Chapter I INTRODUCTION Among the family of scripts descending Nabatean or Syriac? from the Phoenician alphabet, Arabic seems to be the most remote from its ancestor. Not In 1865 Theodor Noldeke related the only have the rectilinear characters changed to origin of Ku.fie script to Nabatean.2 Very soon integrated curves and loops, but also the letter thereafter numerous scholars, including M. A. groups have been transformed from a row of Levy, M. de Vogue, J. Karabacek and J. disconnected signs to an organic band. As a Euting, joined him in this opinion, leading to a result, the individual letters, which once general consensus. Half a century later, J. occupied isolated oblong spaces, now grow Starcky, who had originally held the same out of (and return to) a connecting line. The view, adopted another approach: the theory diversity of heights and sizes among the that Arabic has its roots in a Syriac cursive. In different letters has increased, as has the his article Petra et la Nabatene, 3 he number of their positional variants. Although questioned the affiliation of Nabatean and the individual Arabic graphemes can be traced Arabic scripts on the following grounds: the without difficulty to the Aramaic alphabet, the relationship, he claims, had been elaborated drastic change in their graphic character and on the basis of unreliable facsimiles, or of rare spatial arrangement, i.e., the ductus, has or obscure letter forms that failed to display fueled a controversy: which specific Aramaic the general characteristics of the late Nabatean branch is responsible for the script transfer, ducrus. Furthermore, Starcky stressed Nabatean or Syriac? The graphic arrangement (relying on J. T. Milik), the irreconcilable on the baseline of both Arabic and Syriac seemed to support their genetic connection. Schrift" in Crundriss der arabischen Philo/ogie I, ed. Nabatean, however, supplied most of the W. Fischer (Wiesbaden, 1982), 165-83. individual graphemes of which Arabic is 2Grohmann, Arabische Paldographie II, 11. composed, while many Syriac letters have no 3 Petra et la Nabatene, 932-34. For an analysis including Islamic historical sources on the origin of Arabic cognates. 1 the Arabic alphabet cf. N. Abbott, The Rise of the North Arabic Script, 4-14 and N. al-Naqshabandi, I For a general introduction to the development of the "Mansha' al-khan al-' arabi wa-tatawwuruhu," and N. Arabic script cf. J. Naveh, loarly II is wry of the Zainadtlin, Musawwar al-kha.11 al- 'arabi, 2-4 and Alphabet, 153-61 and G. Endress, "Die arnbisd1e 303-5. 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARABIC SCRIPTS contrast between the two scripts. Where Nabatean inscription in which certain letters Nabatean letters seem to be suspended Ji-om a are connected at their base.6 He continues by line, Arabic letters rest on the line. Starcky's stating that Starcky's description of Nabatean, final judgement relies on a tradition of al­ as being suspended from a line, is incorrect BaladhurT according to which three men of the because the base of the letters rests on an tribe of Tayyi O met in Baqqa, near the imaginary line, whereas the evenness of the Lakhmid capital al-H1ra, and created the upper height is broken by all letters with Arabic script wholly from Syriac. On these longer vertical strokes, for example, in the grounds, Starcky dismisses the thesis of a letter lam. This can be seen in the grave Nabatean origin for Arabic and describes inscription of Kamkam (N6) and the Arabic writing as a homogeneous script tombstone of Fihr (N 14). Grohmann follows derived entirely from Syriac as it was written with a detailed discussion of the alleged in the Lakhmid capital.4 Starcky admits, Syriac affiliation,7 which will not be however, that corroborating archaeological discussed here. proof is lacking-no inscriptions have been Grohmann's claim of the existence of a unearthed as yet in al-1:llra-and that none of base-line in Nabatean cannot be accepted as it the extant Syriac inscriptions comes close to stands. In his example,8 only four out of the characters of the Harran or Zebed twenty-two letters are connected. The inscriptions. Nabatean line is not identical with the baseline of Arabic script since it does not touch the To Starcky's argument, Grohmann5 has bases of al I the letters, but rather lies like a responded in detail. He observed that the only frame beneath them. The existence of a existing Syriac cursive anticipates the Jacobite homogeneous lower end might be correct for or Western ductus, but that there is nothing monumental Nabatean inscriptions such as that points to the Arabic ductus. He presents N 10. In most other Nabatean texts, the letters two further pre-Islamic inscriptions (A I and clearly align themselves with the ceiling rather A4) that clearly present a transitional stage, a than with the base. The divergences in length blend of Arabic and Nabatean forms. are usually greatest in the last line, where no Grohmann characterizes Starcky's first point following line constricts the vertical stretching regarding unreliable evidence as a groundless of the oval letters-a stylistic feature of the attack on scholarly integrity and dismisses it monumental script. It will be shown in the for lack of evidence. Since then, the large course of this study that alignment and spatial amount of photographic evidence available of arrangement are less important than individual Sinaitic graffiti nullifies Starcky's rejection of letter shapes for establishing a genetic them. Against Starcky's second point, that affiliation. Alignment and spatial arrangement Nabatean only has a ceiling line, Grohmann produces a counterexample, namely a 6Ibid .. I 8 fig. 9 and M. Lidzbarski, f-landbuch der nordsemi1ischen F,pigraphik II, pl. 34 (4). 4Ibid., 933. 7Jbid., 19-22. 5Grohmann, i\rabische Pa/iiographie II, 13. 8cr. n. 6. .