Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq'ah Script

The Arab culture values highly the aesthetics and meditative spirituality of calligraphy so it is unsurprising that the mastery of handwritten Arabic is seen as an indicator of a dedicated serious student who merits respect. Writing Arabic by T.F. Mitchell is a comprehensive approach to Ruqah the handwritten script most widely used throughout the Middle East today. Although each of the 28 Arabic letters can have different forms when they are isolated initial final or medial (i.e. between two other letters) there are even differences among the standard forms of individual letters for attaching to different letters e.g. the medial form for any given letter can have variations to accommodate different letters following it. Mitchell not only explains this he shows examples for the student to analyze.