The Arabic script is a writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. After the Latin script, it is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world.1
The Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style. In most cases the letters transcribe consonants, so most Arabic alphabets are classified as abjads.
The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʾān, the holy book of Islam. With the spread of Islam, it came to be used to write languages of many language families, leading to the addition of new letters and other symbols, with some versions, such as Kurdish being abugidas or true alphabets. (See section Languages written with the Arabic script below.) It is also the basis for a rich tradition of Arabic calligraphy.
The Arabic script has the ISO 15924 codes Arab and 160.
is the only official orthography, but other orthographies are recognized for national or regional languages
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is official alongside other orthographies
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is official at a sub-national level (China, India) or is a recognized alternative orthography (Malaysia)
The Arabic script has been adopted for use in a wide variety of languages besides Arabic, including Persian, Kurdish, Malay, and Urdu, which are not Semitic. Such adaptations may feature altered or new characters to represent phonemes that do not appear in Arabic phonology. For example, the Arabic language lacks a voiceless bilabial plosive (the [p] sound), so many languages add their own letter to represent [p] in the script, though the specific letter used varies from language to language. These modifications tend to fall into groups: all the Indian and Turkic languages written in Arabic script tend to use the Persian modified letters, whereas Indonesian languages tend to imitate those of Jawi. The modified version of the Arabic script originally devised for use with Persian is known as the Perso-Arabic script by scholars.
In the case of Kurdish, vowels are mandatory, making the script an abugida rather than an abjad as it is for most languages. Kashmiri and Uyghur, also, write all vowels.
Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, developed with the penetration of Islam. To a certain degree the style and usage tends to follow those of the Maghreb (for instance the position of the dots in the letters fāʾ and qāf). Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language. The term ʿAǧamī, which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign", has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages.
Languages currently written with the Arabic alphabet
Today Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel and China are the main non-Arabic speaking states using the Arabic alphabet to write one or more official national languages, including Dari, Kurdish (sorani dialect/southern Kurdish), Pashto, Urdu, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Saraiki, and Uyghur.
Garshuni (or Karshuni) originated in the seventh century AD, when Arabic was becoming the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent, but Arabic script was not yet fully developed and widely read. There is evidence that writing Arabic in Garshuni influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant and Mesopotamia;
Kazakh in Pakistan, Iran, China, and Afghanistan; and
Turkmen in Turkmenistan and partly in Afghanistan, Iran and other neighbour countries as well as in southern Russia, where the Trukhmen language is occurred;
Official Dari (which differs to a degree from Persian) and Pashto and all regional languages including Uzbek in Afghanistan;
Tajik also differs only to a minor degree from Persian, and while in Tajikistan the usual Tajik alphabet is an extended Cyrillic script, there is also some use of Arabic-script Persian books from Iran; in the southwestern region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China Arabic script is the official one (like for Uyghur in the rest of Xinjiang);
Uyghur changed to Latin script in 1969 and back to a simplified, fully voweled, Arabic script in 1983.
A page from the Cairo Geniza, part of which is written in the Judeo-Arabic language: Arabic language in Hebrew Letters.
The earliest Sindhi manuscript's written during the AbbasidEra in the ancient sindh province of Province.
The first complete translation of the Qur'an was completed in 884 CE in Alwar (Sindh by the orders of Abdullah bin Umar bin Abdul Aziz on the request of the Hindu Raja
The Urdu phrase Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla ("The language of the exalted camp") written in Nastaʿlīq script.
The Arwi language (a mixture of Arabic and Tamil) uses the Arabic script together with the addition of 13 letters. It is mainly used in Sri Lanka and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu for religious purposes. Arwi language is the language of Tamil Nadu Muslims.
Al Bayan newspaper Dated March 1930 printed in Arabi Malayalam script
Malayalam language represented by Arabic script variant is known as Arabi Malayalam. The script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is mainly used in Madrassas of South Indian state of Kerala and Lakshadweep to teach Malayalam.
The Thaana script used to write the Dhivehi language in the Maldives has vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic script. Some of the consonants are borrowed from Arabic numerals.
Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi is co-official in Brunei, and used for religious purposes in Malaysia, Indonesia, Southern Thailand, Singapore, and predominantly Muslim areas of the Philippines. Therefore, Arabic script or Jawi can be seen or used for the sign board or market or shop board. Particularly in Brunei, Jawi is practically used in terms of writing or reading for Islamic Religious Educational Program which is like Primary school, Secondary School, College even higher educational institute such as University. In addition, some television programs is associated with Jawi for announcement, advertisement, news, social programs, obviously religious program and etc.
Early history of Islamic belief and culture is experienced by Brunei from the influence of Arabian merchants. Through the Arabian reached Brunei, some culture of Brunei is mixed with Arab even today some language is derived from Arab words. According to history, during the 14th century the founder of Brunei Sultanate is Sultan Muhammad Shah (1363 to 1402, formerly Awang Alak Betatar) who converted to Islam through the relational marriage with Tumasek (now Singapore) princess (now Johor in which at that time already received the teaches of Islamic faith). However, the influence of Islam is not strong enough at that time in Brunei.
During 15th century one of Arab merchant named Sharif Ali, who believed was the direct-descendant of Muhammad, his grandchild, was Saidina Hassan r.a who married Sultan Ahmad's daughter, Puteri Ratna Kesuma. He became the third sultan of Brunei and called as Sultan Sharif Ali (also known as Barkat Ali ibnu Sharif Ajlan ibni Sharif Rumaithah). He was made Sultan after Sultan Ahmad died without leaving any male descendants, and as such, at the request of the people of Brunei themselves, he became eligible for the throne after marrying Sultan Ahmad's daughter, Puteri Ratna Kesuma. His legacy by adding "Darussalam" which mean abode of peace after Brunei. Today, in the Brunei flag there is Jawi scripted in the emblem.4
Hausa, for many purposes, especially religious (known as Ajami), also includes newspapers, mass mobilization posters and public information;
Swahili, was originally written in Arabic alphabet, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators.
Mandinka, widely but unofficially (known as Ajami), (another non-Latin script used is the N'Ko script);
Fula, especially the Pular of Guinea (known as Ajami);
Speakers of languages that were previously unwritten used Arabic script as a basis to design writing systems for their mother languages. This choice could be influenced by Arabic being their second language, the language of scripture of their faith, or the only written language they came in contact with. Additionally, since most education was once religious, choice of script was determined by the writer's religion; which meant that Muslims would use Arabic script to write whatever language they spoke. This led to Arabic script being the most widely used script during the Middle Ages.
In the 20th century, the Arabic script was generally replaced by the Latin alphabet in the Balkansdubious– discuss, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, while in the Soviet Union, after a brief period of Latinisation,5 use of Cyrillic was mandated. Turkey changed to the Latin alphabet in 1928 as part of an internal Westernizing revolution. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the Turkic languages of the ex-USSR attempted to follow Turkey's lead and convert to a Turkish-style Latin alphabet. However, renewed use of the Arabic alphabet has occurred to a limited extent in Tajikistan, whose language's close resemblance to Persian allows direct use of publications from Iran.6
For the West African languages – Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, Wolof and some more – the Latin alphabet has officially replaced Arabic transcriptions for use in literacy and education;
Turkmen in Turkmenistan (changed to Latin in 1929, then to the Cyrillic script, then back to Latin in 1991);
Uzbek in Uzbekistan (changed to Latin, then to the Cyrillic script, then back to Latin in 1991);
All the Muslim peoples of the USSR between 1918 and 1928 (many also earlier), including Bashkir, Chechen, Kazakh, Tajik etc. After 1928 their script became Latin, then later Cyrillic.
^ The passage is an invitation directed to the Spanish Moriscos or Crypto-Muslims so that they continue fulfilling the Islamic prescriptions in spite of the legal prohibitions and so that they disguise and they are protected showing public adhesion the Christian faith.
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