The first stage in the development of
Arabic script was the Egyptian Demotic script, which was commonly used
by the public. The Egyptians had three types of writing: Hieroglyphic
(used exclusively by religious leaders), Hieratic (for office workers
and civil servants), and Demotic (used by the general public).
The second stage was the Phoenician
script, named after a place called Phoenicia near the land of Canaan on the
coast of the Mediterranean Sea, now known as Jabal Lubnan (Mount Lebanon). The
Phoenicians were descendants of the Semitic people, who frequently traded and
had other dealings with the Egyptians. From the Egyptians, they learned the
letters for their writing. The Phoenicians then created a simple alphabet for
their commercial needs. According to the archaeologist Maspero, they adopted 15
letters from the Egyptian script with slight modifications. After that, they
added several new letters that later became famous in Asia and Europe due to
their simplicity.
The third stage originated from the Aramean
people, also called Musnad. There is a difference of opinion on this
between European and Arab historians.
European Historians' Opinion
European
historians concluded that the Phoenician script gave birth to four scripts:
1.
Ancient Greek script, the ancestor of all
European and Coptic scripts.
2.
Ancient Hebrew script, including the
Samaritan script from Samirah in Naples.
3.
Al-Musnad al-Himyari, which gave rise to
the Ethiopian script.
4.
Aramean script, the ancestor of six
types of writing:
o
All types of Indian scripts.
o
Ancient Persian script (Pahlavi).
o
Square Hebrew script.
o
Palmyrene script.
o
Syriac script.
o
Nabataean script.
According to Western scholars, there
are two types of Arabic script: Kufic, which originated from the Syriac
type (called Estrangela), and Naskh, which originated from the Nabataean
script. Based on this opinion, the Al-Musnad script is not considered part of
the Arabic script family.
Arab Historians' Opinion
Arab historians, both before and after
Islam, believed that their Hijazi script originated from the inhabitants of Hirah
and Anbar. The script reached these two groups from the Kindah Arabs and
the Nabataeans, who had adopted it from Al-Musnad.
Arab historians agree that their script
reached Mecca through Harb bin Umayyah bin Abdu-Syams, who learned it
from several people during his travels. One of them was Bisyr bin Abdul Malik.
Bisyr came to Mecca with Harb bin Umayyah, married his daughter Shahba, and
taught writing to several inhabitants of Mecca before leaving.
According to a narration from Ibn
Abbas, the people of Anbar learned to write from the people of Hirah. From whom
did Harb bin Umayyah learn? Based on the same narration, he learned from
Abdullah bin Jad'an, who learned from the people of Anbar, who learned from the
people of Hirah, who learned from a traveler from the Kindah tribe in Yemen.
The traveler got it from Khafaljan, the scribe of the revelation of Prophet
Hud. According to Al-Mas'udi, the Bani Al-Muhshan bin Jandal (the Nabataeans)
were the ones who spread the script.
According to Arab historians, the
Al-Musnad script is part of the Arabic script lineage. Some Arab scholars
support this opinion because:
1. One
type of Musnad script, namely Shafawi, is close to the Phoenician script. This
script reached the people of Hirah and Anbar from Yemen, as well as from the
Aramean people, through the Kindah and Nabataean tribes.
2. Due
to the intermingling and close proximity of the Nabataeans with the Yemenis and
some Arameans, they may have learned the Musnad script from the Yemenis or
Arameans.
3. The
agreement of Arab historians that the Hijazi script came from Yemen does not
negate the possibility of its origin being the Aramean script, since the
Yemenis could have obtained it from the Arameans.
4. The
existence of the Rawadif letters (ث
خ ذ ص ظ غ) in the Al-Musnad script that are not
found in the Aramean script. The absence of these letters in a specific form in
the Hijazi script indicates that the Aramean script did not have them. This led
the Arabs to create these letters by adding dots to existing ones.
As further evidence, Al-Hafidz
Syamsuddin Adz-Dzahabi mentions that Zaid bin Tsabit, on the order of the
Prophet Muhammad, learned the Jewish script. He mastered it in half a month,
which indicates that what he learned was the Estrangela script, the origin of
the Kufic script and a type of Syriac writing. The Kufic script is most similar
to the Hiri script (from Hirah). The Hiri script is close to the Nabataean
script, which originated from the Aramean script, which came from the
Phoenician script, which came from the Demotic script, the script of the
Egyptian people.
Writings in Madinah (Yathrib)
Historians of the Prophet's life note
that when Prophet Muhammad arrived in Madinah, a Jewish man was already
teaching writing to some children. A dozen or so people in the city could
write, including Said bin Zurarah, Munzir bin 'Amr, Ubai bin Wahb, Zaid bin
Tsabit, Rafi' bin Malik, and Aus bin Khauli. They seemed to already understand
the Hijazi script that originated from the Hirah script. This does not
contradict the fact that Zaid learned the Jewish script at the Prophet's
command after he was in Madinah.
The Prophet Muhammad was the first
person to order the general spread of the knowledge of writing after his
migration to Madinah. After the Battle of Badr, 70 Quraysh captives who could
read and write were taken. For the illiterate captives, the Prophet accepted a
ransom of wealth, but for those who were literate, each was required to teach
ten children to write as their ransom. From then on, writing gradually became
popular in Madinah and the areas under Islamic rule.
The
Hijazi script consists of two types:
- Naskh, used for
correspondence.
- Kufic, named after
the city of Kufah, because the rules of the Hijazi script were perfected
there.
Researchers have found two original
letters from the Prophet Muhammad that were sent to Mukaukis and Munzir bin
Shawi. The letter to Mukaukis was found by a French scholar in an old Egyptian
church and is now kept in the Museum of the Prophet's Relics in Astanah. This
letter was then bought by Sultan Abdul Majid for a very high price. The second
letter is kept in the library of Vienna, Austria.
