Abjad Hawaz

Mahmoud Hammad was a leading Hurufi artist in Syria. He was one of the earliest figures to explore geometric abstraction. From the 1960s to the 1980s, he gradually introduced Arabic letters into his work. Rather than using the script to form legible words, Hammad focused instead on the visual shape of each letter. In Abjad Hawaz, Hammad begins with Arabic letters and transforms them into abstract forms that blend into the composition. The artwork refers to the Abjad numeral system, developed in the 7th century, in which each Arabic letter corresponds to a numerical value.