Mysterious Arabic Calligraphy #2

Posted on: Friday, May 14th, 2010 5 comments

Firdaus sent me the following picture with the request to identify the Arabic writing in this tattoo: The writing is an artistic calligraphic rendering of on top: حب (Hubb) and on bottom: سلام (salaam) which mean “love” and “peace” respectively. Confusingly, the dot that belongs to the letter baa’ is … Continue reading

Miracle

Posted on: Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 4 comments

Kitty sent me the following e-mail to ask for a tattoo design in Arabic for “miracle”: Hi! My name is Kitty! I saw on internet that you translate from english to arabic! I would like to make a tattoo with the word “miracle”! I have been searching for it for … Continue reading

Arabic Calligraphy Design: Poetess

Posted on: Saturday, April 10th, 2010 5 comments

Recently, I received a request from a potential client for a crescent-shaped tattoo design of “poetess” (woman poet). The order didn’t materialize in the end but I went ahead and did a preliminary design anyways. Here is the result:     In plain text: شاعرة Note that a lot of … Continue reading

Arabic Tattoo – Fighter

Posted on: Sunday, January 10th, 2010 5 comments

I’ve received a few requests for the Arabic translation of the word “fighter”. As always, there are many possible translations and I just want to give a brief overview of some of them. The word مقاتل (muqaatil) derives from the root قتل (q-t-l), but does not necessarily imply “fight to … Continue reading

“Believe” In Arabic

Posted on: Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 13 comments

Maggie sent me the following question in a blog comment: keefakkk my name is maggie (ghaleb) just want to make sure of something… getting my 3th arabic tattoo! (proud to be libanease!) its the word believe (faith) in the way, i believe i will get trough this, or i believe … Continue reading

Arabic Tattoo Perseverance

Posted on: Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 7 comments

Today a Portuguese speaker asked me for a tattoo translation: Bom dia Max, gostaria de fazer uma tatuagem escrito Perseverar, Perseverança. Poderias me enviar pra eu poder fazer? A tatuagem da Angelina Jolie? o que significa? como escrevo? Obrigada, Nana I don’t speak any Portuguese, but from my knowledge of Spanish … Continue reading

Arabic Tattoos – Another Reader Request: never give up, unbreakable, strength and courage

Posted on: Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 189 comments

Today I received another request for a translation of a few English phrases into Arabic for the purpose of an Arabic tattoo: Hi Max, I have been reading your blog from australia and its fantastic, i really enjoy it. I noticed that you did a translation for one of your … Continue reading

Arabic Tattoos – The Three Most Embarrassing Errors

Posted on: Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 104 comments

While Arabic tattoos can be aesthetically pleasing if the right calligraphy is used, there are a huge number of cases where neither the person getting the tattoo done nor the tattooist have the slightest idea of Arabic. The result is often disastrous: incorrect or ugly Arabic writing. I’ll show you … Continue reading

Arabic Tattoos – The Latest Celebrity Must-Have

Posted on: Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 322 comments

Arabic tattoos are definitively in fashion in the world of the rich and the famous. And I don’t mean temporary tattoos done with henna. This is perhaps surprising, because there are hardly any tattoos to be seen in the Arab World. In the West, however, tattoos have come a long … Continue reading