Belaid Hamidi

Belaid Hamidi (b. 1959, Morocco) is a Moroccan calligrapher and teacher of Arabic calligraphy. He specialises in the Maghribi Andalusian script. In it he writes the hilya sharifa, a calligraphic panel describing the Prophet Muhammad, and copies of the Qur'an.

Hamidi has written hilya panels in the Maghribi Andalusian style since 1996, and sources describe him as the first Moroccan calligrapher to do so. He has written copies of the Qur'an in Maghribi script in the Warsh reading, in printed and manuscript forms, from 1999. He also holds ijazas, the traditional licences to teach, from Istanbul masters. Hasan Çelebi licensed him in Thuluth and Naskh in 1997. Ali Alparslan licensed him in Diwani and Jali Diwani in 2000, and in Nastaliq in 2005.

For many years Hamidi taught calligraphy at the Mawlawiya school in the Royal Palace in Rabat, until 2008. He then taught students of Al-Azhar in Cairo from 2008 to 2016, before moving to Singapore and then Jakarta. His teaching method, known as the Hamidi method, follows the ijaza system and has spread in Southeast Asia. He wrote a workbook for everyday handwriting in 2012, revised in Indonesia in 2018. He has sat on the jury of the IRCICA international calligraphy competition in Istanbul since 2007. The Sharjah Calligraphy Forum named him one of its three honourees in 2026.