History of Islamic Calligraphy

Islamic calligraphy is the beautiful writing of the Arabic script. It is has been the main Islamic art since the Quran's revelation (610 AD). It has helped and continues to help preserve the beautiful words of the Quran. The Muslim scribes of the time recorded the Quranic text and many of the Muslim's memoriesed it. Images of living beings are not aloud to be drawn in Islam so the text is very precious.

The Nabatean script was the recorded earliest form of pre-Arabic script. The early Arabs, called the Nabatean's, are said to have developed the Aramaic script, also known as the north Arabic script, during around the 5th century. It became very popular and swept to the rest of the ancient middle east in around 9 BCE. Ammonite and Aramaic were languages that used the Aramaic script.

As the Aramaic language and writing evolved, the Arabic script took over and started from around 500AD, which was the first recorded Arabic alphabet. There are around roughly 20 languages all spoken today that writes in the Arabic script. As the time went on, the Aramaic dictionary was developing leading to the Arabic alphabet, evolving and becoming the most widespread writing system worldwide.

There are many types of cursive scripts used in Islamic calligraphy one being; The 'kufic script' also known as the 'Kufi script'. This scrip became popular in the 10th century, and although the script was known much earlier, it was not developed good enough until that time.

Some other Cursive scrips are

• Diwani (began around 16th century)
• Req'aa and Tawqi (began around 9th century)
• Naskh (10th century, popular calligraphy style with most of Quran written with this calligraphy script style)
• Thuluth (first recorded seen 11th century CE)