TABLE OF CONTENT

NOTE
INTRODUCTION
HSTORICAL BACKGROUND
HISTORY OF THE SCRIPT

NOTE:
There are times when you feel fate plays a hand in
your life and everything just seems to fall into
place. Some years ago I took a class at Kana-iFarang, (which promotes the arts and culture of
Iran,in Lahore). The aim of this course was to teach
Traditional Islamic Calligraphy. My teacher was
Syed Sajjid Hussain Naqvi, who had practiced
calligraphy for the last 35 years. Later I enrolled at
Alhabra Cultural Arts Complex to work at the
calligraphic guild. I also did a course at the Naqsh
Gurmani Art Center.
For my A levels I selecting Art and Design as one
of my subjects. My teacher Ms. Uppal, in her
student days, at the National College of arts, had
studied calligraphy as part of her graphic design
course. My interest in this subject grew as I
became better informed and more exposed to the
newer advances in the practice of Islamic
Calligraphy. Hence it was interesting to explore the
traditional and contemporary development in our
own culture, for my personal study.

INTRODUCTION
Calligraphy is practiced world over by all nations
who have a script. It is the art of writing beautifully.
For Muslims it is among the high arts. According to
Arab tradition Purity of writing is purity of the
soul. It is said that A calligrapher is a person of
spiritual devotion, clear thought and a master of
the art of writing.
Islamic calligraphy has an extensive history.
Traditionally it has a rigid set of rules which are
followed to create the various styles of writing, but
at the same time it also has a parallel practice in
which artists deviate from the set standards in
order to create works of art. Then there are those
who follow the rigid rules of traditional calligraphy
and yet manipulate it into contemporary fine art
works.
In order to understand Islamic Calligraphy and its
many deviations into fine arts, it is important to
have some sense of its traditional practices and
development.

HSTORICAL BACKGROUND
According to art historians the reason for the
elevation of calligraphy as a custom of high art
within Islamic art practices was because Islams
most important written work is the Quran. Some
people term Islamic calligraphy as devotional
writing; the practice has been that it is written by
the best calligrapher of the time, or in the best
style one can write. Its elegant traditional lettering
styles developed over a period of time. The first
scribes were the companions of the Prophet
Mohammad. These scribes recorded his words as
they were reviled to him in what is termed wahi
(the word of God) in the early seventh century. At
that time the Jazm script, which is said to be an
early version of the Kufic Script was common in
Mecca. This script is very angular or rectilinear as it
is often described. The many styles that evolved
after this time were in order to enhance the beauty
of these revered words.
Pictorial history

As The Urdu Language is written in the Arabic

script, the history of its development overlaps with
that of the history of the Middle East and Persia.

The developments that took place in calligraphy, in

those regions were imported into the IndoPak
subcontinent.
The Arabic script was introduced into the region of
the subcontinent when Mohammad Bin Qasim, the
first general of a Muslim army, landed on these
shores in 712 CE. He occupied the western region
of the subcontinent, the area now a part of the
Sindh Province. His conquest brought Sindh, under
Arab Umayyad rule. Though this particular
domination did not last very long, it paved the way
for invasions from other Muslim powers from the
west and north. In time the subcontinent became
home to a large number of people practicing the
Muslim faith. Some came with the conquerors and
others converted to the religion. As a result Islamic
calligraphy became a part of art and culture in the
subcontinent. The Qutib Minar, commissioned by
Qutbuddin Abuk, in 1191. A.D, in India is an
outstanding example of the development and
importance given to Arabic calligraphy at that time
in history.
An extract from the book The History of the Urdu
Language published in 1920, reads :-The
language started evolving from Farsi and Arabic
contacts during the invasions of the Indian

subcontinent by Persian and Turkic forces from the

11th century onward. Urdu developed more
decisively during the Delhi Sultanate (12061526)
and the Mughal Empire (15261858). When the
Delhi Sultanate expanded south to the Deccan
Plateau, the literary language was influenced by
the languages spoken in the south, by Punjabi and
Haryanvi, and by Sufi and court usage. The earliest
verse dates to the 15th century, and the golden
period of Urdu poetry was the 18th19th centuries.
Urdu religious prose goes back several centuries,
while secular writing flourished from the 19th
century onward. Modern Urdu is the national
language of Pakistan and is also spoken by many
millions of people in India.
As we studied in history lessons in school, Urdu is a
combination of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic;
because the soldiers of Muslim Armies were from
different regions and each spoke a different
language. The common language that developed
among them is what became Urdu. As Urdu
became common, it gained importance and its
inclusion into literature and poetry was greatly
patronized by the ruling classes and in particular
the Mughals. An important point is that the official
language of the Mughals was Persian, (which is

also written in the Arabic script), but Urdu poetry

was gaining popularity, as is mentioned in the book
Ghalib written by ------, where Ghalib a prominent
Poet of the Mughal era, grumbles when he is
commissioned to write Urdu poetry instead of
Persian. We are aware that Urdu was also included
in the calligraphic practices of the time. The extent
of it remained limited--- I mention this as there are
no examples of its inclusion in the architectural
dcor of monuments of the Mughal period, even
though it is mentioned by historians to be the
golden period of calligraphy. The script used in
masonry and crafts remained Quranic Arabic. Urdu
was limited to ink and pen on paper.
By the eighteen hundreds the British rule in India
according to historians affected many traditional
arts. The loss of patronage which they had
previously enjoyed was withdrawn and the fine arts
went into decline. Calligraphy was no exception.
Also the invention of the printing press affected
standards and it was classified as a craft. Col.
Holroyd introduced the Directorate Script, which
simplified Urdu, allowing it to be like English within
two parallel lines, with each letter almost equal in
size to the other. It was not till a later date when a

concerted effort was made by the British and local

patrons to revive local arts, including calligraphy.
The style of script commonly used before the 16th
century was naskh. The Mughals introduced
Nastaliq which was developed in the Persian
Courts to their own courts in the subcontinent, as
was their practice because of the admiration they
had for all forms of art from Persia.
The reason for mentioning this is that later Urdu
was written in this script. It is the script most
commonly used to write Urdu even till this day.
Akbar established an independent department, called Aina-i-Taswir Khana,
specially meant for compiling, decorating and illustrating books. It worked
under the supervision of Khawaja Abdus Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali Tabriz.,
Monumental inscriptions were scribed on numerous monuments. A number
of such inscriptions in Lahore belonging to Akbars period (e.g., Unchi Masjid,
Bhati Gate),
, Mir Abdullah Mushkeen Qalam. The same artist had also calligraphed
another inscription on the cenotaph of Shah Begum, wife of Prince Saleem, in
nastaliq script dated 1012 A.H. / 1604 A.D in Khusrau Bagh at Allahabad, in
the same pattern. Inscriptions dating back to Shah Jahan (Majid Wazir Khan
and Maktib Khana in Lahore fort) and Aurangzeb (Badshahi Mosque),

HISTORY OF THE SCRIPT