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AKARA

The Quest for Perfect Form

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Thou hast limned some letters of writing: rocks here

become soft as wax for love of them.'

Jalalu'l-Din Rumi

Sufi master and poet, Persia (13th Century)

The need of the Arabs of the 7th century to record precisely the divine revelation contained in the holy Quran impelled them to perfect the art of writing and the production and decoration of manuscripts. Secular works began to be embellished after the 12th century. Figurative art was proscribed; consequently visual and aesthetic energies went into emphasis on and elaboration of the form of words, especially the divine name of God: Allah. Calligraphy and calligraphers were much in demand.

The calligrapher responsible for the single most important development in classical Arabic Calligraphy was Abu 'Ali Muhammad Ibn Muqla, who developed a systematic method of writing based on geometry, called Al-Khatt al-Mansub, where the form of each letter was rigorously disciplined and their relative shapes and sizes defined according to the rhombic dot -- the basic unit of measurement -- and to the 'standard' alif and 'standard' circle.

Ibn Muqla applied this system to the six major cursive scripts, the 'Sitta' and a few others; thus codified, the scripts were prevented from degenerating into an indisciplined multiplicity of styles. Qadi Ahmad, 16th century Persian artist and critic, said of him: 'May it not be hidden from the minds of the clear-sighted that Ibn Muqla was the inventor of the six styles of writing (Sitta)... he took the circle for the basis of writing, introduced (this invention) instead of the Kufi, and taught it. The six styles are: Thuluth, Naskhi, Muhaqqaq, Rayhani, Riqa' and Tawqi.''

The flexible characteristics of this superbly calligraphic script have kept it from going totally typographic; scribes have therefore flourished, and the traditions of Perso-Arabic Calligraphy continue.

In medieval times, there was also a parallel flowering of Hebrew manuscripts, especially under the Arab Caliphate. Versions of the Hebrew Bible written after the ketab Maruba or square script was developed from the Aramaic, display pleasing, well-proportioned letters with flowing lines. This is a cursive script visually very similar to Arabic.

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