmh): born 1894 Daraya, teachers al-Sibai 5 yrs, Rasa 4 yrs, al-Sharif 17 yrs, workshop 1926, Order of Merit 1968, died 25 July 1967 syrmh.com
- Stanford library record of the monograph on him (1894-1967) searchworks.stanford.edu
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).