The Arabic Language

fa-ʾiḏā 
fataḥtu šafatayya fa-nquṭ wāḥidatan fawqa l-ḥarf, wa-ʾiḏā ḍamamtuhumā fa-jʿal an-nuqṭa 
ʾilā jānibi l-ḥarf, wa-ʾiḏā kasartuhumā fa-jʿal an-nuqṭa min ʾasfalihi, fa-ʾiḏā ʾatbaʿtu šayʾan 
min hāḏihi l-ḥarakāt ġunnatan fa-nquṭ nuqṭatayn
). (Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, 
Nuzha
, ed. Amer, 
Stockholm, 1963, pp. 6–7)
In this story, the origin of the dot notation of the three vowels and the nunation 
is ascribed to ʾAbū l-ʾAswad, and the names of the vowels (
fatḥa
, 
ḍamma
, 
kasra
) 
are connected with their articulation. We know from the Islamic sources that 
at first there was considerable opposition to the use of vowel dots in Qurʾānic 
manuscripts, and as a matter of fact this system is absent in the oldest manuscripts 
in Kūfic script, as well as in the inscriptions. In some manuscripts, the dots have 
been added by a later hand. The initial lack of a central standard is conspicuous. 
Déroche (2010) describes a Qurʾānic manuscript from the end of the seventh 
century, written by five different hands, with a remarkable lack of consistency in 
the use of diacritic dots, even within one hand.

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64
The Arabic Language
Two other innovations attributed to ʾAbū l-ʾAswad concern the notation of 
the 
hamza
(glottal stop) and the 
šadda
(gemination). Both signs are absent in the 
Nabataean script. We have seen in Chapter 4 (p. 49) that in the Ḥijāz the 
hamza
was probably absent, but in the variety of the language in which the 
Qurʾān
was 
revealed and the pre-Islamic poems were composed, the 
hamza
was pronounced. 
Because of the prestige of the language of poetry and the 
Qurʾān
, the Ḥijāzī scribes 
had to devise a way of recording the glottal stop. Since in their own speech the 
hamza
had been replaced in many cases by a long vowel, they spelled words 
containing a 
hamza
with a long vowel represented by a semi-consonant or glide, 
w
, 
y
or 
ʾalif
. According to the tradition, ʾAbū l-ʾAswad improved this system by using 
a small letter 
ʿayn
above the semi-consonant; this 
ʿayn
indicated the presence of 
a guttural sound, namely, the glottal stop. The gemination of a consonant was 
noted by a diacritic dot.
A substantial improvement in the system of short-vowel notation is usually 
attributed to the first lexicographer of the Arabic language, al-Ḫalīl ibn ʾAḥmad 
(d. 170/786 or 175/791). He replaced the system of dots with specific shapes for 
the three short vowels, a small 
wāw
for the vowel 
u
, a small 
ʾalif
for the vowel 
a
, 
and a (part of a) small 
yāʾ
for the vowel 
i
. He also changed the sign for the 
šadda
, 
using a small 
sīn
(short for 
šadīd
‘geminated’) instead. When a single consonant 
was intended, a small 
ḫāʾ
(short for 
ḫafīf
‘light’) could be used. Originally, this 
system had been devised for writing down poetry, which also went through a 
period of codification, but gradually it spread to Qurʾānic manuscripts written in 
cursive script as well. It was considerably less ambiguous than the old system, in 
which the dots had to perform various functions.
With al-Ḫalīl’s reform, the system of Arabic orthography was almost complete 
and, apart from a very few additional signs, it has remained essentially the same 
ever since (for one additional sign, the so-called Warš dot to indicate fronting of 
the vowel 
a
, see Chapter 17, p. 315). The frequency of diacritic dots and vowel 
signs varies considerably, however, and alongside fully vowelled manuscripts 
one finds texts in which even the diacritic dots are left out. Even after the intro-
duction of new orthographic devices, it took quite some time before they were 
universally and systematically adopted in writing. After the establishment of the 
orthography, a large variety of writing styles were developed, each with its own 
special domains. Apart from the epigraphic script (called Kūfic), which was also 
used in early Qurʾānic manuscripts, a cursive script was developed for use in the 
chancellery, after ʿAbd al-Malik’s reform (cf. below). The script itself became an 
essential component of Islamic art. Because of the general aversion to pictorial 
art, calligraphy was one of the most important means of decoration. This develop
-
ment of Arabic script will not be dealt with here.
Having an orthography is one thing, but elaborating a standardised language 
for official – commercial and administrative – purposes is another. As far as we 
know, the Meccan traders did not have any archives, and we must assume that 

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The Development of Classical Arabic 
65
they did not have at their disposal an elaborate legal terminology or conven
-
tions for bookkeeping, either. In the first period of the establishment of the 
Islamic empire, the government, therefore, opted to use Greek-speaking clerks in 
Syria and Egypt, and Persian-speaking clerks in the East for purposes of admin-
istration and taxation. In the sources, the shift from Greek to Arabic in the tax 
register (
dīwān
) is traditionally connected with the name of Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik. 
According to this story, the caliph ordered the clerks to shift to Arabic in the 
year 81/700, allegedly because one of the Greek clerks was caught urinating in an 
inkwell (al-Balāḏurī, 
Futūḥ al-buldān
, ed. Riḍwān, Cairo, 1959, pp. 196–7). Whatever 
the truth of that story, the shift is a sign of the growing self-confidence of the 
Arabs and their increased familiarity with a practical writing system.
Even so, it took more than a caliph’s edict to effectively end the use of Greek 
by the scribes. Careful investigation of the papyri reveals that the transition to 
Arabic in the bureaucracy was much more gradual than is generally assumed 
(Sijpesteijn 2007). The political importance of the change of language is under
-
scored by the distribution of tasks of the two languages. Stroumsa (2008) has 
shown that for some time under the ʾUmayyad administration Greek continued 
to be perceived as a language of power and authority and, hence, as the natural 
language to be used in public inscriptions, while Arabic was reserved for private 
inscriptions. The papyri in the Nessana archive from the Nabataean site Nitsana 
in the Negev Desert show that even internal documents were sometimes written 
exclusively in Greek, without an Arabic translation. The transition to exclusively 
Arabic documents is therefore evidence of the growing power of the caliphate.