Researchers
Islamic calligraphy
Arabic calligraphy: the art of the letter that became Islam's greatest art because it carries God's own speech. It began with square Kufic in the early mushafs, then Ibn Muqla regularized naskh in Baghdad, thuluth peaked under Yaqut al-Musta'simi, and diwani became the Ottoman chancery's script. The calligrapher does not write, he draws: with a reed pen and soot ink he sets each letter in its measured place, writing mushafs, panels and monuments from Damascus to Samarqand. Out of this art came illumination — golden and floral borders ring the text until the page itself is a painting. Here the word is the whole art. And because writing forgives everything it became the broadest art: on paper, stone, wood and metal it writes God's names and verses of poetry, and the letter's grace is one.