Family Keeping Alive Art That Decorates Kiswah
Writing the Quran on cloth with this style and decorating it with threads made of silver and gold is an old art.
The art was mainly used in the past to make the Kiswah but now despite the fact that this sacred cloth is not being built in Egypt anymore, the Al-Qasbaji family is still sticking to their long-time inherited art.
Talking with ShroukNews, Iman Al-Qasbaji pointed to the history of this art in their family, saying that Othman Abdel Hamid Pasha, a member of the family, was appointed as head of the Kaaba's Kiswah department in the mid-1920s for three years in a row.
He noted that the family continued participation in making the curtain till the early 1960s before the process stopped in Egypt.
After that, this Egyptian family did not abandon their art and started making Quranic artworks as well as drawings related to military ranks. Some 100,000 different artworks have been made by the family in the past 90 years, Al-Qasbaji said.
Talking about the current status of this art in Egypt, he said that the lack of knowledge and proper introduction of Sirma has put the art on the verge of elimination. He stressed that the Al-Qasbaji family will continue its efforts to revive the art.
