Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to read and interpret signs, symbols and style in art works, and to describe how art forms and styles reflect the beliefs and traditions of communities. The museum links records on the Arabic script and on Islamic calligraphy; your class will add the art of other communities. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- D2.3 demonstrate an understanding of how to read and interpret signs, symbols, and style in art works […]
- D3.1 identify and describe some of the ways in which art forms and styles reflect the beliefs and traditions of a variety of communities, times, and places […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
What is a letter telling you?
Look at the expectations: they ask you to read signs and style, and to connect a style to the beliefs of a community. Choose a line of writing and ask what its letters stand for, then ask what its style adds to the words.
Go deeper
Follow one report about how Arabic writing spread. In al-Baladhuri's report, three men of Tayy gathered at Baqqa and devised the script, measuring the spelling of Arabic against the spelling of Syriac 2. A people from al-Anbar learned it from them, and then the people of al-Hira learned it from the people of al-Anbar 2. Bishr ibn Abd al-Malik, a Christian from al-Hira, came to Mecca and taught the spelling and then the script to Sufyan ibn Umayya and Abu Qays ibn Abd Manaf 2. The record notes that this is a single report attributed to a single narrator, and that it gives no date.
Two views
Where did the script come from? In the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadim passes on several accounts and chooses none of them. Hisham ibn al-Kalbi names kings of Midian. Umar ibn Shabba says a man of the Banu Yakhlud wrote the jazm script 3. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says that ancient accounts credit legendary persons. The opinion that long prevailed derives the script from the Nabataeans, but specialists in Nabataean deny any resemblance in cursive forms and look to the scripts of the Christian Arab kingdoms around al-Hira, none of which survive. Outside the books, it lists an epitaph of 31 AH and a dam inscription of 58 AH 4 5.
Think about it
Al-Baladhuri's chain of teachers has names but no date, while the epitaph and the dam inscription each carry a date. Which would you trust more to tell you when Arabic writing was in use, and why?
Into the museum
- The devising and spread of the Arabic script: al-Baladhuri's report in full, with the teachers named one by one.
- The Arabic script: Ibn al-Nadim's accounts and the order of the early scripts.
- Islamic calligraphy: what the Encyclopaedia of Islam says of the earliest script and how its history is known.
- Al-Hira: the town where, in the report, the script was learned.
Try this
Read Islamic calligraphy and The Arabic script. Pick two scripts the records name and write one sentence on each describing what makes its shape different.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does The Devising and Spread of Arabic Script have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A report on the first Arabic letters. Al-Baladhuri relays from al-Sharqi ibn al-Qatami a report about the origin of the Arabic script. Three men of Tayy gathered at Baqqa, namely Maramir ibn Murra, Aslam ibn Sidra and Amir ibn Jadra. They devised the script, measuring the spelling of Arabic against the spelling of Syriac. The record notes that this is a single report from a single narrator, with no date. Why might a script take shape by being measured against another?
In your own words: what does The Arabic script have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Meccan, Medinan, Basran, Kufic. In the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadim surveys the accounts of the beginning of Arabic writing. He says the first of the Arabic scripts was the Meccan, then the Medinan, then the Basran, then the Kufic, and he notes in the Meccan and Medinan an inclination of the alifs toward the right hand. The record adds that he gives several accounts without preference. How could you tell one style of writing from another?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: The Arts
- 2. Futuh al-Buldan — al-Baladhuri (Mu'assasat al-Ma'arif edition)
- 3. al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim, p. 9-14
- 4. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes, vol. 4 p. 1163
- 5. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes, vol. 4 p. 1164