But whoever may have been the inventor of the diacritical signs in their earlier form, we must again remark that their shape in Cufic manuscripts, like that of the vowel-points, is essentially different from the dots which are now employed for the same purpose. They have the form of accents (
), or of horizontal lines (
), or of triangular points, either resting on their basis or with their apex turned to the right (
). As it cannot be our intention to give here an exhaustive treatise on Arabic writing, we pass over the remaining orthographical signs made use of in the old copies of the Qurʾān, in order to say a few words on the system of notation which is employed in the Nask͟hī character and our modern Arabic type.
If, with regard to the Cufic alphabet, we have spoken of diacritical signs to distinguish between the consonants, and of vowel-points, we must now reverse these expressions, calling the former diacritical points, the latter vowel-signs. For, as already has been seen from the synopsis of the alphabet on p. 681, the point or dot is there made use of for the distinction of consonants, while the vowels, which in the Greek and Latin alphabets rank as letters equally with the consonants, have no place in that synopsis. As this style of writing was to serve the purposes of daily life, it is probable that the want of some means of fixing the value of the consonants was here more immediately felt, and that therefore the use of points for this end preceded the introduction of the vowel marks, or to speak more accurately, of marks for the short vowels. For the long vowels ā, ī, and ū, were, as in the Cufic writing, also expressed by the weak consonants ا, ى and و taken as letters of prolongation.
When, later on, the necessity arose to represent the short vowels equally in writing, the point or dot, as a distinctive mark, was disposed of, and other signs had to be invented for that purpose. This was accomplished, we are told, by al-K͟halīl, the celebrated founder of the Science of Arabic Prosody and Metric. His device was simply to place the abbreviated form of the before-mentioned weak consonants themselves above or beneath the letter after which any short vowel was to be pronounced. The origin of the ẓammah or u ( _ُ_ ) from the و is at once evident. The sign for the fatḥah or a ( _َ_ ) differs only by its slanting position from the form which the ا assumes frequently in such words as اللٰه for اللاه; and the kasrah or i ( _ِ_ ) is derived from the bend towards the right which the letter ى takes in its older shape ( ے ). The Tanwīn was then, as in the Cufic writing, expressed by doubling the signs for the simple vowels: _ً_ for an, _ُ_ُ_ or _ٌ_ for un, and _ٍ_ for in.
There remains a third set of signs supplementary to the Arabic alphabet, which may be called orthographical signs, and which, in their present form, were probably also invented and introduced by al-K͟halīl; at all events, this is distinctly stated with regard to two of them, the Hamzah and the Tashdīd. The Hamzah, to be well understood, must be considered in connection with the letter ʿain (ع) of which its sign (ء) is the abbreviated form. If the latter assertion needed proof against the erroneous opinion, put forth by some writers, that the Hamzah is derived from the ى, this proof would be afforded by the following anecdote. The K͟halīfah Hārūnu ʾr-Rashīd was sitting one day with a favourite negro concubine, called K͟hāliṣah, when the poet Abū Nuwās entered into his presence and recited some verses in his praise. Absorbed in conversation with the fascinating slave-girl, the K͟halīfah paid no attention to the poet, who, leaving him in anger, wrote upon ar-Rashīd’s door:—