The Arabic Alphabet

The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.
Mohammed

Writing as a Form of Art

The Roman and Arabic alphabets are cousins. Each has inherited different features of their North Semitic grandfather. For the Roman it is a similarity to Semitic letter shapes and the alphabetical order. For the Arabic it is the minimal use of vowel letters and the leftward direction of writing.

Arabic is a most efficient way of writing. It is stripped to the minimum: all styles are cursive and geared to rapid penwork, and most vowels are ignored.

The Arabic alphabet is one of the most important in the world. It is used by the followers of the Islamic faith--about 950 million people. Today's commercial developments in this area have brought this script into prominence in the rest of the world as well.

As the Dark Ages fell across Europe and the classics of Greece and Rome were being lost or destroyed, Muslim scholars continued to eagerly collect and translate them into Arabic.

Great universities were established at Islamic centers, where the classics and translations of works from many other cultures were studied. Notable contributions in mathematics, medicine and science were made at these centers. For many centuries the Islamic world carried the torch of civilization.

The European Renaissance resulted largely from the rediscovery of Europe's roots--preserved in the Arabic language and alphabet--and their translation back into Latin, the common language of European scholarship.

Islam disapproved of representing natural forms. This channeled creative endeavor in the Islamic world into other arts, the chief of which has always been calligraphy.

Related Information

See the Arabic script.