Muslim Calligraph Research Paper

The Quran was revealed on Prophet Muhammad in the twelfth century. Since Quran was revealed to prophet and there was no written significance of it so the need to pen down the quranic verses was felt in order to preserve it. So in order to pen it down Muslims started to use parchments. Writing Arabic scripts mainly became the symbol of Arabic world and its civilizations. This writing of Quran became an art which was named calligraphy. With time calligraphy was done on everything from coins to textiles and ceramics, buildings and scribes. Also, calligraphers became the most honored artist of those times. In the beginning, Muslim calligraphers mainly worked on parchments that were made from the skin of sheep and goats, but as the time passed parchment

Cursive; in cursive form of calligraphy, letters were connected and assumed different forms depending on their position in the word that is starting, middle or ending. The cursive form allowed Muslim calligraphers to develop more different styles of writing which are termed as rectilinear and rounded. Rectilinear is sometimes termed as Kufic, named after the city of Kufa, which was considered an intellectual center in early Islamic times. Kufic style is also sometimes referred to as old or early Abbasid style but it is not universally accepted. The rounded form is called naksh by scholars, from the verb naksha which means to copy. The naksh script is the most commonly used style in calligraphy. Naksh style was used to develop more forms, approximately five main and two sub styles. In naksh various sounds were added by adding one, two or three dots above or below the letters, furthermore the five styles developed from naksh were different from each other on the basis of the proportion of straight line and curved lines. The five forms were tawqv, riqa, muhaqqaq, raybdn and ta’liq. The taliq style was replaced by the nastaliq form which was rounder then