Calligraphy in Egypt is an ancient trade yet its institutional structures and its market have gone through important changes across time. Formerly organized around chains of transmission in which the relation between master and student in the workshop were predominant, it evolved to a system in which people learn their craft in schools and prove their credentials through diplomas recognized by the state. Nowadays, these teaching structures face important difficulties due to a chronic underfunding. As an alternative, calligraphers have created associations in charge of promoting the practice. Yet, most of its practitioners make a rather dire assessment of its present situation in their country. Among the main culprits, besides the underfunding of calligraphy schools, they point at digitalization which led to replace hand writing by prints, and the bad state of public education, because of which children do not learn anymore the rules of calligraphy. Therefore, the majority of calligraphers I encountered in my research envision their practice as endangered. This presentation addresses this crisis of transmission by focusing on the concrete process of learning as a correlated education of the hand and of the eye. Because Arabic calligraphy in its classical styles rests on set rules of proportions, the assessment of the quality of writing and composition is often a matter of small details which are hardly perceptible for a person which has not learned the craft him/herself. There is a strong valuation of the calligrapher’s hand, found for instance in the descriptions of the craft as its ‘tongue’ (lisān al-yad), in the distinctions calligraphers make between each other as having different ‘hands’, and having a ‘strong hand’ is deemed necessary to become a good calligrapher. Besides, repetitions of the same movements to emulate a teacher’s writing style is key to the learning. A certain disdain which can be found towards what some qualify as art paintings and towards attempts some make to learn calligraphy through video channels hint at a distrust many share towards approaches privileging a visual approach. Therefore, this presentation interrogates the manner aesthetics depend on learning processes in which the body plays a central role, and people’s feeling of loss when the time for embodying the necessary skills does not seem granted anymore.