Islam Aly

 Sequence 1

2013

Edition of 20. 2 x 2 x 3.5”. Laser cut handmade flax paper, linen thread, laser engraved wooden boards, Greek binding.

This book is an exploration of one Arabic letter “Ḍād” (ض), this is a very unique letter in the Arabic language because of it’s extremely unusual sound. Early Arabic grammarians described Arabic as the "language of the ḍād", since the sound was thought to be unique to Arabic.

40 different shapes of letter Ḍād are displayed in the book; each letter is laser-cut on a section of the book, for example, the very early Kufic scripts, the different styles of Arabic calligraphy, as well as multiple forms of fonts.