The Divine Origins and Journey of Arabic Calligraphy
Dr. Muhammad Al-Naasan says in his study on “The Development of Arabic Calligraphy and its Universality”: “Arabic calligraphy was revealed by Allah Almighty, and they base this on some of the noble verses of the Qur’an. “And He taught Adam the names – all of them…” (Surat Al-Baqarah:31). And it was revealed with all the writings to Adam, and he wrote it on clay and baked it three hundred years before his death. Then, when the flood struck the earth, it was saved, and every people found their writing and wrote with it.
It was said that the Prophet Idris was the first to write with a pen after Adam when prophethood began with him. It was also said that Ismail, son of Ibrahim was the first to establish Arabic writing.
Arabic calligraphy in the Quran and Hadith
Arabic calligraphy has been of great importance in the Islamic civilization, and the need for it emerged since the beginning of the civilizational renaissance that the Arab nation witnessed in the early days of Islam. It is not a mere coincidence that the pen and writing were mentioned in the first verses of the Quran revealed to the Prophet (ﷺ). Allah Almighty said: Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous. Who taught by the pen [Al-Alaq: 3, 4], and Allah Almighty swore by the pen, saying: Nun. By the pen and what they inscribe [Al-Qalam: 1], and He swore by the Book, “By the Mount. And by a Book inscribed [At-Tur: 1]
The importance of the image of the Arabic letter is due to its connection to the writing of the Qur’an, which spread with the spread of Islam. Ernest Connell in his book “The Art of Arabic Calligraphy”, says: “The Arabs gave the Islamic religion language and calligraphy, and the Arabic script spread in the Islamic religion and became a link for all Arab peoples, despite the dividing borders.”
It was said that the Prophet Idris was the first to write with a pen after Adam when prophethood began with him. It was also said that Ismail, son of Ibrahim was the first to establish Arabic writing.
Sura al-Baqarah, verses 282–286, from an early Quranic manuscript written on vellum (mid-late 7th century CE)
Arabic calligraphy in the Quran and Hadith
Efforts continued in Islamic civilization to improve calligraphy, soften its letters, innovate its types, and facilitate its implementation, until writing became a part of the state centres in the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, due to the princes’ interest in documentation and calligraphers. Arabic calligraphy had many influences in various fields of literature, arts, and sciences.
There is no script in the world today that is comparable to the Arabic script in its heritage that makes you feel that you have not left your homeland, whether you go to Damascus, Baghdad , Cairo, Istanbul, Tunis, Cordoba, the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, or elsewhere. The first Muslims set out to conquer countries and cities and spread the true Islamic religion to all parts of the world, and with them their Arabic language, which was able to gain dominance above many languages and replace them and become the language used by the indigenous people of the country. Some languages were able to survive and continue, but the Arabic script became the script in which these languages are written. The Iranians wrote their Persian language with it, just as the Seljuks and Ottomans wrote their Turkish language with it.
The aesthetic form of the letter developed rapidly after the addition of i’rab and ruqsh. Al-Nadim narrated in his book Al-Fihrist that: “The first to write in Arabic were three men from Bulan (Bulan is a tribe of Tayy) who lived in the Anbar region, and that they met and created separate and connected letters, and they are: Maramra bin Murra, Aslama bin Sidra, and Amer bin Jadra. As for Maramra, he created the pictures, and as for Aslam, he separated and connected, and as for Amer, he created the i’jam”. Then this science was transferred to Makka and learned from those who learned it. Then the calligraphy took on styles, some of which were purely decorative and others were basic. The first decorative script was the Kufic script, including the geometric polygon, the tree-like and the braided script. There are other decorative scripts such as Tughrai, Diwani and Farsi as well. As for the basic style, it is a mixture of the Kufic and Hijazi scripts. After that, the scroll, the thuluth, the two-thuluth and the half pens appeared, and then the ruq’i.
The Naskh script was created by the minister Ibn Muqla and his brother Al-Hasan. In Morocco, the script preserved its old Hijazi form, and the Ottomans invented the Humayun script.
The Iranians were interested in writing Arabic calligraphy, and they excelled in writing it, and it became their distinctive script that we call “Persian” after them. The Turks also excelled in writing Arabic calligraphy and focused their efforts on mastering the Naskh and Thuluth scripts. Arabic calligraphy reached the peak of perfection and beauty during the Ottoman era. Turkish calligraphers left us with extremely wonderful calligraphic works, indicating the extent of their superiority and dominance over this art. The calligrapher occupied a prominent position in the lands of the Ottoman sultans, and their passion for calligraphy was so intense that some of their sultans learned the art of calligraphy at the hands of its great masters, and among them were outstanding calligraphers such as Sultan Mahmud Khan, who studied under the calligrapher Mustafa Raqim, and Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who studied under the calligrapher Izzet and received a “Ijaza” certificate from him. The Ottomans also invented new scripts, namely: Diwani, Jali Diwani, and Ruq’ah.