Rasm
Arabic writing script
title: "Rasm" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["quranic-orthography", "arabic-words-and-phrases", "writing-systems-without-word-boundaries"] description: "Arabic writing script" topic_path: "general/quranic-orthography" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasm" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Arabic writing script ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Elements_of_Arabic_script_improved.svg" caption="ص ض}}, could be distinguished. Short vowels are indicated by ''[[harakat]]'' diacritics (examples in blue) which is used in the Qur'an but not in most written Arabic."] ::
Rasm ( ) is an Arabic writing script often used in the early centuries of Classical Arabic literature (7th centuryearly 11th century AD). It is the same as today's Arabic script except for the difference that the Arabic diacritics are omitted. These diacritics include consonant pointing or ar (إِعْجَام), and supplementary diacritics or ar (تَشْكِيل). The latter include the ar (حَرَكَات) short vowel marks—singular: ar (حَرَكَة). As an example, in rasm, the two distinct letters ص ض are indistinguishable because ar is omitted, or letters similar in shape ک ك may also become indistinguishable if the diacritics are omitted. Rasm is also known as Arabic skeleton script. This concept is somewhat similar to scriptio continua in the Latin script, where all spaces and other punctuations is omitted. The rasm form was common for writing Arabic until the early 2nd millennium.
History
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Birmingham_mushaf_Bismillah.png" caption="ٮسم الـلـه الرحمں الرحىم}}"."] ::
In the early Arabic manuscripts that survive today (physical manuscripts dated 7th and 8th centuries AD), one finds dots but "putting dots was in no case compulsory". The very earliest manuscripts have some consonantal diacritics, though use them only sparingly. Signs indicating short vowels and the hamza are largely absent from Arabic orthography until the 2nd to 8th century. One might assume that scribes would write these few diacritics in the most textually ambiguous places of the rasm, so as to make the Arabic text easier to read. However, many scholars have noticed that this is not the case. By focusing on the few diacritics that do appear in early manuscripts, Adam Bursi "situates early Qurʾān manuscripts within the context of other Arabic documents of the first/seventh century that exhibit similarly infrequent diacritics. Shared patterns in the usages of diacritics indicate that early Qurʾān manuscripts were produced by scribes relying upon very similar orthographic traditions to those that produced Arabic papyri and inscriptions of the first/seventh century." He concludes that Quranic scribes "neither 'left out' diacritics to leave the text open, nor 'added' more to clarify it, but in most cases simply wrote diacritics where they were accustomed to writing them by habit or convention." ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Bifolium_from_the_"Nurse's_Qur'an"_(Mushaf_al-Hadina)_MET_DP167065.jpg" caption="A page from the [[Nurse's Quran]], written in [[Kairouani calligraphy]]. (1019–20 AC)"] ::
Rasm means 'drawing', 'outline', or 'pattern' in Arabic. When speaking of the Qur'an, it stands for the basic text made of the 18 letters without the Arabic diacritics which mark vowels (ar) and disambiguate consonants (ar).
Letters
The rasm is the oldest part of the Arabic script; it has 18 elements, excluding the ligature of lām and alif. When isolated and in the final position, the 18 letters are visually distinct. However, in the initial and medial positions, certain letters that are distinct otherwise are not differentiated visually. This results in only 15 visually distinct glyphs each in the initial and medial positions.
::data[format=table]
| Name | Final | Medial | Initial | Isolated | Rasm | Final | Medial | Initial | Isolated | Code point |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ʾalif | ـا}} | ـا}} | ا}} | ا}} | ـا}} | ـا}} | ا}} | ا}} | U+0627 | |
| Bāʾ | ـب}} | ـبـ}} | بـ}} | ب}} | U+066E | |||||
| Tāʾ | ـت}} | ـتـ}} | تـ}} | ت}} | ||||||
| Ṯāʾ | ـث}} | ـثـ}} | ثـ}} | ث}} | ||||||
| Nūn | ـن}} | ـنـ}} | نـ}} | ن}} | ـں}} | ں}} | U+06BA | |||
| Yāʾ | ـي}} | ـيـ}} | يـ}} | ي}} | ـىـ}} | ىـ}} | U+0649 | |||
| Alif maqṣūrah | ـى}} | ى}} | ||||||||
| Ǧīm | ـج}} | ـجـ}} | جـ}} | ج}} | U+062D | |||||
| Ḥāʾ | ـح}} | ـحـ}} | حـ}} | ح}} | ||||||
| Ḫāʾ | ـخ}} | ـخـ}} | خـ}} | خ}} | ||||||
| Dāl | ـد}} | ـد}} | د}} | د}} | U+062F | |||||
| Ḏāl | ـذ}} | ـذ}} | ذ}} | ذ}} | ||||||
| Rāʾ | ـر}} | ـر}} | ر}} | ر}} | U+0631 | |||||
| Zāy | ـز}} | ـز}} | ز}} | ز}} | ||||||
| Sīn | ـس}} | ـسـ}} | سـ}} | س}} | U+0633 | |||||
| Šīn | ـش}} | ـشـ}} | شـ}} | ش}} | ||||||
| Ṣād | ـص}} | ـصـ}} | صـ}} | ص}} | U+0635 | |||||
| Ḍād | ـض}} | ـضـ}} | ضـ}} | ض}} | ||||||
| Ṭāʾ | ـط}} | ـطـ}} | طـ}} | ط}} | U+0637 | |||||
| Ẓāʾ | ـظ}} | ـظـ}} | ظـ}} | ظ}} | ||||||
| ʿayn | ـع}} | ـعـ}} | عـ}} | ع}} | U+0639 | |||||
| Ġayn | ـغ}} | ـغـ}} | غـ}} | غ}} | ||||||
| Fāʾ | ـف}} | ـفـ}} | فـ}} | ف}} | U+06A1 | |||||
| Fāʾ (Maghrib) | ـڢ / ـڡ}} | ـڢـ}} | ڢـ}} | ڢ / ڡ}} | ||||||
| Qāf | ـق}} | ـقـ}} | قـ}} | ق}} | U+066F | |||||
| Qāf (Maghrib) | ـڧ / ـٯ}} | ـڧـ}} | ڧـ}} | ڧ / ٯ}} | ||||||
| Kāf | ـك / ـک}} | ـكـ}} | كـ}} | ك / ک}} | ـک}} | ـکـ}} | کـ}} | ک}} | U+06A9 | |
| Lām | ـل}} | ـلـ}} | لـ}} | ل}} | ـل}} | ـلـ}} | لـ}} | ل}} | U+0644 | |
| Mīm | ـم}} | ـمـ}} | مـ}} | م}} | ـم}} | ـمـ}} | مـ}} | م}} | U+0645 | |
| Hāʾ | ـه}} | ـهـ}} | هـ}} | ه}} | ـهـ}} | هـ}} | U+0647 | |||
| Tāʾ marbūṭah | ـة}} | ة}} | ||||||||
| Wāw | ـو}} | ـو}} | و}} | و}} | ـو}} | ـو}} | و}} | و}} | U+0648 | |
| Hamzah | ء}} | ء}} | ء}} | ء}} | (None) | |||||
| :: |
- This character may not display correctly in some fonts. The dot should not appear in all four positional forms and the initial and medial forms should join with following character. In other words the initial and medial forms should look exactly like those of a dotless bāʾ while the isolated and final forms should look like those of a dotless nūn.
- There is no hamzah in rasm writing, including hamzah-on-the-line (i.e., hamzah between letters).
At the time when the ar was optional, letters deliberately lacking the points of ar: , , , , , , , , — could be marked with a small v-shaped sign above or below the letter, or a semicircle, or a miniature of the letter itself (e.g. a small to indicate that the letter in question is and not ), or one or several subscript dots, or a superscript hamza, or a superscript stroke. These signs, collectively known as ar, are still occasionally used in modern Arabic calligraphy, either for their original purpose (i.e. marking letters without ar), or often as purely decorative space-fillers. The small above the kāf in its final and isolated forms was originally ar, but became a permanent part of the letter. Previously this sign could also appear above the medial form of kāf, instead of the stroke on its ascender.
Examples
Among the historical examples of rasm script are the Kufic Blue Qur'an and the Samarkand Qurʾan. The latter is written almost entirely in Kufic rasm.
The following is an example of rasm from Surah Al-A'raf (7), āyah 86 and 87, in the Samarkand Qur'an, and its digital equivalent rasm, rasm with normal spacing, and then fully vocalized with all diacretics: ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Kufic_Quran,_sura_7,_verses_86-87.jpg"] ::
::data[format=table] | Digital rasm with spaces||Digital rasm||Fully vocalized | |---| | ا لله مں ا مں ٮه و ٮٮعو | | ٮها عو حا و ا د | | کر و ا ا د کٮٮم | | ڡلٮلا ڡکٮر کم | | و ا ٮطر وا کٮڡ | | کا ں عڡٮه ا لمڡسد | | ٮں و ا ں کا ں طا | | ٮڡه مٮکم ا مٮو ا | | ٮالد ى ا ر سلٮ | | ٮه و طا ٮڡه لم ٮو | | مٮو ا ڡا صٮر و ا | | حٮى ٮحکم ا لله ٮٮٮٮا | ::
Digital examples
::data[format=table]
| Description | Example |
|---|---|
| Rasm | الاٮحدىه العرٮىه |
| Short vowel diacritics omitted. This is the style used for most modern secular documents. | الأبجدية العربية |
| All diacritics. This style is used to show pronunciation unambiguously in dictionaries and modern Qurans. ar () is only used in Classical Arabic. | ٱلْأَبْجَدِيَّة ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة |
| Transliteration and IPA | ar |
| :: |
Compare the Basmala (), the beginning verse of the ar with all diacritics and with the rasm only. Note that when rasm is written with spaces, spaces do not only occur between words. Within a word, spaces also appear between adjacent letters that are not connected, and this type of rasm is old and not used lately.
::data[format=table] | Rasm with spaces | Rasm only | Iʿjām and all diacritics | Iʿjām and rasm | Basmala Unicode character U+FDFD | Transliteration | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | | [[File:Text in spaced rasm in font Lateef.jpg|frameless|center]] | | | | | | | [[File:Text in rasm in font Lateef.jpg|frameless|center]] | | | | | | | [[File:Text with all diacritics in font Lateef.jpg|frameless|center]] | | | | | | | [[File:Text with Iʿjām in font Lateef.jpg|frameless|center]] | | | | | | ﷽ | [[File:Lateef unicode U+FDFD.jpg|frameless|center]] | | | | | | bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi | | | | | | ::
The sentence may not display correctly in some fonts. It appears as it should if the full Arabic character set from the Arial font is installed; or one of the SIL International fonts Scheherazade or Lateef; or Katibeh.
Examples of Common Phrases
::data[format=table] | Qurʾanic Arabic with Iʿjam || style="width:33.5%;"| Qurʾanic Arabic Rasm || style="width:33%;"| Phrase | |---| | بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ | | أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّٰهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ | | أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّٰهِ ٱلسَّمِيعِ ٱلْعَلِيمِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ | | ٱلسَّلَٰمُ عَلَيْکُمْ | | ٱلسَّلَٰمُ عَلَيْکُمْ وَرَحْمَتُ ٱللَّٰهِ وَبَرَکَٰتُهُ | | سُبْحَٰنَ ٱللَّٰهِ | | ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ | | لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ | | ٱللَّٰهُ أَکْبَرُ | | أَسْتَغْفِرُ ٱللَّٰهَ | | أَسْتَغْفِرُ ٱللَّٰهَ رَبِّي وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ | | سُبْحَٰنَکَ ٱللَّٰهُمَّ | | سُبْحَٰنَ ٱللَّٰهِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ | | سُبْحَٰنَ رَبِّيَ ٱلْعَظِيمِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ | | سُبْحَٰنَ رَبِّيَ ٱلْأَعْلَىٰ وَبِحَمْدِهِ | | لَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِٱللَّٰهِ ٱلْعَلِيِّ ٱلْعَظِيمِ | | لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ سُبْحَٰنَکَ إِنِّي کُنْتُ مِنَ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ | | حَسْبُنَا ٱللَّٰهُ وَنِعْمَ ٱلْوَکِيلُ | | إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَٰجِعُونَ | | مَا شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ کَانَ وَمَا لَمْ يَشَاءُ لَمْ يَکُنْ | | إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ | | مَا شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ | | بِإِذْنِ ٱللَّٰهِ | | جَزَاکَ ٱللَّٰهُ خَيْرًا | | بَٰرَکَ ٱللَّٰهُ فِيکَ | | فِي سَبِيلِ ٱللَّٰهِ | | لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ | | لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ عَلِيٌّ وَلِيُّ ٱللَّٰهِ | | أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ | | أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ عَلِيًّا وَلِيُّ ٱللَّٰهِ | | ٱللَّٰهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَىٰ مُحَمَّدٍ وَآلِ مُحَمَّدٍ | | ٱللَّٰهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَىٰ مُحَمَّدٍ وَآلِ مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَجِّلْ فَرَجَهُمْ وَٱلْعَنْ أَعْدَاءَهُمْ | | ٱللَّٰهُمَّ عَجِّلْ لِوَلِيِّکَ ٱلْفَرَجَ وَٱلْعَافِيَةَ وَٱلنَّصْرَ | | لَا سَيْفَ إِلَّا ذُو ٱلْفَقَارِ وَلَا فَتَىٰ إِلَّا عَلِيٌّ | ::
References
References
- [https://www.academia.edu/10856768/What_Are_Those_Few_Dots_For_Thoughts_on_the_Orthography_of_the_Qurra_Papyri_709-710_the_Khurasan_Parchments_755-777_and_the_Inscription_of_the_Jerusalem_Dome_of_the_Rock_692_ "What Are Those Few Dots for? Thoughts on the Orthography of the Qurra Papyri (709–710), the Khurasan Parchments (755–777) and the Inscription of the Jerusalem Dome of the Rock (692)"], by Andreas Kaplony, year 2008 in journal ''Arabica'' volume 55 pages 91–101.
- (2000). "Red Dots, Green Dots, Yellow Dots and Blue: Some Reflections on the Vocalisation of Early Qur'anic Manuscripts (Part II)". Journal of Qur'anic Studies.
- (2018). "Connecting the Dots: Diacritics Scribal Culture, and the Quran". Journal of the International Qur'anic Studies Association.
- Gacek, Adam. (2009). "Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers". BRILL.
- Gacek, Adam. (1989). "Les manuscrits du Moyen-Orient: essais de codicologie et de paléographie. Actes du colloque d'Istanbul (Istanbul 26–29 mai 1986)".
- (2 October 2014). "Arabic Fonts".
- "Google Fonts: Scheherazade".
- "Google Fonts: Lateef".
- "Google Fonts: Katibeh".
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