Kufic is the oldest
calligraphicIslamic calligraphy, colloquially known as Arabic calligraphy, is the art of artistic handwriting, or calligraphy, and by extension, of bookmaking. This art, associated with Islam, has most often employed the Arabic script, throughout many languages including Arabic...
form of the various
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
scriptsThe Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic and Urdu. After the Latin alphabet, it is the second-most widely used alphabet around the world....
and consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script. Its name is derived from the city of
KufaKufa is a city in Iraq, about 170 km south of Baghdad, and 10 km northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
,
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
. although it was known in Mesopotamia at least a 100 years before the foundation of Kufa. At the time of the emergence of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, this type of script was already in use in various parts of the
Arabian PeninsulaThe Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia...
. It was in this script that the first copies of the
Qur'anThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
were written.
Kufic is a form of script consisting of straight lines and angles, often with elongated verticals and horizontals.
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Kufic is the oldest
calligraphicIslamic calligraphy, colloquially known as Arabic calligraphy, is the art of artistic handwriting, or calligraphy, and by extension, of bookmaking. This art, associated with Islam, has most often employed the Arabic script, throughout many languages including Arabic...
form of the various
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
scriptsThe Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic and Urdu. After the Latin alphabet, it is the second-most widely used alphabet around the world....
and consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script. Its name is derived from the city of
KufaKufa is a city in Iraq, about 170 km south of Baghdad, and 10 km northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
,
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
. although it was known in Mesopotamia at least a 100 years before the foundation of Kufa. At the time of the emergence of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, this type of script was already in use in various parts of the
Arabian PeninsulaThe Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia...
. It was in this script that the first copies of the
Qur'anThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
were written.
Characteristics
Kufic is a form of script consisting of straight lines and angles, often with elongated verticals and horizontals. It originally did not have consonant pointing distinguishing, for example,
b, t, and
th. It is still employed in Islamic countries though it has undergone a number of alterations over the years and also displays regional differences. The difference between the Kufic script used in the Arabian Peninsula and that employed in North African states is very marked.
Occurrence
Kufic is commonly seen on Seljuk coins and monuments and on early
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
coins. Its decorative character led to its use as a decorative element in several public and domestic buildings constructed prior to the
Republican periodThe Republic of Turkey is the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, created after the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin by the new Republican assembly of Turkey in 1922...
in
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
.
The current
Flag of IraqThe flag of Iraq has had a number of different designs since the Kingdom of Iraq was established in 1921. The current flag was adopted in 2008 for a year and is intended to be an interim measure until a permanent solution to the flag issue is found...
uses Kufic script to write اﷲ أكبر
Allahu AkbarThe takbīr or takbeer is the Arabic name for the phrase ', . Usually translated "God is great" or "God is [the] greatest," it is a common Arabic expression and is used as both an informal expression of faith and as a formal declaration....
.
Western imitations
"
Pseudo-KuficPseudo-Kufic, or Kufesque, also sometimes Pseudo-Arabic, refers to imitations of the Arabic Kufic script, or sometimes Arabic cursive 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...
", also "Kufesque", refers to imitations of the Kufic script, made in a non-Arabic context, during the Middle-Ages or the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
:
"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".
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