, minted in
Daghestan. Dated 1741/2. Reverse. The name
Nastaliq "is a contraction of the Persian (), meaning a hanging or suspended
naskh." Virtually all
Safavid authors (like
Dust Muhammad or
Qadi Ahmad) attributed the invention of to
Mir Ali Tabrizi, who lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. That tradition was questioned by Elaine Wright, who traced the evolution of
Nastaliq in 14th-century Iran and showed how it developed gradually among scribes in
Shiraz. According to her studies,
nastaliq has its origin from
naskh alone, and not by combining
naskh and
taliq, as was commonly thought. In addition to study of the practice of calligraphy, Elaine Wright also found a document written by
Jafar Tabrizi , according to whom: the
Persian letter Mem Thus, "our earliest written source also credits Shirazi scribes with the development of
nastaʿliq and Mir ʿAli Tabrizi with its canonization." Wright's proposed origin of
nastaliq was complicated by studies of Francis Richard, who argued on the basis of some manuscripts from Tabriz that its early evolution was not confined to Shiraz. Finally, many authors point out that development of
nastaʿliq was a process which occurred over several centuries. For example, Gholam-Hosayn Yusofi, Ali Alparslan and
Sheila Blair recognize a gradual shift towards
nastaʿliq in some 13th-century manuscripts. Hamid Reza Afsari traces the first elements of the style to 5th/11th-century copies of Persian translations of the Qur'an, and Rawāqī argues that the referenced translations may be even older. Persian differs from Arabic in its proportion of straight and curved letters. It also lacks the definite article
al-, whose upright
alif and
lam are responsible for Arabic writing's distinct verticality and rhythm. Hanging scripts like
taliq and
nastaliq were suitable for writing Persian when
taliq was used for court documents,
nastaliq was developed for Persian poetry, "whose
hemistiches encourage the pile-up of letters against the intercolumnar ruling. Only later was it adopted for prose." The first master of
nastaliq was the aforementioned
Mir Ali Tabrizi, who passed his style to his son ʿUbaydallah. A student of ʿUbaydallah,
Jafar Tabrizi (d. 1431) (see quote above), moved to
Herat, when he became the head of the
scriptorium (
kitabkhana) of prince
Baysunghur (therefore his epithet Baysunghuri). Jafar trained several students in
nastaliq, of whom the most famous was
Azhar Tabrizi (d. 1475). Its classical form
nastaliq achieved under
Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520), a student of Azhar (or perhaps one of Azhar's students) who worked for
Sultan Husayn Bayqara (1469–1506) and his vizier
Ali-Shir Nava'i. Simultaneously, a different style of
nastaliq developed in western and southern Iran. This style was associated with ʿAbd al-Rahman Khwarazmi, the calligrapher of the
Pir Budaq Qara Qoyunlu (1456–1466), and then with his children, ʿAbd al-Karim Khwarazmi and
ʿAbd al-Rahim Anisi (both active at the court of
Ya'qub Beg Aq Qoyunlu; 1478–1490). This more angular western Iranian style was largely dominant at the beginning of the
Safavid era, but then lost to the style canonized by Sultan Ali Mashhadi; however, it continued to be used in the Indian subcontinent.
Nastaliq was also adopted in the
Ottoman Empire, which has always had strong cultural ties to Iran. Here it was known as
taliq (Turkish
talik), not to be confused with the Persian
taliq script. The first Iranian calligraphers who brought
nastaliq to Ottoman lands, including
Asadullah Kirmani (d. 1488), belonged to the western tradition. However, at a relatively early stage, Ottoman calligraphers adopted the eastern style of
nastaliq. In the 17th century, a student of Mir Emad,
Darvish Abdi Bokharai (d. 1647), transplanted his style to Istanbul. The greatest master of
nastaliq in 18th century was
Mehmed Yasari (d. 1798), who closely followed Mir Emad. This tradition was further developed by Yasari's son
Mustafa Izzet (d. 1849), who founded a distinct Ottoman school of
nastaliq. He introduced new and precise proportions of the script that differed from the Iranian tradition. The most important member of this school in the second half of the 19th century was
Sami Efendi (d. 1912), who taught many famous practitioners of
nastaliq, including
Mehmed Nazif Bey (d. 1913),
Mehmed Hulusi Yazgan (d. 1940) and
Necmeddin Okyay (d. 1976). The specialty of the Ottoman school was
celî nastaliq, used in inscriptions and mosque plates. ==
Nastaliq ==