From Kufa to your wall: a short history of the scripts
Every script in Mashq Studio carries a millennium of decisions. Choosing between them is choosing a lineage.
The family tree, briefly
- Kufic — the oldest formal hand, born in Kufa; angular, monumental, architectural. The script of early Qur'ans and of modern logos alike.
- Naskh — Ibn Muqla's proportional revolution made "the copyist's hand" the everyday script of the Arabic world. If you can read this, you learned on Naskh.
- Thuluth — "one third": the majestic display script of mosque friezes. The hardest to master, the first to impress.
- Ruq'ah — the fast Ottoman office hand. Friendly, compact, unpretentious.
- Diwani — the Ottoman chancery secret script, all curves and pride. Our TE Aldwawin cut is the studio's signature.
- Farsi Nastaliq — the "bride of scripts", hanging like poetry. Persian ghazals live here.
- Maghribi — the round, deep-bowled hand of Andalusia and North Africa, newly added via the Kano tradition.
Deeper histories live in our Learn pages — each script has its own chapter.
Write your word in each and see which one answers back.