Mustafa Ugur Derman

Undoubtedly, the formation of calligraphy as an independent artistic tradition was the result of trying to transcribe the great and holy book of Islam with its most complete and original features. The Kufi script, which became popular and developed in Damascus and Kufa from the beginning of Islam, became the first type of script to write the the holy Quran in the Arab world. When Islam spread to the east, it changed to the Eastern Kufi and in the west to the Western Kufi and the examples have been remained until today. Despite the harsh nature of the Kufi script, its circular characters have effected on Thuluth, Naskh, Mohaghagh, and Reyhan scripts, which originated from Arabic script, and have given the Quran an extraordinary beauty. The efforts of the various Islamic governments that became powerful in Iran, the Mamluk government in Egypt, the Seljuk dynasty and the Ottomans in Anatolia, draw attention to transcribing God’s words. These scripts are used alone or alternately in transcribing of the Quran. By passing the time, the scale of the mentioned scripts above was determined by Yaghout al-Mostasami (died in 1299 A.D.) in Abbasid era by using dot. After the conquest of Istanbul by the Ottomans in 1453 A.D., Sheikh Hamdallah Amasi (1642-1698 A.D.), who appeared in Anatolia, chose the beauties of Yaghout scripts and created a new style and dedicated Naskh script to the transcribing of the Quran. Later, Hafiz Uthman (1642-1698 A.D.) repeated this choice through Sheikh’s transcriptions and revealed an understanding of Naskh script that is still accepted in the transcribing of the Quran today. So Naskh script introduced as “ Server of God’s Quran“ in Ottomans.