Naskh (script)

thumb|[[Al-Fatihah written in Naskh script]]

Naskh is a small, round script of Islamic calligraphy. Naskh is one of the first scripts of Islamic calligraphy to develop, commonly used in writing administrative documents and for transcribing books, including the Qur’an, because of its easy legibility.

In his 1617 Grammatica Arabica, Thomas van Erpe defined naskhī characters as the "noblest and true writing style".

Origin

alt=Old Arabic Manuscripts Soft Rounded Arabic Script (Naskh)|thumb|This is a piece of papyrus written in Qara script (Naskh) in black ink. It is written in Arabic (Classical) in the 8th century AD.

alt=Manuscript of Malik's Muwatta in soft, flowing Naskh script|thumb|PERF No. 731, the earliest manuscript of Mālik's Muwaṭṭaʾ, dated to his own time. Recto (left) has the contents of Bāb al-Targib fī-Sadaqah, Manuscript of Malik's Muwatta in soft, flowing Naskh scriptIn the second century AH

The Naskh style of writing can be found as early as within the first century of the Islamic calendar. It was established at this time by order of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan due to the presence of defects in the Kufic script.

Kufic is commonly believed to predate naskh, but historians have traced the two scripts as coexisting long before their codification by Ibn Muqla, as the two served different purposes. Kufic was used primarily in decoration, while Naskh served for everyday scribal use. The Naskh script is believed to have existed since the first century of the Islamic calendar.

Description

The alif is written as a straight stroke, bending to the lower left. In sixteenth-century Constantinople, Şeyh Hamdullah (1429–1520) redesigned the structure of naskh, along with the other "Six Pens", in order to make the script appear more precise and less heavy.

Use

Naskh was historically used heavily in the transcription of books and in administrative courtly documents.

• Layla Basic Arabic

;With some glyphs shared partly with ruqaa style:

• Damascus^{(<span title="iOS">M</span>)}
• KacstOne^{(<span title="Linux">L</span>)}
• Arabic Typesetting^{(<span title="Windows">W</span>)}
• Al Bayan^{(<span title="iOS">M</span>)}
• DecoType Naskh^{(<span title="iOS">M</span>)}
• Baghdad^{(<span title="iOS">M</span>)}
• Geeza Pro^{(<span title="iOS">M</span>)}
• Nadeem^{(<span title="iOS">M</span>)}
• Yakout
• Sakkal Majalla^{(<span title="Windows">W</span>)}
• Traditional Arabic^{(<span title="Windows">W</span>)}
• Amiri^{(<span title="Google Fonts">G</span>)}

Amiri is inspired by the Bulaq Press-inspired Amiri typeface or Monotype Imaging's Bustani font.

Gallery

<gallery widths="220" heights="200">

File:Al Fatihah - naskh script.jpg|14th- or 15th-century Quran with body text in naskh

File:Khalili Collection Islamic Art pot 0491.1 CROP.jpg|Stonepaste dish from 13th-century Iran with a poem in naskh around the rim.

File:Basmala.svg|Basmala in naskh.

File:Prayer in Naskh, 1252 AH, Vesal-i Shirazi, National Library of Iran.jpeg|Prayer in naskh, 1252 AH, Vesal-i Shirazi, National Library of Iran.

File:15th-century Timurid Quran.jpg|The Timurid Quran manuscript, , written in naskh.

</gallery>

See also

• Ruqʿah (the cursive Arabic handwriting)
• Nastaliq
• Arabic, Urdu, other Arabic keyboard layouts
• National Language Authority
• Taʿlīq script

Notes

References

External links