) is the cypher or zero, employed to indicate the absence of a vowel sound. A native Arab scholar of our days, the late Nāṣif al-Yazijī of Beyrout, has combined the vowel marks as well as the last-mentioned orthographical signs in the words:

أَخَطُّ ٱلْهِجاَٰ‎

Ak͟hat̤t̤u ʾl-hijāʾa.

“I write out the Alphabet,”

and these words, together with the two formulas given on page 682 (ادرو‎ and ٮحسصطعڡكلمه‎), and the dot as a diacritical sign, contain the whole system of Arabic writing, as it were, in a nut-shell.

However indispensable these various supplementary signs may seem to us for fixing the meaning of an Arabic text, educated Arabs themselves look at them in a different light. Although the need for them was from the first most urgently felt for the purpose of securing the correct reading of the Qurʾān, several of the learned doctors of early Islām strongly opposed their introduction into the sacred book as a profane innovation. The great Sunnī traditionist, Mālik ibn Anas (died A.H. 179), prohibited their use in the copies employed at the religious service in the mosque (ummahātu ʾl-maṣāḥif), and allowed them only in the smaller copies, destined for the instruction of the young in schools. In course of time, however, when even the office of reading the Qurʾān publicly more and more frequently devolved upon persons who had not received a special theological training, the necessity of carefully marking the text with these signs all through went on increasing, and became at last a generally acknowledged principle. In secular literature and in epistolary intercourse amongst the educated, on the contrary, their use should, according to the competent authorities, be limited to those cases where ambiguity is to be apprehended from their omission. If there is no danger of miscomprehension, we are told by Ḥājī K͟halīfah, it is preferable to omit them, especially in addressing persons of consequence and refinement, whom it would be impolite not to suppose endued with a perfect knowledge of the written language. Moreover, to a chastened taste, a superabundance of those extraneous signs seems to disfigure the graceful outline of the Arabic character. When a piece of highly elaborate penmanship was presented to ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn T̤āhir, the accomplished governor of K͟hūrasān under the Abbaside K͟halīfah al-Maʾmūn, he exclaimed, “How beautiful this would be if there were not so much coriander seed scattered over it.” The diacritical points of the consonants, of course, are now always added, for they have grown to be considered as integral elements of the alphabet itself. Their absence, or their accidental misapplication, gave rise, in former times, to numberless ludicrous or serious perplexities and mistakes, instances of which abound in Muḥammadan history. Al-Balādorī, e.g., relates that the poet al-Farazdaq (died A.H. 110) interceded by letter with Tamīm, governor of the boundaries of Sind, in order to obtain release from military service for the son of a poor woman of the tribe of T̤aiy. The youth’s name was Ḥubaish حبيش‎; but as the diacritical points were not marked in al-Farazdaq’s letter, Tamīm was at a loss whether to read Ḥubaish or K͟hunais خنيس‎, and solved the difficulty by sending home all soldiers whose names contained the dubious letters. A more tragical event is recorded by Ḥājī K͟halīfah, to which we would fain apply the Italian saying: Sè non è vero, è ben trovato. The K͟halīfah al-Mutawakkil is said to have sent an order to one of his officials to ascertain the number of Ẕimmīs in his province, and to report the amount. Unfortunately, “a drop fell,” as the Arabic original expresses it, upon the second letter of the word احصى‎ (aḥṣī, “count”), and the result was, that the officious functionary submitted the ill-fated Ẕimmīs to a certain painful and degrading operation, in consequence of which they all died but two.

On the other hand, the employment of these signs in the Qurʾān, together with several others, to mark its division into verses, chapters, sections, and portions of sections, to call attention to the pauses that should be observed in reciting it, and to indicate the number of rukūʿ or inclinations with which the recital is to be accompanied, gave occasion for graphical embellishment of various kinds. Brilliantly coloured ink or a solution of gold to write with, delicately tinted and smoothly pressed pergament or paper, frequently overspread with gold or silver dust, highly finished ornamental designs of that fanciful and elegant description which has received the name of arabesques, such are the means which serve to render the copies of the Qurʾān of the halcyon days of Islām gorgeous and oftentimes artistically beautiful. Writing became indeed an art, diligently cultivated, and eloquently treated upon in prose and verse by its possessors, to whom it opened access to the most exalted positions in the State. Amongst the most celebrated calligraphists are mentioned the Wazīr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muqlah (died A.H. 328), ʿAlī ibn Hilāl, surnamed al-Bauwāb (died A.H. 413), and Abū ʾd-Durr Yāqūt ibn Yāqūt ibn ʿAbdi ʾllāh ar-Rūmī al-Mustʿaṣamī (died A.H. 698), whose father and grandfather had excelled in the art before him, but who, according to Ḥājī K͟halīfah, was never surpassed in it by any of his successors.

It was a natural consequence of the general development of the art of writing, that various styles were invented and cultivated independently of each other, and it will now be our task shortly to speak of the principal varieties, trying to describe their distinguishing features by help of a few illustrations chosen from Bresnier’s Cours de Langue Arabe. Along with the fundamental distinction already mentioned, of the Cufic or monumental, and the Nask͟hī or manuscript style, there runs, in the first instance, that of the Mag͟hrib-Berber or Western, and Mashriq or Eastern style. It must, however be remarked, that the Western Nask͟hī stands in closer connection and has preserved a greater resemblance with the Western Cufic, than is the case with the Eastern Nask͟hī in reference to the Eastern Cufic, as the reader will scarcely fail to perceive on comparing the following specimens.

The first is the before-mentioned fragment of the Qurʾān, written in the Cufic manuscript style, and provided with the vowel-points as invented by Abū Aswad ad-Duʾilī (or Naṣr ibn ʿĀṣim, see page 682). Like the remainder of our specimens, we accompany it with a transcript in modern type, a transliteration in Roman character, and a rendering into English.