“George writes with enviable clarity and precision. I have never read anything better on calligraphy.”—Robert Hillenbrand

The birth of Qur’anic calligraphy was a major event in the early history of Islam. In a few decades, it raised the Arabs and their language from the remote fringes of the civilized world to its very heart.

Alain George brings together manuscript, mosaic, architecture, and text to reveal the evolution of Arabic calligraphy from its pre-Islamic conception through the emergence of the modern styles of writing still in use today.

Alain George is a lecturer in Islamic art at the University of Edinburgh.