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And Seek Knowledge even in China: Meeting with the Chinese Calligrapher Haji Noor Deen

In April 2025, some of the CallFront team members, Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Nuria Garcia Masip, Adeline Laclau, Nourane Ben Azzouna and I, traveled to the hometown of the Chinese calligrapher Haji Noor Deen, whose work has been central in defining and theorizing the ṣīnī script. (Fig. 1). The team was accompanied by Antoine Brendlen, the filmmaker associated with the CallFront project, whose role was to film the calligrapher in his studio. The very special architecture and decoration of some mosques in China were also recorded for scientific documentation of the project.

Fig.1 : Haji Noor Deen in his studio – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)

The purpose of this journey was to meet Haji Noor Deen where he practices his art, so that he could share with us his expertise on ṣīnī script, and the way he understands and defines it. It was also a great opportunity to access Chinese Qur’anic manuscripts still preserved in the country, as well as the interiors of traditional mosques, a material generally difficult to approach.

The training and career of Haji Noor Deen

Haji Noor Deen (Mi Guangjiang 米廣江) is the most famous and internationally acclaimed Chinese master of calligraphy in Arabic script. He was born in 1963 in Yucheng, Shandong Province, and from an early age, he collected samples of Arabic calligraphy as a source of inspiration and kept notebooks from this time (fig. 2). Back then, he would write in Arabic without understanding the meaning of it.

Fig.2 : Haji Noor Deen’s notebook – Photo : Johanna Cozzolino (6/4/2025)

At the age of 17 years old, Haji Noor Deen started to learn Arabic calligraphy at the mosque with two masters, the first one wasn’t a professional calligrapher, the second one was. Haji Noor Deen studied in a mosque in Shandong Province, before moving to Inner Mongolia to deepen his knowledge and training (Fig. 3).

Fig.3 : Map of China with regions where Haji Noor Deen studied – Credit : MapSof.net

After completing his training at the mosque, Haji Noor Deen went to Cangzhou, Hebei Province, where he studied under two masters. It was there that he learned to use the brush and further developed his skills in large-scale scripts. One of his masters also emphasized the importance of transmission to Haji Noor Deen. And indeed, after the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), while mosques reopened, hardly anyone wished to study Arabic calligraphy, leaving this precious knowledge in the hands of aging masters determined to transmit their expertise to future generations. Being the witness of these dire times, Haji Noor Deen was profoundly affected by this situation and, while other calligraphers didn’t want to transmit their knowledge, he committed himself to passing on everything he knew.

Since Haji Noor Deen did not know Arabic, he traveled to Kuwait to learn the language and it is there he saw the use of reed pen for the first time. From Kuwait, he went to Egypt to study Arabic calligraphy and graduated from Egypt Sadate Calligraphy School in 1997. Two years later, he and his wife Fatima came back to China. In 2000, Haji Noor Deen started to teach the first regular and systemic Arabic Calligraphy course at the Zhengzhou Islamic College in China. Subsequently in 2008, he began to teach Arabic calligraphy at the mosque on Sundays, and when he was travelling for his work, it would be Fatima who would replace him. Finally, because Haji Noor Deen believed his skills could still be improved, he went to Turkey to perfect his mastery of Arabic calligraphy, and obtained an ijaza by master calligraphers, Hasan Celebi Hoca, Dawood Bektash, Farhad Kurlu and Ahmed Kocak Hoca in Istanbul, in 2017.

This rich training made Haji Noor Deen a leading figure in the field of Chinese Arabic calligraphy, enjoying international recognition. His works is now acquired for permanent collections by institutions and museums, such as the British Museum, the San Francisco Asian Museum, the National Museum of Scotland and the Harvard University Art Museum.

Definition of the ṣīnī script by Haji Noor Deen

According to Haji Noor Deen, the ṣīnī script comes from the muḥaqqaq codified by Yāqūt al-Mustaʿṣimī (d. in 1298), who worked in Bagdad at a time when Mongols took over China and a huge part of Eurasia. He believes it was a muḥaqqaq from Samarkand that was introduced in China during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), and that this calligraphic style was adopted for the copy of the Qur’an because it is easy to read and write for non-Arabic speakers.

When he started to learn about calligraphy in Arabic script in China, everything was called ṣīnī, so he aimed to give distinct names according to the type of qalam used and the form of the script and identifies seven styles of ṣīnī1:

1. Khaṭṭ al-muṣḥaf al-ṣīnī: the style used to write the muṣḥaf.

2. Khaṭṭ naskh al-kitāb al-dīniyya: the styles used to copy Islamic texts other than the Qur’an, such as works on jurisprudence, theology, and grammar, as well as for annotations and marginalia.

3. Khaṭṭ al-ʿarīḍ: a style written with a broad pen used for writing large horizontal scrolls or banners for display, also applied to different supports.

4. Khaṭṭ al-firshāh: a style written with a brush using the Chinese calligraphic technique but creating Arabic letters.

5. Khaṭṭ al-rasm: the “drawn” style, meaning the letters are outlined and then filled in to render Arabic script into various visual and artistic forms.

6. Khaṭṭ al-marsūm: the figurative style which uses Arabic script as a compositional element to create images such as pagodas, vases, flowers etc.

7. Khaṭṭ al-muḥākī lil-khaṭṭ al-ʿarabī: the “imitative” style, a new phenomenon that emerged in the 1980s, is inspired by classical Arabic calligraphy styles but does not adhere strictly to their formal rules.

These typologies and the textbooks he has written, were for Haji Noor Deen tools to teach and transmit his knowledge of ṣīnī, a style he has defined for the past 20 years.

The Materials and Tools of Haji Noor Deen

We asked Haji Noor Deen about his relationship to the Chinese literati tradition, particularly the use of the Four Treasures of the Study (文房四宝), the brush, ink, inkstone, and paper, which are essential tools for traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting, and he confirmed this terminology.

He then explained that there are at least three different types of qalam in calligraphy in Arabic script in China:

  • The brush. He uses the brush either standing or sitting, holding it upright at a 90° angle; the gesture is the same regardless of the brush size. The brush tip is made from rooster, goat, fox, or wolf hair. It is possible to unscrew the brush when part of it is worn out in order to replace it. When a brush reaches the end of its use, Haji Noor Deen can choose to trim the handle to turn it into a qalam. Today, brush caps are open, but previously they were made of copper to prevent odors.
  • The reed or bamboo qalam (Fig. 4). Each qalam bears its date of cutting. Haji Noor Deen may use qalam that are 16–17 years old. He also has a travel kit. He mentioned the Turkish tradition of qalam cutting and suggested that in China, the technique is coarser. Traditional qalam do not have a slit because Chinese ink is very thick. To select a qalam, it should be dropped on the floor to hear the sound, or rolled on a table. Haji Noor Deen notes that, in the case of copying old Qur’ans, qalam could be made from bamboo sticks.
Fig.4 : Haji Noor Deen’s qalam – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)
  • The special qalam he developed. This is a qalam whose name refers to Chinese knives (Fig. 5), and he was the one who came up with this shape. He first made this type of qalam in 1991 in Egypt. It is made of ebony wood soaked in olive oil to prevent it from absorbing ink. He can combine two qalam of this type to create a larger writing surface (Fig. 6). Often, these qalam are decorated with engraved motifs such as lotuses or chrysanthemums, as this iconography is very common in China and used by engravers. Haji Noor Deen adds a fabric to this type of qalam, with the size and thickness adapted to the qalam. To place the fabric, he holds it firmly at a 30° angle, then wraps thread around the qalam and fabric, cutting off any excess. He first moistens the qalam with water while the fabric is in place. When the fabric becomes worn, he moves it, and he finds that older fabric is better because the weave of the fabric produces effects in the writing.
Fig.5 and 6 : Haji Noor Deen’s special qalam – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)

To illustrate the Chinese tradition, the calligrapher showed us a Ming-era inkstone and dried ink from the Qing period and later (Fig. 7). He then uses the same method as in Chinese calligraphy, which involves rubbing solid ink on the inkstone. The inkstone is flat and made of a special material, it is also slightly inclined at the end so that the ink flows, and the flat part of the inkstone serves to correct the brush.

Today, Haji Noor Deen no longer uses the Chinese technique because it is too time-consuming. However, since he learned using the Chinese technique, it is likely that this was also the practice in earlier periods. The calligrapher buys his ink, does not add Arabic gum to it but purifies it with Zamzam water.

Fig.7 : Haji Noor Dee’s inks and inkstones – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)

The rice paper that Haji Noor Deen uses when working with his flat ebony wood qalam has a rough side and a smooth side. The calligrapher places weights to hold the paper in place, a practice inherited from the Chinese tradition. Regarding the technique, he explained that the paper is made from paper mulberry bark (chu, 楮). It is a “cooked” or “sized” paper (shúxuān, 熟宣) treated with special solutions that limit absorption and make the surface more resilient. In addition, there is an alum treatment that fixes the sizing and protects the surface, which accounts for the paper’s great durability. Haji Noor Deen notes that some papers absorb ink completely while others do not. He also mentions the use of chalk to smooth the paper’s surface, reduce its absorbency, and provide a glide that allows the qalam or brush to move smoothly.

The vermilion paste used in seal art is called yìnní (印泥) in Chinese. The seals are carved from Shoushan stone (Shòushān shí, 寿山石), a highly prized material for seal engraving. Square seals are used for names (of places, people, etc.), while round seals are used for phrases in Arabic. He selects the seal according to the size of the writing (Fig. 8).

Fig.8 : Haji Noor Dee’s seals – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)

Haji Noor Deen’s works and personal collection of Qur’an manuscripts

In Haji Noor Deen’s studio, two works hanging on the wall immediately caught our attention, and the calligrapher then explained that there was a double meaning in the way the characters could be read. For example, one piece can be read as the Chinese character 主 (zhǔ), translated as “Allah,” but it can also be read vertically as الله (Allah)2. There is even a visual dimension in this work, as the character also resembles a person praying (Fig. 9). Similarly, another work presented the Chinese character 圣 (shèng), literally “prophet,” which can be read as رسول الله (rasul Allah) (Fig. 10). These particular works then raised many questions: where does Haji Noor Deen get this practice from? How long has this tradition existed? Does it carry a specific meaning?

Fig.9 : Work of Haji Noor Deen depicting a believer praying and can be read 主 and الله – Photo : Adeline Laclau
Fig.10 : Work of Haji Noor Deen that can be read and رسول الله  – Photo : Nuria Garcia Masip

On another rather impressive work, Haji Noor Deen explained to us that for every word that repeats in the text, he writes it differently (Fig. 11 and 12). This is inherited from the Chinese tradition. He thus writes the words with small variations, never in exactly the same form. Haji Noor Deen also told us that he rewrites the text many times to make it fit the space. Each time, he works on the same surface to determine the proper composition, so there is a lot of preparation involved.

Fig.11 and 12 : Haji Noor Deen presenting one of his work – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)

While showing us a work shaped like a mosque lamp, the calligrapher spoke about the Khaṭṭ al-marsūm, the “painting style” (Fig. 13). He explained that he uses a pencil to sketch the forms and then fills them in, it is truly a form of drawing. For the text beneath the lamp, he wrote directly with the brush. He used polished paper that does not absorb the ink.

Fig.13 : Calligraphy in the shape of a mosque lamp – Photo : Adeline Laclau (6/4/2025)

Haji Noor Deen then showed us his collection of ancient Qur’ans (Fig. 14). He presented Qur’ans of several types: in two volumes and in thirty volumes.  Many Chinese ulama knew Persian, which may explain the presence of writings and translations sometimes in Persian within the manuscripts. There are few signatures in these manuscripts, as this would contradict the humility of the copyist.

Fig.14 : Haji Noor Deen’s personal collection of Qur’an manuscripts – Photo : Adeline Laclau (7/4/2025)

Most of the Qur’ans in the collection are relatively recent (18th–20th centuries), and Haji Noor Deen also showed us manuscripts that he describes as “very old,” meaning they are over 400 years old. What makes his collection a particularly valuable resource for us researchers, is that he bought them from private individuals, giving them certain guarantee of authenticity by not having passed by the art market

Haji Noor Deen then shared with us his experience of copying the Qur’an. 10 years ago, he spent 8 months copying 30 juz’ of the Qur’an, and that for that undertaking, he trained his hand as best as he can as he wanted to copy the sacred words in the most beautiful writing. During Covid pandemic, the calligrapher set out to copy a new manuscript of the Qur’an, and because he was writing approximately 10-12 hours a day, from 6am to 10pm, he wasn’t afraid amid these hard times (Fig. 15).

Fig.15 : Latest copy of the Qur’an by Haji Noor Deen – Photo : Adeline Laclau (7/4/2025)

Eventually, Haji Noor Deen explained to us that he believes copying a Qur’an is an act reserved for those with extensive knowledge. Indeed, it is a major undertaking surrounded by rituals, and producing a Qur’an is a rare act because of its high cost. Therefore, very few people own a Qur’an manuscript at home as it is very expensive and depends on a commission.

Inscriptions in Chinese Mosques

During our travel to China, we had the opportunity to visit several mosques with very interesting architecture and decoration in Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, Henan Province. The first mosque Haji Noor Deen brought us to is the Beida Mosque in Zhengzhou. The mosque has both an ancient section and a modern one. The calligrapher showed us a piece that had been commissioned for the modern part of the mosque, which is now used by Muslims in the city (Fig. 16).

Fig.16 : Work of Haji Noor Deen in the Beida Mosque in Zhengzhou – Photo : Adeline Laclau (8/4/2025)

The visit of the ancient section of the mosque was extremely enlightening. The building dates back the Ming (1368-1644) era but many decorative elements have been added during the Qing (1644-1911) dynasty. Haji Noor Deen explained to us that this mosque is unique as the inscriptions present Qur’anic verses but also hadiths and sayings. He then explained the decoration on the qibla wall, noting that the Basmala on this wall is written in a script that gives it the shape of clouds. In China, the of the Basmala is particularly elongated, making a reference to the alif that has disappeared (Fig. 17).

Fig.17 : Qibla wall in the Beida Mosque – Photo : Adeline Laclau (8/4/2025)

In the prayer hall, several inscriptions adorn the walls. Three were made in the 20th century by the same calligrapher in an extremely fluid and loose style, with letters almost intertwined, called musalsal (Fig. 18). This calligraphic style is typically Chinese and indicates the influence of the brush on Arabic calligraphy that developed in China.

Fig.18 : Inscription in the Beida Mosque – Photo : Johanna Cozzolino (8/4/2025)

Thereafter, very interestingly, we could see how Arabic calligraphy stands alongside Chinese calligraphy and traditional painting, a distinctive feature of Chinese mosques (Fig. 19).

Fig.19 : Prayer hall and qibla wall in the Beida Mosque – Photo : Adeline Laclau (8/4/2025)

Indeed, the architecture of mosques in China shows a strong Chinese influence (Fig. 20). Chinese mosques don’t really stand out from the local architectural landscape. This blending is possible because many of the mosque’s religious functions can be easily translated and incorporated into the standardized Chinese construction system. Haji Noor Deen mentioned that when he was young, he learned everything in the corner of a mosque, which means he spent a lot of time surrounded by this incredible combination of influences. He told us, during the visit of the Beida Mosque, that to be a calligrapher, it is important to know religious sciences, as well as Chinese, Arabic, and Islamic culture. He himself has thoroughly studied the history of styles in ancient manuscripts, and it is this combination of knowledge that allows him to achieve the unique harmony of the Chinese style.

Fig.20 : Building in the Beida Mosque – Photo Johanna Cozzolino (8/4/2025)

Eventually, Haji Noor Deen showed us a decorated section of a wall opposite to the enetrance of the mosque (Fig. 21). He explained that its purpose is to block the view, so one has to walk around it to see the mosque’s entrance. It seems to be an element typical of Chinese tradition. On the top of this section of wall is a Basmala written in an ornamental script inscribed in a circle.

Fig.21 : Decorated section of the wall opposite to the entrance of the Beida Mosque – Photo : Johanna Cozzolino (8/4/2025)

To conclude, this trip to China has been extremely enlightening for gaining a better understanding of the ṣīnī script, but it also opens new research perspectives. Indeed, Haji Noor Deen gave us precious insights on the Chinese Arabic calligraphic tradition, yet there is still much to explore, including the origins of the script, Chinese calligraphers’ lineages, and the diversity of styles across China. This fieldtrip as part of the CallFront project has been an extraordinary experience for us, researchers, thanks to the kindness of Haji Noor Deen who willingly shared with us his modern practice and incredibly deep knowledge on ṣīnī script and showed us places bearing important historical relevance for our study of calligraphy in Arabic script and its developments in China.

For more on CallFront’s visit to China with Haji Noor Deen, see the video of a calligraphy demonstration filmed in Zhengzhou: https://callfront.hypotheses.org/7846.

Johanna Cozzolino

  1. Mi Guang Jiang 米广江, 中国传统阿拉伯文书法艺术研究 Zhong guo chuan tong a la bo wen shu fa yi shu yan jiu (The Study of Arabic Calligraphy in Chinese Tradition), Beijing: Peking University Press, 2018, pp 41- 77. ↩︎
  2. For more explanations, see the video on the CallFront website: https://callfront.hypotheses.org/7846 ↩︎

OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
callfront (24 novembre 2025). And Seek Knowledge even in China: Meeting with the Chinese Calligrapher Haji Noor Deen. CallFront. Consulté le 8 décembre 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/1571u


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