Presentation of the Project
During the medieval and modern periods, the use of calligraphy in Arabic script spread to all languages transcribed in the Arabic alphabet and its variants, giving rise to a multitude of styles on extremely varied supports (manuscripts, monumental inscriptions, objects, textiles…).
In territories far from the historical cradle of Islamic civilization where the rules of classical Arabic-script calligraphy were established, graphic practices often developed on the margins of the canon and appear to follow their own logic. New styles thus emerged, sometimes derived from canonical scripts, but most often based on a specific aesthetic and distinct modes of transmission. We have chosen to designate these regions as the "frontiers" of the Islamic world, in order to highlight both their geographical distance from the historical centre and their intense interactions with other cultural, linguistic and scriptural communities.
To document and understand the production and use of Arabic-script calligraphy across all these regions over the long term, the CallFront project brings together specialists from different disciplines (history, art history, codicology, anthropology, palaeography, epigraphy and archaeology) whose work focuses on these scripts.
CallFront is organised around two main research axes:
Bringing together, describing and documenting isolated corpora
CallFront draws on a shared digital corpus bringing together calligraphies that have until now been studied in isolation, enabling their systematic comparison and the identification of their connections. Developed using the open-source content management system Omeka-S, this corpus is hosted by the INHA. It builds on the results of the project's exploratory phase (2020-2022), which established description protocols forming the basis of an ontology of Arabic-script calligraphy.
To compensate for the scarcity of information in the literature on these frontier calligraphies, a collection of conventional sources mentioning, directly or indirectly, the existence of non-canonical calligraphies (biographies, hagiographies, historical chronicles), as well as lesser-known materials shared among calligraphers themselves (manuals, teaching models and corrections), has been organized.
Analysing calligraphic practices : Praxis
The project proposes an in-depth study of praxis, conducted in collaboration with a team of calligraphers under the coordination of Nuria Garcia Masip. The aim is to reconstruct the operational chain of certain calligraphic styles whose practice has sometimes disappeared, and to document the living knowledge still existing regarding the calligraphies of the frontiers of the Islamic world. The learning and transmission processes that prevailed in the creative process are not well understood. In the absence of documentation, it was essential to turn to new methods of analysis. Inspired by "learning by making" approaches and "re-creative techniques", CallFront relies on close collaboration between researchers and professional calligraphers.
Calligraphic praxis is one of the core axes of the CallFront project, which seeks to study calligraphy through both historical specimens and living practice. The first component of this axis focuses on recreative practices through collaborations between researchers and professional calligraphers, aimed at "re-creating" historic scripts and recovering lost writing techniques. These collaborations explored extinct or little documented scripts through hands-on experimentation, testing hypotheses proposed by researchers and working with traditional tools and materials. Some examples of these experiments are documented by the articles Exploring Recreative Practice Methodologies in Islamic Art – Writing on Stone at the Frontiers of the Islamicate World and Experimenting with Maghribī scripts: tools and techniques.
In parallel, a substantial part of the project is dedicated to documenting the work of contemporary calligraphers who continue to practice script styles from frontier regions today. Fieldwork conducted with these calligraphers has been compiled into a series of documentary videos that record their tools, materials, and writing techniques. The research also focuses on the learning journey of these calligraphers, offering valuable insights into the methods of transmission used for these scripts. Documenting these trajectories is essential to record and preserve practices that are now either nearly extinct or rapidly changing under contemporary influences. It is our hope that this documentation will foster a deeper understanding of the origins, evolution, and richness of these diverse writing traditions.
Sharing our Research
To showcase the project's advances, the CallFront team has taken part in numerous events: seminars, congresses and symposia. In addition, the CallFront seminar, held at the INHA, welcomed several consortium members to present their research.
Two workshops were organised to stimulate exchanges and give substance to the theoretical and practical notions related to praxis. The first focused on the art of Arabic-script calligraphy from the Iberian Peninsula to West Africa; the second, on monumental inscriptions at the margins of the Islamic world. These gatherings brought together researchers, calligraphers and stonemasons, fostering dialogue between academic reflection and practical expertise in a setting conducive to experimentation.
In parallel, the CallFront team, accompanied by a cameraman, went to meet calligraphers during fieldwork missions in Morocco, Senegal and China. These missions aimed to document still-living calligraphic practices by cataloguing the tools, materials and techniques used. They also helped enrich the corpora. The videos and photographs constitute both valuable scientific archives and visual resources of great worth for research.
The work carried out within CallFront has also given rise to the publication of several blog post. In addition, interviews with researchers and calligraphers, all members of the CallFront consortium, shed light on how their participation in the project has informed their study or artistic approach.
To bring the project to a close, an international conference was held in Paris from 15 to 17 January 2026. Three main themes were explored: variations in canonical calligraphies within the regions studied under the CallFront project; calligraphies of power, through the analysis of chancery documents; and illegible calligraphies, and the semiological analysis of calligraphy. This conference gave consortium members the opportunity to present their work, compare interpretations and open the way to new scientific perspectives and collaborations.