Arabic Calligraphy

I just read the from the web page about the commotion about how some people made a big fuss about how the Arabic word which means "peace be to you" is spelled in roman alphabets.

The only people who will make an issue out of transliteration do not know much about the languages involved. There is just no such thing as an exact one to one transliteration of words. Especially in South East Asia where the language is a strong fusion between Arabic and Sanskrit. South East Asians even added extra alphabets to the Arabic letters to cater for their Asian tongue.

Since Arabic came later than Sanskrit (Sanskrit consist about 80% of the root of the words in the languages in Malaysia-Indonesia), many of the Arabic words or phrases used is for formality and not quite absorbed to the "core" of the language. Put it in another way, certain Arabic phrases are used, when respect or formality is being addressed, but it is not something used in a day to day basis. People usually salute Assalmualaikum, in south East Asia, only on certain, either religious or highly formal occasion. Most of the time the casual salutation is just, "Selamat". Thus, those Arabic words, like "Assalamualakum" do not really have a standard transliteration spelling, and it tends to differ from region to region in south East Asia.

I am from south East Asia. I speak Malay and I can read Arabic. It is funny that the people who claim they are experts (or want to appear to be) and pick on silly issues such as transliteration, didn't even notice the mark/seal of the two humanoid figures on the certificate.

Those humanoid figures were written in Arabic characters. How authentic can it get? Well a lot more than any transliteration anyone can produce. This kind of art is call the "khat", or Arabic calligraphy. Though Arabic calligraphy is practiced as an art in the middle East, they limit themselves to just abstract stale forms – like that of Chinese calligraphy, just characters arranged in a rigid area (rectangular or circular)

To my knowledge, it is in the south East Asian schools of mysticism, that such calligraphy takes a more "living" form - like that of the humanoid figure. I have seen a glimpse of those back there. Such form of calligraphy has very old and ancient roots. It is likely that such calligraphy was practiced before with Sanskrit letters and later substitute with Arabic letters. You won’t find such calligraphy in the Middle East as the people there would shun such calligraphically work - i.e. those having forms that resemble a living thing. It is a South East Asian heritage.

The calligraphy also serves as a "signature". The Arabic letters written in an art form of a human body is precise in the way it is written and there are meaning to those words (I can make out several name of God in the certificate's calligraphy). The meaning of the words written can also be associated with the area it which it is written, for example a word combined with its location, say at the arm, would mean something.

Such mark is definitely of ancient South East Asian roots.