In U.S., Iraqi Couple’s Artistry Gets Chance to Thrive

Salma Mohammed Hasan has been through hell.

The 38-year-old wife and mother endured years in war-torn Iraq while her brother, her sister’s children and one of her children died.

Her artwork, as well as that of her husband, was censored by the government.

Feeling threatened by the Iraqi authorities, she and her family fled. Today, they live in Mobile.

“It’s like heaven,” she says of the safe, verdant city so many miles from all she has ever known.

Now there is a new life, a new routine.

Each weekday, Hasan and her husband, Ahmed Latif Magtof, get up, send their three young children off to public school and head to work at a local mill. At day’s end, they come home, fix dinner and get the children ready for bed.

Then they draw.

Their works are religious in nature, artistic illuminations of passages from the Koran. Flowing Arabic text, accompanied by abstract forms, declares God’s greatness and mercy.

“All talk about God,” Hasan says of their artwork. “These pictures talk about the good things in life. People sometimes forget what God wants.”

For Muslims, the written word alone is considered a manifestation of the divine. The physical text of the Koran is treated with reverence, and its pages are to be protected from dirt or damage.

Indeed, some scholars make the comparison that the Koran is to Muslims what Jesus himself is to Christians. Inscribing the sacred syllables is not an act undertaken lightly.

Because many early Islamic leaders believed that straightforward depictions of persons or animals might imply idolatry, the theocracy looked to calligraphy for religious expression, according to the Islamic Arts & Architecture Organization in Columbus, Ohio.

The shapes and sizes of words or letters, rather than representational decorations, can be used to convey core convictions. The script’s vertical lines are believed to express majesty, while the horizontal lines denote serenity.

Hasan and Magtof do not talk about calligraphy’s history or the geometric principles that play an essential role in the Arabic art of letters. Instead, Hasan says simply, “We try to make something good.”

Iraqi leaders didn’t see it that way.

Years ago, when the couple were still living in the Middle East, they planned an art show. The exhibit followed violent episodes: Hasan’s brother was killed in the war between Iran and Iraq; her sister’s two children were killed when their house was bombed.

Hasan said their art instructor advised them, “Try to paint what you feel, what you suffer.”

A government official didn’t like what he saw, effectively canceling the show.

They decided to leave Iraq.

In 1997, Magtof left for Jordan. For more than a year, he lived and worked there alone, sending money back to his family. During those dark days, Hasan said, she and her children were “lost.”

“There was nothing,” she said. “No future. No dream.”

Finally, when they had enough money, Hasan and the children escaped. Piles of paperwork later, U.S. officials granted the family refugee status. They arrived in Mobile in July 2001.

“We come here. It is very difficult,” said Hasan, who explained that she had been taught to consider the United States an enemy. “The children [asked]: ‘Is that the new home for us, Mama? Is that the United States?’”

According to Hasan and Magtof, one of their greatest opportunities here came from William Morris, owner of Morris Galleries.

A few months ago, Morris agreed to give the couple space for an exhibition at his Mobile studio.

“We make all our hope and our dream in this show,” Hasan said. “When we meet Mr. Morris, we feel something die and get up in our hearts. I think this is a very wonderful chance.”

Morris confessed that he was a bit hesitant to showcase the artists’ decidedly Islamic art after the events of Sept. 11.

“My concern was pretty normal: How would this be perceived by the public?” he said.

But, he said, “My heart was telling me: You really want to do this.”

Morris said he thought about the words of Emma Lazarus’ poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty -- “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”--and prayed over whether to go ahead.

“We discussed it,” Morris said, “and me and the Lord just felt like it was the right thing to do.”

The show opened last month.

Hasan looks at the work that she and her husband have rendered in acrylics and oils. She selects a painting that, amid words from the Koran, depicts a door.

“It’s like hope,” she said. “All the time, everybody wants something good behind the locked door. It is the hope. Something good from God.”