Amiri ( ar, أميري) is a naskh typeface for

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...

designed by Khaled Hosny. The beta was released December 2011. As of October 22, 2019, it is hosted on 67,000 websites, and is served by the

Google Fonts Google Fonts (formerly known as Google Web Fonts) is a computer font and web font service owned by Google. This includes free and open source font families, an interactive web directory for browsing the library, and APIs for using the fonts via ...

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

approximately 74.8 million times per week.

Inspiration

Amiri is a revival of a naskh typeface pioneered by the

Bulaq Press The Amiri Press or Amiria Press ( ar, المطبعة الأميرية, المطابع الأميرية) (''Al-Matba'a al-Amiriya'') (also known as the Bulaq Press () due to its original location in Bulaq) is a printing press, and one of the main ...

(), also called ''al-Mataabi' al-Amiriya'' (), in 1905. It was famously used to print the

Cairo edition The Cairo edition (, "the Amiri Mus'haf"), or the King Fu'ād Quran () or the Azhar Quran, is an edition of the Quran printed by the Amiri Press in the Bulaq district of Cairo on July 10, 1924. It is the first printed Quran to be accepted by a Mus ...

, one of the first typographically-composed printed editions of the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...

to be certified by an Islamic authority—

Al-Azhar Al-Azhar Mosque ( ar, الجامع الأزهر, al-Jāmiʿ al-ʾAzhar, lit=The Resplendent Congregational Mosque, arz, جامع الأزهر, Gāmiʿ el-ʾazhar), known in Egypt simply as al-Azhar, is a mosque in Cairo, Egypt in the historic ...

—in 1924. On the 1905 typeface and of challenges of digitizing

, Dr. Hosny wrote: "One of the most novel features of the Bulaq typeface is maintaining the aesthetics of Naskh calligraphy while meeting the requirements (and limitations) of typesetting, a balance that is not easily achieved." The Amiri project was supported by

Google Web Fonts Google Fonts (formerly known as Google Web Fonts) is a computer font and web font service owned by Google. This includes free and open source font families, an interactive web directory for browsing the library, and APIs for using the fonts via ...

TeX Users Group Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...

, and donations from users.

Features

Amiri was released under the

SIL SIL, Sil and sil may refer to: Organizations * Servis Industries Limited, Pakistan * Smithsonian Institution Libraries * SIL International, formerly Summer Institute of Linguistics * Apex Silver Mines (former American Stock Exchange ticker symb ...

Open Font License. The typeface itself has four styles: regular, bold, slanted, bold slanted, and two companions for Quranic typesetting: Amiri Quran and Amiri Quran Colored. All of which are available in

TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating sy ...

outlines and

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...

format. The Amiri font makes extensive use of OpenType features to produce automatic positioning and substitutions, including wide varieties of contextual forms, ligatures and

kerning In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between Character (symbol), characters in a Typeface#Proportion, proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual le ...

to the Arabic letters and the verse number of

āyah An Ayah ( ar, آية, ʾĀyah, ; ) is a "verse" in the Quran, one of the statements of varying length that make up the chapters (''surah'') of the Quran and are marked by a number. In the Quranic context the word means "evidence," "sign" or ...

, and offers several optional features including character variants for specific letters and

text figures Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...

for Arabic digits. The Amiri font itself was published and developed exclusively with free software, including FontForge,

Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rectang ...

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and VIM.

References

{{free and open-source typography Arabic calligraphy Newspaper and magazine typefaces