Nastaliq

Nastaliq is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Persian and Arabic scripts. It is also used for many important Indo-Iranian languages, including Persian, Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Urdu, Sindhi, Saraiki, Kashmiri, and Punjabi. It is sometimes used for Ottoman Turkish but is less common for Arabic, especially in Iraq, and for Arwi.

Nastaliq began in Iran during the 13th century. It grew from a mix of two older writing styles called Naskh and Ta'liq. Today, Nastaliq is still widely used in Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other places. People use it to write beautiful poetry and as a special kind of art.

History

The name Nastaliq comes from a mix of two older writing styles. It started in Iran around the 1300s. Many believe a calligrapher named Mir Ali Tabrizi created it, but some think it grew slowly from another style called naskh.

Nastaliq became popular for writing Persian poetry because it looked beautiful and fit well on the page. Over time, it spread to many places, including India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It is still used today for art and writing in many languages.

Shekasteh Nastaliq

Shekasteh or Shekasteh Nastaliq (Persian: شکسته نستعلیق, شکسته نستعلیق, "cursive Nastaliq" or literally "broken Nastaliq") is a simpler version of Nastaliq. It started in the early 1600s because people needed to write Nastaliq faster. In Shekasteh Nastaliq, some letters are made smaller ("broken") and sometimes letters or words are joined together. This makes it quicker to write than other scripts.

Important calligraphers like Mohammad Shafiʿ Heravi and Mortazaqoli Khan Shamlu helped develop Shekasteh. Later, Abdol Majid Taleqani gave it its final, special shape. Over time, Shekasteh became used mainly for official documents and decrees, while Nastaliq stayed the main beautiful writing style. To make Shekasteh easier to read, a simpler version called shekasteh-ye tahriri was created. Shekasteh was mostly used in Iran, with some use in Afghanistan and the Ottoman Empire.

Nastaliq typesetting

Modern Nastaliq typography started with the creation of the Noori Nastaliq font in 1981. This font was made by Ahmed Mirza Jamil and Monotype Imaging. It let newspapers like Pakistan's Daily Jang use digital typesetting instead of hand writing. But in the 1990s, it had two problems: it didn’t work on common computers like Microsoft Windows or Mac OS, and you needed special commands to create documents.

Examples of Nastaliq typesetting show how words look in both Nastaliq and Naskh styles.

InPage

In 1994, InPage Urdu software was made for Windows to help Pakistan’s newspapers. It used the Noori Nastaliq font from Monotype Imaging. By 2009, InPage started using Unicode, which helps more languages, and added the Faiz Lahori Nastaliq font.

Cross platform Nastaliq fonts

Windows 8 was the first version to support Nastaliq with the "Urdu Typesetting" font.

Google created an open-source Nastaliq font called Noto Nastaliq Urdu. Apple includes this font on Mac computers since macOS High Sierra and on iOS devices since iOS 11. Awami Nastaliq supports many languages like Urdu, Balochi, Persian, and others. Amar Nastaleeq was made for websites in 2013 and was announced by Urdu poet Fahmida Riaz.

Letter forms

The Nastaliq style uses many different shapes for letters, even in everyday writing. For example, books and papers in Urdu often use the Nastaliq style.

In Unicode

See also: Arabic (Unicode block)

Nastaliq is not separately encoded in Unicode because it is a special style of the Arabic script, not its own writing system. To see Nastaliq text, you need to choose a Nastaliq font to display the writing.