Re: `bin' or `ibn' Ladin?

 >From: Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
 >
 >Well, i don't remember hearing the term _ruq'a_ mentioned, so i assume
 >it's just the copybook hand... it looks pretty much like print,

        Ah.  If you write like than in any Levantine country, you'll
get looked at funny.  And you'll have some difficulty understand store
signs.  My Algerian friend tells me the "looks like print" writing is
used more in the maghrebi areas, probably because ruq'a is ultimately
a Turkish creation, and they were out of the Ottoman sphere most of
the time.

 >                                                                 except we
 >were also taught how handwriting is "supposed to look" when you have
 >things like medial _jiim/khaa/Haa_ shape and you connect it coming in
 >from the top, and how the _siin/shiin_ shape doesn't really have any
 >bumps in real handwriting, and stuff like that.

        I don't know why you're studying Arabic (I did it because I
love the music, of all things), but if you have an appreciation for
the calligraphy, hunt down the diwaani style.  It's very hard to read
at first, but it is just so beautiful.  This URL has an example of it,
as well as very carefully written ruq'aa (here spelled riq'aa for some
reason):

        http://www.sakkal.com/Yusuf.html

I also have a page from the Qur'aan in the charming maghrebi script
(once used in Spain, too) mounted and hanging on a wall:

        http://www.islamicity.com/Culture/Calligraphy/cp27.htm

It comes from a waquf, "endowed" copy of the Qur'aan -- it says so in
margin in a beautiful black ink with silver in it.  By waquf, I mean
it was probably donated to a Qur'aan school.  Of course, children
everywhere when given a pen feel the need to doodle, so there was some
small pencil marks on one side and red pen on the other.  Otherwise
I'm sure the nice Saudi man I got the leaf from would not have been
ripping pages out and sending them to calligraphy collectors.

--
William Annis  -  System Administrator -  Biomedical Computing Group
"When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do
towards other humans."                       Marcus Aurelius  VII.65

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