Calligraphy by Adil Mansuri, 2000: a "tughra" design made out of a name, Shams ur-Rahman Faruqi

The piece shown above was selected and provided in electronic form by the calligrapher himself; it was meant to go on the cover of a book by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (*Early Urdu Literary Culture and History*), but at the last minute the author demurred, thinking it would be too egotistical.

Below are Adil's designs for the chapter dividers for SRF's book, which he also provided in electronic form, and which did get used. They're for Chapters One through Seven. Rather than the normal Urdu numbers, the archaic-feeling Persian forms have been chosen by the author and retained by the calligrapher. (This is appropriate, because the book is about the early literary history of Urdu.)



Bab-e avval, Chapter One.


Bab-e duvvum, Chapter Two


Bab-e suvvum, Chapter Three


Bab-e chaharum, Chapter Four


Bab-e panjum, Chapter Five


Bab-e shashum, Chapter Six


Bab-e haftum, Chapter Seven