Calligraphy is no lost art. Handwriting may not have the emphasis that it once did. Letters and cards have mostly been replaced by emails and text. Reports and documents are all created on a computer.

“Back in the olden days, the calligraphers would go to mosques,” Mariam Lodin told me. “They would take a feather and gather soot from the ceilings of oil lamps. Then, they would write texts with the ...