The chancery pen-styles

Ibn al-Nadim recorded in the Fihrist the names of the measured scripts of Arabic writing. ²

The Jalil script is the father of all scripts. It was used to write from the caliphs to the kings of the earth in the sound scrolls (tawamir sihah). From it issue the two scripts of the registers (sijillat) and of brocade (dibaj). The scripts branched until they reached twenty-four, and they issue from four: the Jalil, the great scroll (tumar kabir), the heavy half script, and the heavy great third script. Among them are the Zunbur, the Muftatah, the Jazm, the Ahd, the Ajwiba, the Ruqa', the Narjis, and the Ghubar al-Halba. ²

People continued to write in the model of the old script until the Abbasid state appeared. The Qur'an manuscripts then took their own scripts, and a script called the Iraqi came into being. It was the precise script, called the scribal script, and it became beautiful. Eventually it reached al-Ma'mun, and his companions and secretaries worked on refining their scripts. ²

Dhu al-Riyasatayn al-Fadl ibn Sahl devised a script of his own invention, which is the finest of scripts, known as the Riyasi, and it branched into several scripts. ²