Scripts in Islamicate Manuscripts: Evolution, Styles, and Significance

Dec 19

This post features selected slides from my lecture series, Scripts in Islamicate Manuscripts: Evolution, Styles, and Significance. The images shared here are intended to complement the lecture by highlighting key visual examples discussed in the presentation, offering viewers a closer look at the diversity and development of manuscript scripts across time and regions. The scripts of Islamicate manuscripts are vast and dynamic, spanning wide chronological and geographical ranges, and it is this breadth that continues to draw my attention. I am particularly fascinated by script types because they reveal far more than language alone; they show how a single idea can be articulated in multiple visual forms, shaped by regional practices, aesthetic choices, and cultural priorities. Studying these scripts therefore opens onto histories that are not only linguistic, but also social, cultural, and intellectual.