---
title: Arabic Typography
date: 2023-08-07
tags: [design]
note: نستمتع بوقتنا معاً - we have fun together
description: I recently had to read up on Arabic typography for a project. This knowledge may come in handy again, so I am writing this note for future me.
---

I recently had to read up on Arabic typography for a project. This knowledge
may come in handy again, so I am writing this note for future me.

Please note that I am not able to actually read any Arabic, so all this is
hearsay. If I contradict something other people say, I am probably wrong.

I mostly looked into the Noto font because that was what I had at hand and also
I assume that it has decent quality. It was developed by Google, so it is
available on most Android phones and on Google Fonts.

Noto covers many different scripts. For Arabic, it offers 4 different variants:

## Kufic

Example: [Noto Kufi Arabic](https://notofonts.github.io/noto-docs/specimen/NotoKufiArabic/)

![preview of Noto Kufi Arabic](noto-kufi-arabic.png)

Kufic is very geometric, with straight lines and right angles. This can look
super stylish (wikipedia has some [great
examples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufic#Square_Kufic)), but is
not the best for body text.

From my Latin perspective this feels similar to geometric display fonts or
maybe even monospace.

## Naskh

Example: [Noto Naskh Arabic](https://notofonts.github.io/noto-docs/specimen/NotoNaskhArabic/)

![preview of Noto Naskh Arabic](noto-naskh-arabic.png)

This seems to be the most common variant. Like all Arabic scripts it makes
heavy use of ligatures. But other than that, it feels not very different from
most body fonts I am familiar with.

## Sans

Example: [Noto Sans Arabic](https://notofonts.github.io/noto-docs/specimen/NotoSansArabic/)

![preview of Noto Sans Arabic](noto-sans-arabic.png)

Noto also contains a "sans" variant. This is a bit weird because it is the only variant that uses a term from Latin typography.
This one looks very similar to Naskh. The main difference is the constant line
width. I guess the designers wanted to provide two variants for Naskh that work
well in combination with serif/sans Latin scripts respectively.

## Nasta'liq

Example: [Noto Nastaliq Urdu](https://notofonts.github.io/noto-docs/specimen/NotoNastaliqUrdu/)

![preview of Noto Nastaliq Urdu](noto-nastaliq-urdu.png)

This one is mostly used for languages other than Arabic, e.g. Persian or Urdu.
It is a cursive font with a "hanging" shape where the words slant downwards.
This has the interesting effect that words need more vertical space as they get
longer. I do not know of any layouting systems that can handle this well.