Islamic Calligraphy and Its Evolution in South Asia

Abstract

Islamic calligraphy in South Asia developed through sustained interactions among Persianate courts, Arabic textual traditions, and regional craft ecologies. Beginning with early Naskh and Thuluth inscriptions introduced via Sultanate networks, the subcontinent nurtured distinctive scripts—most famously Nastaʿlīq, alongside Bihari and Shikasta—that were adapted for Qur’anic manuscripts, royal farmāns, album folios (muraqqaʿāt), and architectural epigraphy. Patronage from the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, and Deccan polities shaped ateliers that integrated paper-making, pigment technology, reed-pen craft, and codicology. Colonial print and stone-lithography reconfigured training lineages and publics, while the twentieth century saw modernist experiments and, more recently, a digital turn in layout and font design for Urdu and related languages. This article synthesizes script genealogies, materials and tools, sites of display, regional accents (Deccan, Bengal, Kashmir, Punjab), and contemporary conservation ethics. A stylized timeline (Figure 1) visualizes the shifting prominence of scripts from the twelfth to the twenty-first century, highlighting the long arc by which South Asia localized transregional Islamic aesthetics.