The development of early Arabic documentary script1

Geoffrey Khan
In this paper I shall examine the script that is found in a recently discovered corpus of Arabic documents
from Khurasan (Afghanistan) and assess the importance of these documents for understanding the back-
ground of developments in the Arabic documentary script of the papyri in Egypt in the early Islamic period.
Arabic papyrus documents from Egypt that are datable to the first two centuries AH exhibit a number
of features in their script that distinguish them from documents datable to the 3rd century and later. The
script of the early papyrus documents resembles in many respects the script of the so-called Ḥijāzī Qur’ān
manuscripts, which were written at the same period. Later papyri generally have a more cursive hand.2
Various letter shapes can be identified that are characteristic of the script of papyri from the first and
second centuries AH.3 So far this shift to a more cursive documentary hand in the papyri from Egypt in
the 3rd century has remained unexplained. The recently discovered corpus of Arabic documents from
Khurasan provides an important new source for the research of early Arabic documentary script.
Before looking at the script of the Khurasan documents, it is necessary to discuss the nature of these
documents and the relationship of their contents to the contemporary documentary material that is extant
among the Arabic papyri from Egypt.
Until recently very little early Arabic documentary material has been discovered in the eastern Islamic
world comparable to the Arabic papyri from Egypt. The only document available was an Arabic letter
from Central Asia written in 100/718, which was discovered in 1933 in the ruins of a fortress on Mount
Mūgh situated in the valley of Zarafšān in Tajikistan (ancient Sogdiana). The document, which was
published by I. Y. Krachkovski and V. A. Krachkovskaya4 is a letter written to the Arab governor of the
region, al-Jarrāḥ ibn ‘Abdallāh.
The early Arabic documentary material from the eastern extremities of the Islamic world has now
been dramatically increased by the discovery of the Khurasan corpus of Arabic documents. These ema-
nate from what appears to have been a private archive of a family resident in north-eastern Afghanistan
in the early Abbasid period. They consist of thirty-two administrative and legal documents datable from
138/755 to 160/777. Like the document from Mount Mūgh, these newly discovered documents are on
parchment. With one exception, they were all written during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Manṣūr

1.  The following abbreviations are used in this article:

BD I = N. Sims-Williams, Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan. I: Legal and Economic Documents, Oxford, 2000.
P.Berl.Arab = L. Abel (ed.), Ägyptische Urkunden aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin, Arabische Urkunden, Berlin, 1896-1900.
PAP = A. Grohmann, “Probleme der arabischen Papyrusforschung II”, Archiv Orientálni 6 (1934), pp. 377-398.
PERF = J. von Karabaček, Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer. Führer Durch die Ausstellung, Vienna, 1894.
2.  Nöldeke et al., (1938: p. 254), A. Grohmann, Allgemeine Einführung in die Arabischen Papyri, nebst Grundzügen der
Arabischen Diplomatik, Corpus Papyrorum Raineri Archiducis Austriae, III, Series Arabica, Tomus I, Pars I, Vienna, 1924, p.
69; Idem, From the World of Arabic Papyri, Cairo, 1952), pp. 221-222.
3.  For a description of these letter shapes see G. Khan, Arabic Papyri, Selected Material from the Khalili Collection, Oxford,
1992, pp. 27-39.
4.  I. Y. Krachkovski and V. A.Krachkovskaya, “Le plus ancien document arabe de l’Asie Centrale”, Sogdi’ski’ Sbornik,
Leningrad, 1934, pp. 52-90 (repr. in I. Y. Krachkovsky, Izbrannye Socineniya, I, Moscow-Leningrad, 1955, pp. 182-212.

Manuscrits hébreux et arabes: Mélanges en l’honneur de Colette Sirat, édité par Nicholas de Lange et Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Turnhout,
2014 (BIBLIOLOGIA, 38), p. 279-293
© BREPOLS H PUBLISHERS DOI 10.1484/M.BIB.1.102096

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 279 13/10/14 13:50

 280 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

(r. 136-158/754-775). The majority (twenty-three documents) are official quittances for the receipt of
taxes. The others include a document relating to a cadastral survey, documents relating to the emancipa-
tion of slaves and documents recording the renunciation of debts. The full corpus is published in Khan
2006.5 References to the documents in this paper follow the numbering system used in this edition.
The Arabic documents appear to have the same provenance as a collection of documents written in
Bactrian, the local Iranian language of the region, that has been published by Sims-Williams.6 The latest
documents of the Bactrian corpus are datable to the first two centuries of Islam and mention many of the
personal and place names that appear in the Arabic documents.
As remarked above, a large proportion of the Arabic corpus of documents are tax receipts. These were
issued by tax officials under the authority of a local governor (’amīr). The men to whom the receipts were
issued came from a local non-Arab family who had not converted to Islam. The documents indicate that
the central government had taken direct charge of the collection of government taxes. This differs from
the Umayyad period, in which the local feudatory princes known as marzbāns (‘frontier wardens’) were
responsible also for collecting taxes. Some of the ’amīrs and tax officials have Iranian elements in their
names, for example ’Abū Ġālib ibn al-’Iṣbahbadh (53, 63, 73, 83), al-Ḥasan ibn Warazān (13, 23), ‘Amr ibn
Marzūq (123, 132, 152), Jarīr ibn Māhān (133), al-Ḥasan ibn Farrukh (172). The Middle Persian title
’Iṣbahbadh suggests that this man came from an Iranian aristocratic family of administrators, the spāhbed
being the term used to designate a military governor of a province in Sasanian administrative terminology.7
It would appear that members of Iranian administrative families were incorporated into the Abbasid admi-
nistration. Under the Sasanians the same families remained in state service over several generations and
many of these seem to have continued in administrative positions well into the Abbasid period.
Most documents contain a clay bulla that is attached to the bottom of the document. These contain
authorizations in the form of seal impressions that bear the names of the financial administrator(s) who
issued the document or their emblems.
Many of the formulaic elements that occur in the tax receipts from Khurasan can be found also in
documents that have been preserved among the Arabic papyri from Egypt, reflecting the high degree of
centralization of the administration at this period. It is noteworthy, however, that some of the formulaic
parallels in the Egyptian documents appear at a later date than that of the Khurasan corpus. It seems that
these were elements of administrative practice that were developed in the eastern provinces and sub-
sequently transferred to Egypt, most likely by the numerous Persians officials who were appointed there
during the Abbasid period. One example of this is as follows. In the 3rd century AH various changes took
place in the structure of tax receipts from Egypt.8 The key term in operative clauses of most receipts

5.  G. Khan, Arabic Documents from Early Islamic Khurasan, London, 2006.
6.  N. Sims-Williams, Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan. I: Legal and Economic Documents, Oxford, 2000
(referred henceforth as BD).
7.  The term originally designated the supreme military commander in the Sasanian empire, but in the 6th century CE Khus-
raw Anūšarwān divided the office and appointed four spāhbeds for each of the quarters of the realm: see C. E. Bosworth, The
History of al-Ṭabarī (Ta’rīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk). Volume V. The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, trans-
lated and annotated by C.E. Bosworth, Albany, 1999, p. 91. According to al-Mas‘ūdī, the spāhbed belonged to the second rank
of courtiers immediately after the high nobility: see C. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille (eds. and trans.), ’Abū
al-Ḥusayn ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn, Murūj al-Dhahab wa-Ma‘ādin al-Jawāhir, Les prairies d’Or, 9 vols, Paris, 1861-1877, II, p.153.
8.  G Frantz-Murphy, Arabic Agricultural Leases and Tax Receipts from Egypt 148-427/756-1035, Corpus Papyrorum
Raineri XVII, Vienna, 2001, pp. 70-ff.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 280 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 281

becomes the verb ’addā “to deliver”, referring to the delivery of the tax by the taxpayer, whereas the
term qabaḍa “to receive”, referring to the receipt of the tax, is rarely used, a typical formula being:
‫ الى فالن‬... ‫“ ادى فالن‬So-and-so (the taxpayer) has delivered to so-and-so (the issuing agency)”. The use of
the verb ’addā in this type of formula is first attested in Egypt in a document dated 216 AH (PAP 12).
By the 3rd century it had become the technical term for paying taxes, the noun al-mu’addā being used to
refer to the place where taxes were delivered.9 The use of the verb ’addā in this technical sense is attested
in the Khurasan tax receipts in the middle of the 2nd century, antedating the first attestation in the Egyptian
documents by about seven decades.
The bullae with seal impressions that are attached to the Khurasan documents for the sake of official
authorization continue elements of the Sasanian iconographical tradition. Several of the seals, for example,
contain astral images, which were popular with the Sasanians. Some seals consist of a five-pointed star
in the centre with four small crescents in each of the four corners of the field, as in document 1:
The practice of attaching a bulla stamped with a seal is found also in the Arabic papyri from Egypt.
Most of the seal impressions that have been preserved on the papyri contain the names of the issuers of
the documents or pious phrases, which no doubt functioned as the motto of the issuers.10 A five-pointed
star symbol similar to the one that is found on the seal of some of the Khurasan documents is found in
some seals preserved on Arabic papyri from Egypt.11 It is likely that this practice was transferred to Egypt
by the appointment of Iranian administrators in that region in the Abbasid period. Of particular interest
is the occurrence of similar star-like scribal marks that are written by pen at the bottom of several extant
papyri. It is possible that this is a continuation of the astral imagery transferred from the medium of a
seal to that of the pen. Such documents are mostly of an administrative nature, e.g. P.Berl.Arab 8 (an
order of payment):12

9. R. Dozy, Supplément aux Dictionnaires Arabes, Leiden-Paris, 1927 (second printing), vol I, p. 15; J. von Karabaček,
“Das arabische Papier,” Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer II-III, Vienna, 1887, pp. 87-178: 163;
and Frantz-Murphy, Arabic Agricultural Leases, p. 100. The older structure of receipts opening with phrases such as
‫ براة فالن‬or ‫ براة لفالن‬continued to be used in the 3rd century AH in Egypt for other types of payments, e.g. the payment of the rent
of buildings.
10.  Frantz-Murphy, Arabic Agricultural Leases, p. 79, Y. Rāghib, “Sauf-conduits d’Égypte Omeyyade et Abbasside”,
Annales Islamologiques 31 (1997), pp. 143-168, n° VI, VIII.
11.  Grohmann, Allgemeine Einführung in die Arabischen Papyri, p. 80.
12.  See also the references cited by Grohmann, Allgemeine Einführung in die Arabischen Papyri, pp. 20, 87, 88; A.
Grohmann, “Probleme der arabischen Papyrusforschung II”, Archiv Orientálni 6 (1934), pp. 377-398: 81 (referred henceforth
as PAP).

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 281 13/10/14 13:50

 282 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

P.Berl.Arab 8

The Khurasan documents do not contain autograph signatures of witnesses, but rather have clay bul-
lae with a physical mark of the witnesses, in the form of an impression either of a seal or of a fingernail.
Bullae with seal stamps are found among the Arabic papyri from Egypt. These seal letters and are
used to authorize official documents, such as tax receipts13 and safe-conduct permits.14 The practice of
witnesses of legal documents impressing their seal on bullae is, however, unattested in the Arabic papyri
from Egypt, as far as I am aware. There are, nevertheless, references in Arabic literary texts to such a
practice in the early Islamic period.15
The use of the bullae to preserve the mark of witnesses in the Arabic documents from Khurasan was
a continuation of a local practice. Impression of fingernails and seals by parties and witnesses on bullae
is a feature also of the Bactrian documents, in both the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods.16 Seals were
an integral part of legal and administrative documents at earlier periods in regions under Parthian and
Sasanian rule. The Parthian legal documents from Avroman had seals attached to them. The use of seals
on contracts in the Sasanian period is referred to in the Sasanian law code Mādayān ī Hazār Dādestān
“The Book of a Thousand Judgments”.17 Furthermore, numerous Pahlavi documents with bullae bearing
seals are extant; some of these are datable to the 7th and 8th centuries AD. These were used for the autho-
rization of documents, but in the current state of research it is not clear whether they bore the marks of
witnesses to legal documents.18
There is no clear relationship in formulaic structure between the Arabic and Bactrian documents. It
has been remarked above that the Arabic documents share many elements of formulaic structure with
Arabic documents that have been preserved in Egypt. The Arabic documents reflect formulaic traditions
that were brought to Khurasan by the Arabs. They were not imitations of the local formulaic traditions
reflected in the Bactrian documents. There are, likewise, no clear parallels between the formulaic tradition

13.  Grohmann, Allgemeine Einführung in die Arabischen Papyri, p. 80, Karabacek, PERF pp. 820-822.
14.  Rāghib, “Sauf-conduits”.
15.  Grohmann, Allgemeine Einführung in die Arabischen Papyri, p. 84.
16.  N. Sims-Williams, “Four Bactrian economic documents”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series 11 (1997), pp. 3-15:
14.
17.  J. K.Choksy, “Loan and sales contracts in ancient and early medieval Iran”, Indo-Iranian Journal 31 (1988), pp.191-
218: 194.
18. See P. Gignoux, “Six documents Pehlevis sur cuir du California Museum of Ancient Art”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute
10 (1996), pp. 63-72; G. Azarpay, “Rare Pahlavi texts now at Bancroft”, Bancroftiana, Newsletter of the Friends of the Bancroft
Library, 123 (Fall 2003).

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 282 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 283

of the Arabic documents and those of the extant Pahlavi documents, as far as can be seen in the present
state of research.
There are, however, some parallels between the Bactrian and Arabic documents in physical structure.
Apart from the obvious parallel in the use of the same leather writing material, one can mention the use
of clay bullae for authorization marks and marks of witnesses. As has been remarked above this appears
to have been a local custom, found also in Pahlavi documents, which was taken over by the Arabs. The
custom of witnesses to legal documents leaving their mark in a clay bulla is, indeed, unattested in the
Egyptian papyri.
Turning now to the Arabic script of the Khurasan corpus, we find that its relationship with the script
of the Egyptian papyri exhibits a similar trend to what has been described above regarding the formulaic
content of the documents. Certain formulaic features of the Khurasan documents predate the appearance
of the same features in the Egyptian papyri by several decades. Similarly certain features of the script of
the Khurasan documents appear for the first time in the Egyptian papyri several decades later. As remarked
above, documentary script in the Egyptian papyri exhibits a marked increase in cursive tendencies in
material datable to the 3rd century AH onwards, whereas the script in earlier papyri is characterized by a
less cursive hand and a variety of archaic letter shapes that resemble those that are found in early literary
manuscripts such as the so-called Ḥijāzī Qur’āns.
The Arabic documents from Khurasan, all of which were written around the middle of the 2nd century
AH, do not conform completely to the periodization of script that is reflected by the Arabic papyri from
Egypt. Some of the documents do exhibit letter shapes in their script that are characteristic of the early
papyri. These include some of the legal documents of the corpus. A large proportion of the documents,
however, are written in a more cursive hand, in which these archaic letter shapes are absent. This applies
particularly to the documents relating to tax administration, the script of which resembles in its general
profile the type of cursive script that is found in Arabic documents from Egypt only in the third century
and later.
The archaic letter shapes are found in the legal documents 25 (145 AH), 26 (147 AH), 27 (149 AH),
29 (138 AH), 31 (146 AH) and 32 (148 AH). These shapes are not always used consistently in the docu-
ments in which they are attested. In some cases the archaic forms of a letter are used alongside forms
that are characteristic of a later period. The archaic forms attested in these documents are as follows:

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 283 13/10/14 13:50

 284 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

(i) Dāl/ḏāl has an upward or rightward bend at the top of the letter19

‫( حماد‬2510, 145 AH)

‫( الشهود‬2513, 145 AH)

‫( ذمته‬313, 146 AH)

(ii) The horizontal stroke of initial and independent ʿayn/ġayn is extended to the right20

‫( غالب‬292, 138 AH)

‫(عشر‬324, 148 AH)

(iii) The head of medial ʿayn/ġayn consists of two oblique strokes which are not joined by a horizon-
tal stroke21
One isolated example of this is found in the corpus:

19.  For this feature in Arabic papyri datable to the first century AH see A. Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, Vienna,
1971, (vol. I, 1967), p. 30, table of scripts; Abbot, The Rise of the North Arabic Script and its Ḳurʾānic Development, with a
Full Description of Ḳurʾānic Manuscripts in the Oriental Institute, Chicago, 1939, table of scripts; B. Gruendler, The Develop-
ment of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century According to Dated Texts, Atlanta, 1993, pp.
52-55. For its occurrence in papyri from the second century AH: see Khan, Arabic Papyri, pp. 29-31. Parallels can be found
also in pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions. The feature is apparently derived from the upturning head of the Nabatean daleth; see
Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, table of scripts, Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp. 52-53.
20.  For this feature in Arabic papyri datable to the 1st century AH, see Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, table of
scripts; Abbot, The Rise of the North Arabic Script, table of scripts, and Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp.
76-79. For its occurrence in papyri from the 2nd century AH, see Khan, Arabic Papyri, pp. 32-33. It is found in some Arabic
inscriptions from the Umayyad period and is a regular feature in Ḥijāzī and Kufic Qur’āns: see Khan, Arabic Papyri, p. 33, for
references, and also Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp. 76-79.
21.  For this feature in Arabic papyri datable to the 1st century AH, see Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, table of
scripts; Abbot, The Rise of the North Arabic Script, table of scripts, and Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp.
76-79. In papyri from the 2nd century AH, medial ʿayn/ġayn generally has a loop: see Khan, Arabic Papyri, p. 33. The form with
two unconnected oblique strokes is found in pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions and in Ḥijāzī and Kufic Qur’āns: see Khan, Arabic
Papyri, p. 33, for references, and also Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp. 76-79.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 284 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 285

‫( سبعين‬264, 147 AH)

(iv) The tail of final qāf extends downwards before bending to the left22
One isolated example of this is found in the corpus:

‫( اعتق‬292, 138 AH)

(v) Initial and medial kāf is horizontally extended with the upper stroke parallel with the lower hori-
zontal23

‫( كاتب‬322, 148 AH)

‫( كلها‬328, 148 AH)

(vi) There is a marked extension of the tail of final and independent yāʾ to the right in a horizontal
straight line24

‫( وبرى‬327, 148 AH)

‫( قيى‬327, 148 AH)

22.  This form resembles the qāf of the pre-Islamic Arabic and the Nabatean inscriptions. It is found also in Arabic inscrip-
tions and coins from the early Islamic period and is a regular features of Ḥijāzī and Kufic Qur’āns. See Grohmann, Arabische
Paläographie II, table of scripts, and Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp. 84-87. It is occasionally found in
Arabic papyri datable to the 2nd century AH: see Khan Arabic Papyri, p. 34.
23.  For this feature in Arabic papyri datable to the first century AH: see Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, table of
scripts; Abbot, The Rise of the North Arabic Script, table of scripts, and Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp.
88-91. For its occurrence in papyri from the 2nd century AH: see Khan, Arabic Papyri, pp. 34-35. It is regularly used in Arabic
inscriptions from the Umayyad period and in Ḥijāzī and Kufic Qur’āns: see Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, table of
scripts, and Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts, pp. 88-91.
24.  For this feature in Arabic papyri datable to the 1st century AH: see Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie II, table of
scripts, Abbot, The Rise of the North Arabic Script, table of scripts, (PSR III, p. 27), and Gruendler, The Development of the
Arabic Scripts, pp. 112-115. For its occurrence in papyri from the 2nd century AH: see Khan, Arabic Papyri, pp. 37-38. It resem-
bles some of the forms of isolated yāʾ in Nabatean. It is attested in Arabic inscriptions from the pre-Islamic and Umayyad
periods and is a prominent feature of the script of ‘Ḥijāzī’ and ‘Kufic’ Qur’āns.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 285 13/10/14 13:50

 286 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

Some of the letter shapes that are found in the early Arabic papyri from Egypt are not attested in the
Khurasan corpus. These include an independent ʾalif that bends to the right at the bottom and the hori-
zontal extension of ṣād/ḍād with straight parallel strokes.25

In the documents relating to tax administration there are several cases of final and independent yāʾ
with a marked backward extension, e.g.

‫( المهدى‬38)

‫( ابى‬73)

Elsewhere the archaic letter shapes are almost entirely absent in the administrative documents. In
general the letter shapes in this group of documents exhibit various degrees of influence from cursive
tendencies, which may be characterized as follows:26

1. The transformation of angles into curves

2. The transformation of curves into straight strokes
3. The elimination of the necessity to remove the pen from the surface of the writing material
4. The reduction of the distance covered by the pen

These tendencies have affected the letters dāl/ḏāl, ʿayn/ġayn and kāf in the way described below,
which distinguishes them from their archaic type shapes:

The curvature of dāl/ḏāl is reduced and sometimes completely eliminated, making it similar, if not
identical, to the shape of rāʾ/zāy, e.g.

‫( درهم‬16, 147 AH)

‫( دراهم‬86, 150 AH)

‫( دانق‬129, 151 AH)

25. See Khan, Arabic Papyri, pp.27-29, 31-32.

26. See Khan, Arabic Papyri, pp. 40.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 286 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 287

‫( ذلك‬138, 152 AH)

‫( اديت‬135, 152 AH)

‫( هذه‬112, 154 AH)

The curvature of initial ʿayn/ġayn is reduced, e.g.

‫( على‬94, 152 AH)

‫( على‬104, 152 AH)

‫( عليك‬126, 151 AH)

The horizontal extension of the initial and medial form of kāf is reduced and the upward bending tip
at the top is eliminated, e.g.

‫( كتاب‬12)

‫( كتاب‬82)

‫( كتب‬158)

The cursive tendencies in this group of letters affect also other letters. sīn/šīn, for example, is often
written without teeth:

‫( تسع‬127)

‫( شعيب‬142)

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 287 13/10/14 13:50

 288 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

In general, there is a tendency for the compression of the strokes of letters. This can affect the vertical
extension of letters such as ʾalif and lām, e.g.

‫( ثلثة‬116)

‫( اديت‬174)

‫( اديت‬234)

‫( عليك‬185)

‫( عليك‬225)

‫( ذلك‬2112)

It may also reduce the horizontal extension of letters such as sīn, e.g.

‫( والقسمة‬128)

‫( خمسين‬103)

Strokes that should conventionally bend round to the right may bend to the left in the direction of the
flow of the script. This can be seen, for example, in the shape of the final jīm and final ʿayn of the fol-
lowing:

‫( خراج‬235)

‫( اربع‬2411)

The loops of letters may be reduced, as is the case with the qāf in the following:

‫( قسمة‬103)

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 288 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 289

Unconventional ligatures may occur between letters, as in the word below, in which the ʾalif is liga-
tured to the following jīm:

‫( خراج‬155)

Some letters lose their graphic distinctness altogether, e.g.

‫( القسمة‬116)

‫( اصلحه هللا‬173)

‫( خمسة‬166)

Counteracting the horizontal compression by cursive tendencies, most documents exhibit marked
horizontal extensions of letters or connecting strokes in a few words. In some cases the purpose appears
to be to stretch words to create an even left margin. In other cases a word is extended apparently with
the purpose of highlighting it. This applies particularly to the horizontal extension of the final bāʾ in the
word ‫ باتك‬at the beginning of many of the documents. In some cases the connecting stroke in the initial
demonstrative is extended, e.g.

‫( هذه‬172)

‫( هذا‬152)

In some documents the personal name of the man for whom it is issued exhibits a horizontal extension,
e.g.

‫( لباب‬125)

‫( للقاروال‬194)

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 289 13/10/14 13:50

 290 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

In a number of cases, however, there is no clear explanation for the horizontal extension of a word.

Very few consonantal diacritics are used in the documents. Those that are attested occur mainly in the
legal documents. The two diacritical dots of tāʾ or yāʾ are generally arranged obliquely, slanting in either
direction, e.g.

‫( لمير‬252)

‫( مية‬2912)

‫( خاصمتك‬252)

‫( ابنتك‬274)

When three diacritical dots are written over šīn, they are arranged on a horizontal plane. This is a
feature of archaic script, which is found in Arabic papyri datable to the first two centuries AH and in an
Umayyad inscription:27

‫( نشبود‬266)

As remarked above, the administrative documents exhibit a script that is more cursive than the script
of Arabic papyri from Egypt datable to the same period. It corresponds more closely to the cursive type
of script that is characteristic of the papyri from the 3rd century AH onwards. Likewise the documents
from Khurasan anticipate the papyri by several years also with regard to the attestation of certain types
of formulaic phraseology and administrative practice. I have argued above that these formulaic and
administrative developments reflected in the papyri resulted from the introduction of eastern administra-
tive practice into Egypt by Iranian officials during the Abbasid period. It is likely that the appearance of
a more cursive script style in the papyri from the 3rd century AH was another aspect of eastern adminis-
trative practice that was introduced into Egypt by officials trained in the eastern provinces. This, therefore,
would explain the shift in documentary script type in the Arabic papyri.
It has been shown above that many of the officials who drew up the administrative documents in the
Khurasan corpus were of Iranian background. Terms used in the nomenclature of these officials such as
al-’Iṣbahbadh (< Sasanian spāhbed) suggest that some of these were members of Iranian administrative
families who could have been in state service over several generations. What may be of crucial signifi-
cance is that these circles of Iranian administrators who produced the highly cursive Arabic documents

27.  Khan, Arabic Papyri, p. 31, Grohmann Arabische Paläographie II, p. 85.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 290 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 291

in the early Abbasid period would have at a slightly earlier period been writing administrative documents
in Pahlavi. The use of Pahlavi was in use in the eastern Islamic administration at least until 78/697, when,
according to the historical sources, the official language changed to Arabic. Various Pahlavi administra-
tive documents have been discovered in recent decades that were written in the early Islamic period.
Some of these can be dated to the 2nd/8th century, indicating that Pahlavi survived in administrative docu-
ments after 78/697.28 The most conspicuous feature of the script of the Pahlavi administrative documents
is its advanced degree of cursiveness, which resulted in many of the Pahlavi letter shapes becoming
similar in appearance. Angles are transformed into curves and curves into straight strokes.29 One possible
explanation for the development of similar cursive tendencies in the Arabic documentary script of the
eastern Islamic empire, therefore, could be that they were introduced through the influence of a Pahlavi
‘substrate’ by administrators who were trained in the Pahlavi administrative tradition.
It is a pleasure to devote this article Colette Sirat who has, in her numerous important publications
concerning Hebrew palaeography throughout her distinguished career, devoted much attention to similar
developments in Hebrew script due to the migration of scribes and the influence of substrate scripts.

28.  See most recently the arguments for dating proposed by D. Weber, “New arguments for dating the documents from the
Pahlavi archive”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 22, 2012, pp.251-222. See previous discussions by P. Gignoux, “Une nouvelle
collection de documents en pehlevi cursif du début de septième siècle de notre ère”, Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Ins-
criptions et Belles-Lettres, 1991, pp. 783-800; Idem, “Six documents Pehlevis sur cuir”; Azarpay, “Rare Pahlavi texts”.
29.  O. Hansen, Die mittelpersischen Papyri der Papyrussammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 1938; J. de
Menasce, “Recherches de papyrologie pehlevie”, Journal Asiatique 241 (1953), pp. 185-196; Idem, Ostraca and Papyri, Corpus
Inscriptionum Iranicarum, Part III. Pahlavi Inscriptions. Volume IV-V. Ostraca and Papyri, London, 1957; D. Weber, “Einige
Beobachtungen an Pahlavi Papyri,” Acta Orientalia 35 (1973), pp. 83-88; Weber, “Die Pehlevifragmente der Papyrussammlung
der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek in Wien”, Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer (P. Rainer Cent.). Festschrift zum 100-jährigen
Bestehen der Papyrussammlung der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, 1983, pp. 215-228; Weber, “Pahlavi, Papyri
und Ostraca: Stand der Forschung”, Middle Iranian Studies, Proceedings of the International Symposium organized by the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven 1982, Leuven, 1984, pp. 25-43; Weber, Ostraca, Papyri und Pergamente, Corpus Inscriptionum
Iranicarum. Part III. Pahlavi Inscriptions. Volume IV-V. Ostraca and Papyri, London, 1992; P. Gignoux, “Ostraca, papyri et
parchemins”, Empires perses, d’Alexandre aux Sassanides, Dossiers d’archeologie 243 (1999), pp. 24-25.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 291 13/10/14 13:50

 292 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY ARABIC DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

Pahlavi document, Khalili Collection no. 129.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 292 13/10/14 13:50

 GEOFFREY KHAN 293

Arabic document, Khalili Collection no. 22.

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 293 13/10/14 13:50

 Manuscrits hébreux et arabes

MÉLANGES EN L’HONNEUR DE COLETTE SIRAT

édités par
Nicholas de Lange
et Judith Olszowy-Schlanger

bib_38_19_09_2014.indd 3 13/10/14 13:49