Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq'ah Script

The Arab culture values highly the aesthetics and meditative spirituality of calligraphy, so it is unsurprising that the mastery of handwritten Arabic is seen as an indicator of a dedicated, serious student who merits respect. Writing Arabic by T.F. Mitchell is a comprehensive approach to Ruq'ah, the handwritten script most widely used throughout the Middle East today. Although each of the 28 Arabic letters can have different forms when they are isolated, initial, final or medial (i.e., between two other letters), there are even differences among the standard forms of individual letters for attaching to different letters, e.g., the medial form for any given letter can have variations to accommodate different letters following it. Mitchell not only explains this, he shows examples for the student to analyze.

T. F. Mitchell is at University of Leeds.