The History of the Nastaliq Script

Urdu is predominantly written in a single, highly distinctive calligraphic style across various media, including newspapers, artistic direction, children’s literature, signage, and graffiti. While some may perceive this uniformity as monotonous, the historical development of this script is anything but unremarkable. The script in question is Nastaliq. This write-up briefly explores the history of the Nastaliq Script and how it came around to become the most widely used script for writing Urdu.

The emergence of new calligraphic scripts for Arabic became a necessity during the Abbasid Empire. For nearly two centuries, Kufic script had been the dominant writing style; however, as Islam expanded beyond the Arab world, non-Arabic-speaking Muslims found Kufic challenging to read. Additionally, its rigid and angular structure was not conducive to extensive textual compositions.

In 10th-century Baghdad, the renowned calligrapher Ibn Muqla formulated the foundational principles for six major Arabic scripts: Thuluth, Tawqi, Muhaqqaq, Ruqaa, Rehani, and Naskh. These scripts served diverse purposes and were subsequently refined by his disciples and later calligraphers, particularly in Ottoman Turkey, up until the 15th century.

With the advent of Islam in Persia, the Persian language (Farsi) adopted the Abjad lettering system, incorporating four additional letters to accommodate phonetic distinctions absent in Arabic. Due to the higher proportion of curved versus straight letters in Persian, Persian calligraphers developed alternative scripts better suited to their linguistic requirements. This initiative not only facilitated readability but also served as a means of integrating Islamic cultural elements while preserving Persian literary traditions.

Among the various scripts developed in Persia, Nastaliq is the most notable. Created in the 14th century by Mir Ali Tabrizi, it synthesised elements from the Naskh and Taliq scripts, resulting in an elegant and fluid style. According to legend, Tabrizi was inspired by the sight of a flock of geese in flight, leading to the characteristic curvature and slant of Nastaliq. The script has played a crucial role in shaping Persian literature and culture, serving as the primary medium for the works of renowned poets such as Hafez, Rumi, and Saadi, as well as for religious texts and inscriptions. 

The linguistic evolution of Urdu involved a confluence of Chaghatai Turkish, Persian, and Braj Bhasha, which collectively gave rise to Rekhta, the predecessor to contemporary Urdu. During the Mughal era, in Shahjahanabad, the language became known as Zaban-i-Urdu-i-Mualla and naturally adopted Nastaliq as its standard script. The first digital typeface for the script, Noori Nastaliq, was created in the 1980s in Pakistan.

Over time, Nastaliq became inextricably linked with both Farsi and Urdu. Such was the association that the eminent Lebanese calligrapher Hashim al-Khattat referred to Nastaliq as Khatt-al-Farsi in his treatise on calligraphic rules.

Today, Urdu remains one of the few languages that employ Nastaliq as an everyday script, extending its use beyond literary and religious contexts to include educational and administrative materials. As long as Nastaliq is still being written, the cultural, historical, and linguistic confluences that have shaped Urdu will never be forgotten.