Arabic calligraphy may be defined as the art and design of writing in the various languages that use Arabic letters. Because Arabic script is characteristically connected, this quality makes it amenable to forming beautiful geometric shapes through techniques of extension, return, rounding, interlacing, overlapping, and composition, adorned with dots and diacritical marks such as damma, fatha, shadda, kasra, and sukun.
Arabic calligraphy is thus closely linked to ornamentation, which is why it has been used to embellish mosques and palaces, design artworks, and decorate books and manuscripts — most notably the Holy Quran.
There is no doubt that Arabic calligraphy, from the ages of Islamic civilisation to the present day, has undergone many developments and given rise to diverse schools, at the hands of a group of creative calligraphers who competed to invent different forms and styles brimming with beauty and creativity. Through their ideas and genius, they devised scripts that had not previously been known.
Alongside the angular Arabic scripts — known as Kufic — and the softer scripts with rounded or arched letters, known as Naskh, the Ruqa style emerged, suited to fast and easy writing.
The Thuluth script (