NASKHI SCRIPT

Islamic style of handwritten alphabet developed in the 4th century of the Islamic era (i.e., the 10th century AD). From the beginning of Islamic writing, two kinds of scripts existed side by sidethose used for everyday correspondence and business and those used for copying the Qur'an. Naskhi script is a cursive style developed from the earliest everyday business scripts. It has remained perhaps the most popular script in the Arab world. Naskhi is a legible, stately script with emphasis on a horizontal line and on the proportions between letters. The two names associated with its development are Ibn Muqlah (d. 940) and Ibn al-Bawwab (d. 1022 or 1031), both of whom worked in Mesopotamia. A Qur'an manuscript of Ibn al-Bawwab is in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. From the 11th century AD, naskhi was widely used for copying the Qur'an.