Nastaliq

[[File:Khatt-e Nastaliq.jpg|thumb|right|

Example reading ("Nastaliq script") in Nastaliq.

<br/>The dotted form <big></big> is used in place of <big></big>.]]

Nastaliq is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Persian and Arabic scripts, and it is used for several significant Indo-Iranian languages (namely all Iranic and some Indo-Aryan languages), predominantly Persian, Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Urdu, Sindhi, Saraiki, Kashmiri and Punjabi. It is also often used for Ottoman Turkish, but rarely for Arabic (particularly in Iraq) and Arwi. Nastaliq developed in Iran from a combination of Naskh and Ta'liq, beginning in the 13th century and it remains widely used in Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries for writing poetry and as a form of art.

History

300px|thumb|Nastaliq writing style in Silver coin of [[Nader Shah, minted in Daghestan. Dated 1741/2. Reverse. ]]

The name Nastaliq "is a contraction of the Persian (), meaning a hanging or suspended naskh." Virtually all Safavid authors (like Dust Muhammad or Qadi Ahmad) attributed the invention of to Mir Ali Tabrizi, who lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. That tradition was questioned by Elaine Wright, who traced the evolution of Nastaliq in 14th-century Iran and showed how it developed gradually among scribes in Shiraz. According to her studies, nastaliq has its origin from naskh alone, and not by combining naskh and taliq, as was commonly thought. In addition to study of the practice of calligraphy, Elaine Wright also found a document written by Jafar Tabrizi , according to whom:

300px|thumb|In Nasta'liq calligraphy, dimensions and sizes are determined using the dot of Nasta'liq and small approximate circles. In the hypothetical word TAAD (Persian: طعد), observe the dotting and dimensioning

thumb|alt=210|Nastaliq [[Persian Calligram the Persian letter Mem]]

Thus, "our earliest written source also credits Shirazi scribes with the development of nastaʿliq and Mir ʿAli Tabrizi with its canonization." Wright's proposed origin of nastaliq was complicated by studies of Francis Richard, who argued on the basis of some manuscripts from Tabriz that its early evolution was not confined to Shiraz. Finally, many authors point out that development of nastaʿliq was a process which occurred over several centuries. For example, Gholam-Hosayn Yusofi, Ali Alparslan and Sheila Blair recognize a gradual shift towards nastaʿliq in some 13th-century manuscripts. Hamid Reza Afsari traces the first elements of the style to 5th/11th-century copies of Persian translations of the Qur'an, and Rawāqī argues that the referenced translations may be even older.

Persian differs from Arabic in its proportion of straight and curved letters. It also lacks the definite article al-, whose upright alif and lam are responsible for Arabic writing's distinct verticality and rhythm. Hanging scripts like taliq and nastaliq were suitable for writing Persian when taliq was used for court documents, nastaliq was developed for Persian poetry, "whose hemistiches encourage the pile-up of letters against the intercolumnar ruling. Only later was it adopted for prose."

The first master of nastaliq was the aforementioned Mir Ali Tabrizi, who passed his style to his son ʿUbaydallah. A student of ʿUbaydallah, Jafar Tabrizi (d. 1431) (see quote above), moved to Herat, when he became the head of the scriptorium (kitabkhana) of prince Baysunghur (therefore his epithet Baysunghuri). Jafar trained several students in nastaliq, of whom the most famous was Azhar Tabrizi (d. 1475). Its classical form nastaliq achieved under Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520), a student of Azhar (or perhaps one of Azhar's students) who worked for Sultan Husayn Bayqara (1469–1506) and his vizier Ali-Shir Nava'i.

Simultaneously, a different style of nastaliq developed in western and southern Iran. This style was associated with ʿAbd al-Rahman Khwarazmi, the calligrapher of the Pir Budaq Qara Qoyunlu (1456–1466), and then with his children, ʿAbd al-Karim Khwarazmi and ʿAbd al-Rahim Anisi (both active at the court of Ya'qub Beg Aq Qoyunlu; 1478–1490). This more angular western Iranian style was largely dominant at the beginning of the Safavid era, but then lost to the style canonized by Sultan Ali Mashhadi; however, it continued to be used in the Indian subcontinent.

Nastaliq was also adopted in the Ottoman Empire, which has always had strong cultural ties to Iran. Here it was known as taliq (Turkish talik), not to be confused with the Persian taliq script. The first Iranian calligraphers who brought nastaliq to Ottoman lands, including Asadullah Kirmani (d. 1488), belonged to the western tradition. However, at a relatively early stage, Ottoman calligraphers adopted the eastern style of nastaliq. In the 17th century, a student of Mir Emad, Darvish Abdi Bokharai (d. 1647), transplanted his style to Istanbul. The greatest master of nastaliq in 18th century was Mehmed Yasari (d. 1798), who closely followed Mir Emad. This tradition was further developed by Yasari's son Mustafa Izzet (d. 1849), who founded a distinct Ottoman school of nastaliq. He introduced new and precise proportions of the script that differed from the Iranian tradition. The most important member of this school in the second half of the 19th century was Sami Efendi (d. 1912), who taught many famous practitioners of nastaliq, including Mehmed Nazif Bey (d. 1913), Mehmed Hulusi Yazgan (d. 1940) and Necmeddin Okyay (d. 1976). The specialty of the Ottoman school was celî nastaliq, used in inscriptions and mosque plates.

thumb|A [[rubaʿi of Omar Khayyam in Shekasteh Nastaliq.<br/>In print: In modern Naskh: ]]

thumb|A line of poetry by the Iranian poet [[Omar Khayyam in Shekasteh Nastaliq.<br/>In print: In modern Naskh: ]]

' or ' (, , "cursive " or literally "broken ") style is a "streamlined" form of . Its development is connected with the fact that "the increasing use of nastaʿlīq and consequent need to write it quickly exposed it to a process of gradual attrition." Gholam Reza Esfahani (d. 1886–87) and Ali Akbar Golestaneh (d. 1901).

The added frills made shekasteh increasingly difficult to read and it remained the script of documents and decrees, "while nastaʿliq retained its pre-eminence as the main calligraphic style." The need for simplification of shekasteh resulted in development of secretarial style (shekasteh-ye tahriri) by writers like Adib-al-Mamalek Farahani (d. 1917) and Nezam Garrusi (d. 1900). The secretarial style is a simplified form of shekasteh which is faster to write and read, but less artistic. Long used in governmental and other institutions in Iran, shekasteh degenerated in the first half of the 20th century, but later again engaged the attention of calligraphers. Although this employed over 20,000 ligatures (individually designed character combinations), it provided accurate results and allowed newspapers such as Pakistan's Daily Jang to use digital typesetting instead of a group of calligraphers. It suffered from two problems in the 1990s: its non-availability on standard platforms such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS, and the non-WYSIWYG nature of text entry, whereby the document had to be created by commands in Monotype's proprietary page description language.

InPage

In 1994, InPage Urdu, which is a functional page layout software for Windows akin to QuarkXPress, was developed for Pakistan's newspaper industry by an Indian software company Concept Software Pvt Ltd. It offered the Noori Nastaliq font licensed from Monotype Imaging. This font is still used in current versions of the software for Windows. As of 2009, InPage has become Unicode based, supporting more languages and the Faiz Lahori Nastaliq font with Kasheeda has been added to it along with compatibility with OpenType Unicode fonts.

Cross platform Nastaliq fonts

140px|thumb|right|Text:  in the font "Urdu Typesetting".

Windows 8 was the first version of Microsoft Windows to have native Nastaliq support, through Microsoft's "Urdu Typesetting" font.

140px|thumb|Text:  in the font "Noto Nastaliq".

Google has an open-source Nastaliq font called Noto Nastaliq Urdu. Apple provides this font on all Mac installations since macOS High Sierra. Likewise, Apple has carried this font on iOS devices since iOS 11.
Awami Nastaliq features a more extensive character set than most Nastaliq typefaces, supporting: Urdu, Balochi, Persian, Khowar, Palula, Saraiki, Shina.
Amar Nastaleeq was created for web embedding on Urdu websites in 2013. The font was announced by Urdu poet Fahmida Riaz.

Letter forms

The Nastaliq style uses more than three general forms for many letters, even in non-decorative documents. For example, most documents written in Urdu use the Nastaliq style.

In Unicode

Nastaliq is not separately encoded in Unicode as it is a particular style of Arabic script and not a writing system in its own right. Nastaliq letterforms are produced by choosing a Nastaliq font to display the text.

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

UrduFonts.com: Authentic Nastaliq Fonts on Web
KHATTAATT: Nastaliq Script: The Poetic Flow of Arabic Calligraphy
Rumicode: Online Service For Calligraphy
Nastaliq Online: Online Service For Calligraphy
Iranian Calligraphers Association
Nastaliq Writer for Macintosh by SIL
InPage Urdu: Official InPage Urdu DTP software site
Faiz Nastaliq: Official Faiz site
Profiles and works of World Islamic calligraphy
Nastaliq Script Persian Calligraphy
Awami Nastaliq: A Nastaliq font by SIL International