M.J. Alhabeeb

Alhabeeb’s interest in the Arabic and Islamic calligraphy started early on when he was a child. Before he attended school at age five, he started to imitate the letters penned by his older brother who was interested in calligraphy too. He received great encouragement and praise from his second grade art teacher, who after discovering the child’s early talent, started to ask him to show other students the right shape of letters on the blackboard. Alhabeeb soon discovered the famous instructional book in calligraphy by Iraq’s prominent calligrapher Hashim Muhammad Al-Baghdadi. He started to repeatedly imitate Al-Baghdadi’s letters and follow his method in perfecting the shapes and movements of many Arabic script. He continued to practice this regular routine for many years. Despite the fact that he chose economics as a field of study, and went to become a full professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he has been practicing calligraphy for more than four decades