HEBREW CALLIGRAPHY IN DUBAI??!! (Interview With Thoufeek Zakriya)

hey guys so i'm here in dubai with my good friend tufik zakaria and he is an amazing artist he's doing amazing work uniting people through food and art he's a talented calligraphist and now i'm going to take you to meet him my name is an indian who is living in dubai for last seven years so i was very interested in the jewish culture history and the language when i was 14 or just 13 years old i just like fell in love with the jewish culture and the history and language and it was just a curiosity within me and but that was that was happening in india correct that was in india yeah and it started when i was 10 when i went to a jewish cinema for the first time when i was 10 years old from there three years from there i just wanted to know what is jewish culture the torah and the the language of the torah which is mentioned in quran and this is what i like what i learned from the mantra that's the arabic so that small curiosity just grew along with me for 17 years and like i learned calligraphy i mean hebrew hebrew language myself like i read lots of books and i mean spoke to lots of people who came to india about the female rabbis and israelis who came to cochin i used to spend a few minutes like hours with them and ask lots of doubts and questions and yeah i learned many things from them and still still doing the same like understanding about the history of the juice of kuching that's what i does and the calligraphy the artist inside me like never let me to go like without doing anything very artistic so i found something which is known as calligraphy and i kept practicing it and i used to do 17 13 languages calligraphy oh wow but right now i just stick on to two that is arabic and evil and occasionally english and that's what i does every time like when i it's very therapeutic for me to do calligraphy so i'm mentally little down i do calligraphy and the artworks it makes me give like pushes me to go forward yeah and i enjoy like doing the calligraphy for the people who love it like and i like to see their facial expression like when i do it oh you can do it like it's something like fascinating for them he's about to show us a little display of how he does his i'll write your art okay but you have to guide me with the alphabet same people okay yeah shin plymouth man sofia wow is that fine amazing and how did you learn this out of interest i just learned myself this the like a curiosity over this language or this culture and all these things just yeah that's the thing the curiosity over this culture and the language just made me to learn it myself and practicing it over and over and over and this is the final thing that's amazing are you able to do it in arabic as well yeah i can but i'm not sure whether it is the right way it is to be written the spelling yeah how do you pronounce your name so i can write it the way me hello and science okay i think this is almost similar to the way you pronounce amazing if there isn't a mistake in arabic you have to excuse me but this is how i read it so to be to be quite honest i don't read any arabic so i'm in my eyes it's perfect thank you so much i appreciate it it's beautiful i'm going to hang this hang this in my office thank you so much but it will take a while to get dried okay yeah how long do you think um just five minutes ten minutes maximum yes i met the president of israel and gifted him a small artwork of mine like one was his name in hebrew and arabic the second was the the hebrew work which mentions al-quran it was dedicated to the father of the president of israel and the father of presidency his name is yosefi oil rivlin as you all know he have translated quran into hebrew really yeah so as you ask really so that was the same expression which came out of me when i heard i learned about it first time so as uh i mean uh so i dedicated this small artworks to him and yeah and finally i ended up in precedence of gifting him that to him do you see any similarities between the arabic language and the hebrew language and how you uh how you're combining them in art see i if i never knew the basics of arabic i wouldn't have like it would have been the toughest thing for me to learn hebrew since i knew the basics of arabic like arabic languages and arabic also but it was much more easier to me that arabic have 26 and he will have 22 alphabets so it's much more easier in arabic it is aleph alif and hebrew it is alif it's bait so gene is gimmel and so on so it is almost uh like two languages from the same root right so it's very easy and there are lots of uh you know what would i say root words which are very similar but maybe sounds a little different like scene can be a sheen and like you know the basic root words are the same the salam and shalom like a classic example and which will be understood by by anyone like salaam and shalom it sounds similar it is almost the sea seeing sheen and mean and means of faith so these are the same root words which constitute these two words in people and in arabic so similarity similar to that like is there in the ancient hebrew the biblical hebrew maybe the modern hebrew is little different because of the influence of the yiddish and the other languages in it otherwise it is very much similar to the arabic that's what i found like from my small knowledge what i uh i mean from this okay how have you found yourself at the very front at the forefront of this new peace between the jewish people and the the muslim people the israelis how did you find yourself here and i would rather say like uh i was i was in this field for like 17 years i was with the jewish i mean community of cochin like for 17 years and and you are a muslim yourself right yeah i'm not practicing muslim yeah i cannot sleep uh like like i cannot end a day without reading quran wow before i go to bed i read quran and like that's one thing which my family knows then and myself i keep it to me and my god so that's that's who i am but still i being a very i mean practicing muslim this is what i learned from my religion like peace co-existence and tolerance and that's what i've learned been in my life so far and i would do i would like to continue the same and you are my brother you know like and that's what that's what all the people have to like take it into the account and see the like see the other person as one among us and love each other understand each other right and that understanding each other is the key to the main like peace and co-existence that's what i think it is and what is one thing that people can do to promote peace in wherever they're living right now just love the peace okay just understand the peace and if you love and understand the peace and the beauty of it you will love to share it you will love to spread it and you will be part of it that's what i think like once you if you are a person who loves peace you will never make trouble for others so i mean simply just feel the peace and then spread the peace that's it very simple it is very simple as it is that's what i think thank you so much i appreciate everything you're doing and i wish you much much success in what you're doing i know you're going to to still do many amazing things in your life thank you thank you