A Study of Script Style in one of Sharh-Al-Shafiye's Manuscript* (An Introduction for Identifying and Categorizing Uncommon Scripts in Islamic Culture)

Traditional calligraphy is known as one of the most valuable Islamic arts which always contains unknown parts. One of these parts is uncommon and unknown scripts of manuscripts. In Iran, given to the valuation of writing and manuscript as well as the presence of various art schools in different Islamic centuries, many manuscripts have been written and collected which now many of these works are keeping in general and private libraries as well as personal collections. The originality of these manuscripts is so worthwhile that should have specific place in visual studies, while, until now, manuscripts have been evaluated mostly according to their content and the majority of visual research and investigations have been only allocated to common scripts in manuscript and their layout. Therefore, visual features of unknown scripts have been ignored by these studies. On the other hand, manuscripts were not usually available and a few people except particular users were able to access them. Thus, not only the feature of manuscript but also its availability is concerned in this article, so according to the second criterion, among the existing libraries, eventually the library of Islamic Parliament was chosen. Observing more than 20000 manuscripts of library of Islamic Parliament, the author observed manuscript with uncommon and unknown script styles. Among the chosen manuscripts, finally the new, uncommon and unknown samples were selected. One of these manuscripts which is remarkable because of the new and different feature of script is one of Sharh-Al-Shafiye's manuscript which will be introduced and explained later on. This manuscript is chosen among more than 20000 manuscripts in library of Islamic Parliament due to the original and different feature of its script style. In this article, besides choosing and identifying a manuscript from Sharh-Al-Shafiye, the whole structure and visual features of its letterforms which relate to Naskh and Ruq'ah styles is considered. Also, an effort has been made to study the new and unique features of the script. The variety of script styles used in body text, margins and headlines of this manuscript shows different methods, and it is important because of its unique features which can help reaching a new look in type design and providing different contexts in this field of graphic design. In this article, at first, a general description of Sharh-Al-Shafiye's manuscript will be presented. Then by studying and analyzing the visual characteristics of letterforms, the intact style of script styles used in text, margin and titles are shown in order to identify and present the nearest styles to script in Sharh-Al-Shafiye's manuscript. As a result, it can be concluded that the influence of Naskh and Ruq'ah styles in the script styles used in Sharh-Al-Shafiye's text, and also the use of inscription structure, recreation in writing and decoration in the titles of script are the uncommon and unknown features of script in Sharh-Al-Shafiye's manuscript. The author hopes that the present research which is considered as the first step in identifying uncommon and unknown manuscripts help other researchers to do future research.