The Contribution of Ibn MuḲlah to the North-Arabic Script

Abstract

vention. This was undoubtedly the "proportioned writing," ,LIa u t. i. It is now clear that this was not a specific script-one of many such-but a mathematical control of the basic forms of the letters of the Arabic alphabet.' Mr. Eric Schroeder has recently published an article entitled "What Was the Badi Script?"2 which is likely, if allowed to go unchecked, to involve Ibn Muklah's contribution in another series of misunderstandings. Schroeder has unfortunately limited his study to meager sources. He has accepted Huart's pioneer work3 without further investigation. Valuable as this pioneer work is, it is nevertheless based largely on later Persian and Turkish sources, which should be checked by the earlier and therefore comparatively more reliable Arabic works now available to us to a much larger extent than in Huart's day. Furthermore, Schroeder has misunderstood and misquoted his one early Arabic source, the Fihrist, and has most unfortu-