Divani script

Maryam Ekhtiar writes that the main chancery scripts of the Ottoman Empire were the tughra and divani. ¹

Divani — literally "of the [imperial] council" — was the script used in the body of firmans; she describes it as intricate, compact and very difficult to read, its letters and words intertwining in a slight upward slope reminiscent of a ship's bow. The chancery in the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, drew up and recorded the firmans and official letters, aiming to make documents aesthetically superb to reflect the sultan's power. ² The author counts divani among the scripts that arose for administration, some purposely hard to read. ³ Iranian shikasta-nasta'liq resembles it in the stacked, rising words at line ends. ⁴