Information about Nasta`liq Script

Nasta`līq (also anglicized as Nastaleeq; نستعلیق nastaʿlīq) is one of the main genres of Islamic calligraphy. It was developed in Iran in the 14th and 15th centuries. Although it is sometimes used to write Arabic text, and is quite frequently used for titles and headings, it has been more popular in the Persian, Turkic, and South Asian spheres of influence. Nastaʿlīq has extensively been (and still is) practiced in Iran and Afghanistan as a form of art. A less elaborate version of Nastaʿlīq serves as the preferred style for writing Persian, Pashto and Urdu. The Nastaʿlīq script was also used for writing Ottoman Turkish, where it is known as ta`liq (not to be confused with a totally different Persian style, also called ta`liq).

Nastaʿlīq is amongst the most fluid calligraphy styles for the Arabic alphabet. It has short verticals with no serifs, and long horizontal strokes. It is written using a piece of trimmed reed with a tip of 5–10 mm, called "qalam" ("pen," in Arabic), and carbon ink, named "davat." The nib of a qalam is usually split in the middle to facilitate ink absorption.

Two important forms of Nastaʿlīq panels are Chalipa and Siah-Masq. A Chalipa ("cross," in Persian) panel usually consists of four diagonal hemistiches, clearly signifying a moral, ethical or poetic concept. Siah-Masq ("inked drill") panels however communicate via composition and form, rather than content. In Siah-Masq, repeating a few (sometimes even one) letters or words virtually inks the whole panel. The content is thus of less significance and not clearly accessible.

History

After the Islamic conquest of Persia, Iranians adopted the Arabic alphabet and the art of Arabic calligraphy flourished in Iran alongside other Islamic countries. Apparently, Mir Ali Tabrizi (14th century) developed Nastaʿlīq by combining two existing scripts of Nasḫ and Taʿlīq. Hence, it was originally called Nasḫ-Taʿlīq.

Nastaʿlīq thrived gradually, and many prominent calligraphists contributed to its splendor and beauty. It is believed that Nastaʿlīq reached its highest elegance in Mir Emad's works. The current practice of Nastaʿlīq is, however, heavily based on Mirza Reza Kalhor's manner. Kalhor modified and adapted Nastaʿlīq to be easily used with printing machines, which in turn helped wide dissemination of his transcripts. He also devised methods for teaching Nastaʿlīq and specified clear proportional rules for it, which many could follow.

The Mughal Empire used Persian as the court language during their rule over the Indian subcontinent. During this time, Nastaʿlīq came into widespread use in South Asia, including Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. The influence remains to this day. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nasta’līq usage in the world. In Hyderābād, Lakhnau, and other cities in India with large Urdu-speaking populations, many street signs and such are written in Nastaʿlīq. The situation of Nastaʿlīq in Bangladesh used to be the same as in Pakistan until 1971, when Urdu ceased to remain an official language of the country. Today, only a few neighborhoods (mostly inhabited by Bihāris) in Dhaka and Chittagong retain the influence of the Persian and Nastaʿlīq.

Nastaʿlīq is a descendant of Nasḫ and Taʿlīq. Shekasteh Nasta`liq (literarily "broken Nastaʿlīq") style is a successor of Nastaʿlīq.

Notable Nasta`liq calligraphists

• Mir Ali Tabrizi
• Mir Emad
• Mirza Buzurg-i-Nuri
• Mishkín-Qalam

And others: Mirza Jafar Tabrizi, Abdul Rashid Deilami, Sultan Ali Mashadi, Mir Ali Heravi, Emad Ul-Kottab, Gholam Reza Esfehani and Mirza Reza Kalhor.

And among contemporary artists: Hassan Mirkhani, Hossein Mirkhani, Abbas Akhavein and Qolam-Hossein Amirkhani.

Etiquette

Islamic calligraphy was originally used to adorn Islamic religious texts, specifically the Qur'ān, as pictorial ornaments were prohibited in Islam. Therefore, a sense of sacredness always hovered in the background of calligraphy.

A Nastaʿlīq disciple was supposed to qualify him/herself spiritually for being a calligrapher, besides learning how to prepare qalam, ink, paper and more importantly master Nastaʿlīq. For instance see Adab al-Masq, a manual of penmanship, attributed to Mir Emad.

Nasta`liq typesetting

Producing high quality Nastaʿlīq in print is a demanding process. For example, Monotype Corporation's attempt to implement Nastaʿlīq for photo composer typesetting resulted in a repertoire of 20,000 different glyphs.

Nastaleeq Typography first started with the attempts to develop a metallic type for the script but all such efforts failed. Fort William College developed a Nastaleeq Type but that was not close to Nastaleeq and hence never used other than by the college library to publish its own books. State of Hyderabad Dakan (now in India) also attempted to develop a Nastaleeq Typewriter but this attempt miserably failed and the file was closed with the phrase “Preparation of Nastaleeq on commercial basis is impossible”. Basically, in order to develop such a type, thousands of pieces are required.

Later on, Monotype also worked on Nastaleeq Typography. Monotype's attempt was in conjunction with a Pakistani industrialist, Mr. Ahmad Jameel Mirza, who himself is a calligrapher. Mr. Mirza wrote more than 20,000 frequently used ligatures or words for Urdu to form that database of glyphs. This system was named Noori Nastaleeq. Noori Nastaleeq was implemented by Monotype on their LaserComp Machine in the early 1980s, costing 10 million Pakistani rupee per unit at that time. This system was purchased by an Urdu daily newspaper, Daily Jang. But later on, as the IBM PC came into market, this database of glyphs was stolen and its PC Interfaces were developed by various companies and individuals. Examples of such interfaces are InPage, Surkhaab, and Shahkaar.

Modern Nastaleeq typography begins with Pak Data Management Services' Nafees Raqim and Jauher Nastaleeq. Nafees Raqim was basically an ASCII-mapped font following the Lahori Style of Nastaleeq that worked in its own environment, an ActiveX control and was a pure commercial effort. It is still in use but is not open for the masses to use. Jauher Nastaleeq is another effort by PDMS that resembles Noori Nastaleeq and hence follows the Dehelvi Ravish of the script. But a key difference between Nafees Raqim and Jauher Nastaleeq is that Jauher is a Unicode-based OpenType font. It means that you can use it in Windows 2000/Windows XP and Microsoft Office and any other application as well. Jauher Nastaleeq is also not available to the masses as it is a pure commercial effort. However, for a sample, go to UrduNews which embeds Jauher through Microsoft's WEFT Technology. For a sample of Nafees Raqim, please visit Dewaan-e-Ghaalib but you'll have to download an ActiveX control in order to view this site.

The first publicly available attempt at developing a Unicode-based OpenType Nastaleeq font was Nafees Nastaleeq. This font was developed by FAST University in Pakistan by a team of four people led by Dr. Sarmad Hussain, others including Aamir Wali, Aatif Gulzar and calligrapher Mr. Jameel-ur-Rehmaan. This team spent 18 months to develop Nafees Nastaleeq following the Lahori Ravish of Nastaleeq. It has 900+ shapes, 103 joining rules, 77 mark placement rules, 15 kerning rules, 24 cursive attachments and 30+ ligatures. Nafees Nastaleeq was to be open source as it was funded by some American grant, but later on the team decided not to disclose its internals, and as a result the font is still free to use but sources are not available to the public. Due to massive joining and mark placement rules, this font has serious performance issues. Nafees Nastaleeq makes the rendering process quite slow on larger amounts of text. However, the font has been used on several websites, including Frances Pritchett's Dīwān-i Ghālib.

Later on, Dr. Attash Durrani of the Center of Excellence for Urdu Informatics initiated a project to develop a standard Unicode-based OpenType Nastaleeq font named Pak Nastaleeq funded by the government of Pakistan. Mohsin Shafique Hijjazi was responsible for the implementation and contextual analysis of Nastaleeq as they were not publicly available at that time. Using some mathematical modeling, he reduced the joining rules first from 100 to 25 and then from 25 to only two. This font is still in its beta stages and resembles Noori Nastaleeq following Dehelvi Script. Only 200 shapes, two joining rules, five mark placement rules, one cursive attachment rule, and no ligatures, this font is highly efficient to use and is targeted for both desktop publishing and the World Wide Web.

References

1. ^  Esrafil Shirchi, Amozesh khat pouya'', Roham Pub., Tehran, 1998. ISBN 964-91846-2-7ba.

See also

• Persian calligraphy
• Islamic calligraphy
• Hindustānī
• Urdu
• Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization

External links

• Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing - Download Urdu Fonts
• Calligraphers' Biographies Mainly in Turkish
• Turkish Calligraphers
• Iranian Calligraphers
• Pakistani Calligraphers
• Iranian Calligraphers Association
• Short introduction to Persian calligraphy (French)
• Free Open Type Unicode compliant fonts covering both Nasta'liq and Naskh
• Free True Type font covering basic Nasta'liq.
• Nasta'liq Writer for Macintosh, from the SIL. Requires QuickDraw GX or Mac OS X.
• Uni-Nastaliq: Open Type Nastaliq Font and Publishing System.
• Custom Arabic Calligraphy
• Nastaleeq.com: A site dedicated to Nastaleeq calligraphic script