This page displays an elegant example of New Style script from the Surah Al Saffat (Those Ranged in Ranks) verse 145-158. The horizontal stretching of some letters lends the script a fluid quality. Being closer to cursive scripts used in everyday life (thus more easily read and written), New Style scripts soon replaced Kufic-Abbasid for copying the Qur’an. This Qur’an folio is representative of a mature style, for by the 13th century, New Style scripts were no longer used for copying entire Qur’anic texts. From then on, they were mainly used for short inscriptions like chapter headings.
