19:00, Tue 15th – Sat 19th February 2022 at Corpus Playroom
Lent Week 4

Locked away in Baghdad Mosque is a beautifully intricate Quran, complete with 6,000 verses of elaborate calligraphy and 600 pages of decorative motifs – a marvel in artistry that would surely be celebrated by Muslims and artists around the world if it were not written in Saddam Hussein’s blood. Now its artist lives in the US, where he restores old paintings for a living, but in every step, he’s still followed by the walking, talking, blood-drenched Quran that has haunted him since.

The Calligrapher is a new, award-winning, student-written play by Abraham Alsalihi that explores the theme of artifacts, whether in the form of grand pieces of art or old slabs of stone; whether celebrated like a great painting or shunned like a bloody Quran. And, of course, those unseen artifacts we carry around with us every day. Selected as the 2021 CUADC Fringe play, this is a brilliant piece of new writing that raises challenging questions about identity, art, and morality. Its Edinburgh run sadly got cancelled this summer due to covid restrictions, but we’re back and we couldn’t be more excited to get it on the road again at Corpus!