Kufic
The name of the script derives from Kufa, a city in southern Iraq which was considered as an intellectual center within the early Islamic period.
Sheila S. Blair suggests that "the name Kufic was introduced to Western scholarship by Jacob George Christian Adler (1756–1834)".
In fact, "it is the first style of Islamic period writings in which the manifestation of art, delicacy and beauty are explicitly evident", says Salwa Ibraheem Tawfeeq Al-Amin.
In fact, "the rules that were defined at the outset of the Kufic tradition essentially remained the same throughout its lifespan", says Alain George.
Around the 8th century, it was the most important of several variants of Arabic scripts with its austere and fairly low vertical profile and a horizontal emphasis.
[10] Professional copyists employed a particular form of Kufic for reproducing the earliest surviving copies of the Quran, which were written on parchment and date from the 8th to 10th centuries.
[13] Moreover, it was characterized by figural letters that were shaped in a way to be nicely written on parchment, building and decorative objects like lusterware and coins.
[17] Moreover, he explains that Kufic manuscripts were laid out with a stable number of lines per page, and these were strictly parallel and equidistant.
According to Marcus Fraser, "the political and artistic sophistication and financial expense of the production of the Blue Quran could only have been contemplated and achieved by a ruler of considerable power and wealth".
[16] Ornamental Kufic became an important element in Islamic art as early as the eighth century for Quranic headings, numismatic inscriptions and major commemorative writings.
In fact, "the letter strokes on coins, had become perfectly straight, with curves tending toward geometrical circularity by 86", observes Alain George.
Similarly, the flag of Iran (1980) has the takbir written in white square kufic script a total of 22 times on the fringe of both the green and red bands.
In Iran sometimes entire buildings are covered with tiles spelling sacred names like those of God, Muhammad and Ali in square Kufic, a technique known as banna'i.
[23] Moreover, there is "Pseudo-Kufic", also "Kufesque", which refers to imitations of the Kufic script, made in a non-Arabic context, during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance: "Imitations of Arabic in European art are often described as pseudo-Kufic, borrowing the term for an Arabic script that emphasizes straight and angular strokes, and is most commonly used in Islamic architectural decoration".
[26] The Syrian calligrapher Mamoun Sakkal described its development as an "exceptional step towards simplification in Kufic styles that evolved towards more complexity in the preceding centuries".
Linear is preferred to write long scriptures such as Quranic verses along the interior perimeter or broken into lines elegantly against mosque walls.
