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When we speak of Turkish calligraphy, we refer to writing of aesthetic value in characters based on the Arabic script, which the Turks had adopted as their writing medium after their conversion to Islam. The Arabic characters gradually assumed an aesthetic function after the advent of Islam, and this process gathered momentum from the mid-eighth century onwards, so that calligraphy was already a significant art discipline by the time the Turks joined the Islamic world. Therefore it is necessary to begin with a brief review of the structure of Arabic characters and their development during the early centuries of Islam. The most succinct definition of calligraphy formulated by Islamic writers is, "Calligraphy is a spiritual geometry produced with material tools." The aesthetic values implied by this definition held true for centuries. Under this writing system most of the letters underwent a change of form according to whether they were positioned at the beginning, middle or end of a word. When transformed into an art the characters took on highly elaborate shapes, and the rich visual impact attained when they were joined together, and above all the fact that the same word or phrase could be written in various ways opened the door to the infinite variety and innovation which is a prerequisite of art. Just as the characters could be written singly in several different ways, so there was an astonishing diversity of different scripts or "hands". The Arabic characters
were adopted primarily motivated by religious fervour by virtually all the peoples who converted to Islam, so that just a few centuries after the Hegira they had become the shared property of the entire Muslim world. The term "Arabic calligraphy", which is appropriate with respect to the early period, broadened in scope over time to become what more accurately might be described as "Islamic calligraphy".
This writing system, known as nabatî because it was used by the Nabat tribe in pre-Islamic times, derives from the Phoenician. In its early form, the script gave no clue of its future potential as such a powerfully aesthetic medium, the characters consisting of very simple shapes. With the emergence of Islam, however, and particularly after the Hegira,
The Arabic script became the literary vehicle of the last Semitic religion. The numbers of those literate in the Arabic script multiplied rapidly, and in time it was perfected into a vehicle equipped to recordthe Koran, and hence the language as a whole, with precision. Vowel signs known as hareke were invented to express the short phonemes which accompanied the consonants. The method of determining the sound of letters which resembled one another in form, by means of disparate positioning and diacritical marks was developed. As time passed, the use of diacritics to distinguish the undotted from the dotted forms of the same letters was introduced. Both the diacritics, the vowel signs and the unmarked letter symbols took on decorative forms which played a major role in the development of writing as an art. Meanwhile, the frequently used definite article, consisting of the letters alif and lâm, became a balancing element in the aesthetics of calligraphy.At different periods, depending on the centre of calligraphy at the time, the Arabic script was known variously as anbarî, hîrî and mekkî in pre-Islamic times, and after the Hegira these were qualified by the term medenî. The Koran, which was the first Islamic text compiled in book form, was first written in mekkî-medenî hand in black ink on parchment, without diacritics or vowel signs. Not surprisingly, artistic considerations were not a concern for the early Koran copyists. In time this style of writing divided into two forms; the sharply angled form being reserved for Korans and important correspondence. Since this was most often used in the city of Kûfa, it became known as kûfî.
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