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The basmalah ("In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate" -
the opening words of the Our'an) is here done in an elaborate thuluth
A maze-like ornamental square of angular kufic is made up of script with the leners joined so that the entire phrase is wrinen without
the names of the ten most revered Companions of Muhammad. lifting the pen from the paper.
The Arabs gave to a large part of the world not It is generally accepted that the Arabic alphabet
only a religion -- Islam -- but also a language and an developed from the script used for Nabataean, a
alphabet. Where the Muslim religion went, the Ara dialect ofAramaic used in northern Arabia and what
bic language and Arabic writing also went. Arabic is now Jordan during roughly the thousand years
became and has remained the national language - before the start of the Islamic era. It seems apparent
the mother tongue -- of North Africa and all the that Syriac also had some influence on its develop
Arab countries of the Middle East. ment. The earliest inscription that has been found
Even where Arabic did not become the national that is identifiably Arabic is one in Sinai that dates
language, it became the language of religion from about A.D _300. Another Semitic script which
wherever Islam became established, since the Qur'an was in use at about the same time and which is found
is written in Arabic, the Profession of Faith is to be on inscriptions in southern Arabia is the origin ofthe
spoken in Arabic, and five times daily the practicing alphabet now used for Amharic, the official language
Muslim must say his prayers in Arabic. Today, of Ethiopia.
therefore, one can hear Arabic spoken -- at least for The Arabic alphabet has twenty-eight letters
religious purposes -- from Mauritania on the Atlan (additional letters have been added to serve the needs
tic, across Africa and most of Asia, and as fat east as of non-Arabic languages that use the Arabic script,
Indonesia and the Philippines_ Even in China (which such as those of Iran and Pakistan), and each of the
has a Muslim population of some forty million) and letters may have up to four different forms. All ofthe
the Central Asian republics ofthe USSR, Arabic can letters are strictly speaking consonants, and unlike
be heard in the shahadah, in prayer, and in the the Roman alphabet used for English and most
chanting of the Qur'an. European languages Arabic writing goes from right
Ofthose people who embraced Islam but did not to left.
adopt Arabic as their everyday language, many mil Another significant difference is that the Arabic
lions have taken the Arabic alphabet for their own, so script has been used much more extensively for
that today one sees the Arabic script used to write decoration and as a means ofartistic expression. This
languages that have no basic etymological connec is not to say that the Roman alphabet (and others such
tion with Arabic. The languages of Iran, Afghani as the Chinese and Japanese, for instance) are not just
stan, and Pakistan are all written in the Arabic as decorative and have not been used just as imagi
alphabet, as was the language of Turkey until some natively. Since the invention of printing from type,
. ... -. . "~ . .. ...... ,.
; .
.5trabie Ga{[iJlrai'hy ,
however, calligraphy (which means literally "beau were required, therefore, Muslim artists, forbidden
tiful writing") has come to be used in English and the to depict human or animal forms, for the most part
other European languages only for special docu were forced to resort either to what has since come to
ments and on special occasions and has declined to be known as "arabesque" (designs based on strictly
the status of a relatively minor art. geometrical forms or patterns of leaves and flowers)
or, very often, to calligraphy. Arabic calligraphy
therefore came to be used not only in producing
copies of the Qur'an (its first and for many centuries
its most important use), but also for all kinds ofother
artistic purposes as well: on porcelain and metalware,
for carpets and other textiles, on coins, and as archi
Another basmalah in ornamental thuluth script is written in the tectural ornament (primarily on mosques and tombs
shape of an oval. but also, especially in later years, on other buildings
In the countries that use Arabic alphabet, on the as well).
other hand, calligraphy has continued to be used not At the start of the Islamic era two types of script
only on important documents but for a variety of seem to have been in use -- both derived from
other artistic purposes as well. One reason is that the different forms of the Nabataean alphabet. One was
cursive nature of the Arabic script and certain of its square and angular and was called kufic (after the
other peculiarities made its adaptation to printing town ofKufa in Iraq, though it was in use well before
difficult and delayed the introduction ofthe printing the town was founded). It was used for the first,
press, so that the Arab world continued for some handwritten copies of the Qur'an, and for architec
centuries after the time of Gutenberg to rely on tural decoration in the earliest years of the Islamic
handwriting for the production of books (especially Empire. The other, called naskhi, was more rounded
the Qur'an) and of legal and other documents. The and cursive and was used for letters, business docu
use of Arabic script has therefore tended to develop ments, and wherever speed rather than elaborate
in the direction of calligraphy and the development formalism was needed. By the twelfth century kufic
ofartistically pleasing forms ofhand lettering, while was obsolete as a working script except for special
in the West the trend has been toward printing and the uses and in northwest Africa, where it developed into
development of ornamental and sometimes elabo the maghribi style of writing still used in the area
rate type faces. today. Naskhi, the rounded script, remained in use
Another and perhaps more important reason was and from it most of the many later styles of Arabic
a religious one. The Qur'an nowhere prohibits the calligraphy have been developed.
representation of humans or animals in drawings or
paintings, but as Islam expanded in its early years it
inherited some ofthe prejudices against visual art of
this kind that had already taken root in the Middle
East. In addition, the early Muslims tended to oppose
figural art (and in some cases all art) as distracting the
community from the worship of God and hostile to
the strictly unitarian religion preached by The basmalah is here written in ornamental "floriated" kufic (above)
Muhammad, and all four of the schools of Islamic and in naskhi (below) .
law banned the use of images and declared that the Calligraphy flourished during the Umayyad era
painter of animate figures would be damned on the in Damascus. During this period scribes began the
Day of Judgment. modification of the original thick and heavy kufic
Wherever artistic ornamentation and decoration script into the form employed today for decorative
purposes, as well as developing a number of new Qur'an was revealed in Mecca, recited in Egypt, and
scripts derived from the more cursive naskhi. It was written in Istanbul." The Ottomans were not content
under the' Abbasids, however, that calligraphy first merely to improve and develop the types of script
began to be systematized. In the first halfof the tenth that they inherited from the Arabs and Persians but
century the' Abbasid vizier Ibn Muqlah completed also added a number ofnew styles to the calligrapher's
the development of kufic, established some of the repertoire.
rules of shape and proportion that have been fol
lowed by calligraphers since his time, and was first to
develop what became the traditional classification of
Arabic writing into the "six styles" ofcursive script:
naskhi (from which most present day printing types
are derived), thuluth (a more cursive outgrowth of
naskhi), rayhani (a more ornate version ofthuluth),
The diwaniscript (top) and the so-called "royal" diwani (below)
muhaqqaq (a bold script with sweeping diagonal were developed by Ottoman calligraphers for use on state documents.
i4ra:6ic
. .
Ca[{igfwpliy ..
to be used both in Turkey and by rulers of the Arab coins and paper money bear the work of expert
countries as a kind of royal insignia or emblem, on calligraphers, wall posters and advertising signs in
coins and stamps and wherever a coat ofarms or royal every town show the calligrapher's art, as do the
monogram would be used by European govern cover and title page of every book, and the major
ments. headlines in every newspaper and magazine have
been written by hand. Calligraphy -- the art of
"beautiful writing" -- continues to be something that
is not only highly prized as ornament and decoration
but is immensely practical and useful as well.
shape of an ostrich.
4
The Arabic Alphabet
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\ . . Start
Here
sin s zTn-z
,'» ra - r dhal- dh
t)a
dal- d
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C
( w/ ~
« gh
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mTm-m lam-' kat - k qat- q
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JJ A tJ)
The Arable Alphabet
(read from right to left)
A dot below the letter (as in 1Ja)
indicates it Is aspirated. Capital
letters indicate ve1artzation. ~
Transliteration follows the hyphen.