Hijazi script ( ar, خَطّ حِجَازِيّ '), also Hejazi, literally "relating to

Hejaz The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Prov ...

", is the collective name for a number of early

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

scripts that developed in the Hejaz region of the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

, which includes the cities of

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow v ...

and

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

. This type of script was already in use at the time of the emergence of Islam. A calligraphic Hijazi script is called a Ma'il script (مائل, "sloping"), these are found in a number of the earliest Qur'anic manuscripts. The two terms are often used interchangeably. Hijazi was one of the earliest scripts, along with Mashq and

Kufic Kufic script () is a style of Arabic script that gained prominence early on as a preferred script for Quran transcription and architectural decoration, and it has since become a reference and an archetype for a number of other Arabic scripts. It ...

. Earlier scripts included the

Ancient North Arabian Ancient North Arabian (ANA)http://e-learning.tsu.ge/pluginfile.php/5868/mod_resource/content/0/dzveli_armosavluri_enebi_-ugarituli_punikuri_arameuli_ebrauli_arabuli.pdf is a collection of scripts and possibly a language or family of languages (or ...

and

South Arabian script The Ancient South Arabian script (Old South Arabian 𐩣𐩯𐩬𐩵 ''ms3nd''; modern ar, الْمُسْنَد ''musnad'') branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script in about the late 2nd millennium BCE. It was used for writing the Old South ...

. The script is notably angular in comparison with other Arabic scripts and tends to slope to the right. The script does not yet contain any dots or

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

al marks to indicate vowel sounds: but does differentiate consonants by the intermittent use of dashes above the graphic letter forms.

Historicity

This writing study is based on the Qur'an manuscripts, and its aims are to determine the distinctions in the group by observing different criteria (channel, order etc). This approach allows the ancient manuscripts to be divided into two major types, the Hijazi script and the Kufic script. Kufic style also has its own subdivisions. The term Hijazi was coined in the 19th century by Michele Amari, who distinguished between "Meccan script" and "Medinan script" from a 10th-century manuscript. Today, no element reinforces such a geographical distinction, and there is no clarity as to their certainty of geographic origin. Since the 1980s, the Kufic script has been referred to by François Déroche as a preference, with the definition of an "ancient Abbasid script".Cellard É., "Les manuscrits coraniques anciens", ''Le Coran des historiens,'' T.1, 2019, p. 681. The concept of a Hijazi scripts has been criticized by Estelle Whelan, who sees this definition as a "scientific artefact" based on the form of a single letter, (Elif) and archaic explanations.François Déroche, ''Le codex Parisino-petropolitanus,'' p. 113 et suiv.

References

External links

British Library MS. Or. 2165
Early Qur'anic manuscript written in Ma'il script, 7th or 8th century CE

(

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...

)
Ma'il manuscript from the Tareq Rajab Museum in Kuwait

from the discoveries at the Great Mosque,

Sana'a Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Gover ...

Fragment in a Makkan Hijazi script
from the Vatican library Arabic calligraphy Hejaz {{arabic-script-stub

Historicity

See also

References

External links