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97-485: Nastaliq ( / ˌ n æ s t ə ˈ l iː k , ˈ n æ s t ə l iː k / ; نستعلیق , Persian: [næstʰæʔliːq] ; Urdu: [nəst̪ɑːliːq] ), also romanized as Nastaʿlīq or Nastaleeq , is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script and it is used for some Indo-Iranian languages , predominantly Classical Persian , Kashmiri , Punjabi and Urdu . It

194-461: A UNESCO World Heritage Site . On 12 August 2021, the city was seized by Taliban fighters as part of the Taliban's summer offensive . The area of Herat, along with areas like Piranshahr , Damghan and Aleppo , are noted to be sites for archaeological interests and exploration. Ancient Herat is first recorded in ancient times, but its precise date of foundation is unknown. Under

291-528: A consulate in Herat to help further strengthen its relations with Afghanistan . In addition to the usual services, the consulate works with the local officials on development projects and with security issues in the region. On 12 August 2021, the city was captured by the Taliban during the 2021 Taliban offensive . Herat has a cold semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification BSk ). Precipitation

388-563: A darwish convent and a fire temple". There were about 444,000 houses occupied by a settled population. The men were described as "warlike and carry arms", and they were Sunni Muslims . The great mosque of Herāt was built by Ghiyasuddin Ghori in 1201. In this period Herāt became an important center for the production of metal goods, especially in bronze , often decorated with elaborate inlays in precious metals. Mongols The Mongols laid siege to Herat twice. The first siege resulted in

485-688: A regional hub in the country's west. Herat dates back to Avestan times and was traditionally known for its wine . The city has a number of historic sites, including the Herat Citadel and the Musalla Complex . During the Middle Ages , Herat became one of the important cities of Khorasan , as it was known as the Pearl of Khorasan . After its conquest by Tamerlane , the city became an important center of intellectual and artistic life in

582-722: A Christian community, with a Nestorian bishop. In the last two centuries of Sasanian rule, Aria (Herat) had great strategic importance in the endless wars between the Sasanians, the Chionites and the Hephthalites who had been settled in the northern section of Afghanistan since the late 4th century. At the time of the Arab invasion in the middle of the 7th century, the Sasanian central power seemed already largely nominal in

679-600: A city-state and made an alliance with Mahmud of Ghazni. Yet, in 1175, it was captured by the Ghurids of Ghor and then came under the Khawarazm Empire in 1214. According to the account of Mustawfi, Herat flourished especially under the Ghurid dynasty in the 12th century. Mustawfi reported that there were "359 colleges in Herat, 12,000 shops all fully occupied, 6,000 bath-houses; besides caravanserais and mills, also

776-505: A curfew. In May 1999, a rebellion in Herat was crushed by the Taliban, who blamed Iran for causing it. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan , on 12 November 2001, it was captured from the Taliban by forces loyal to the Northern Alliance and Ismail Khan returned to power (see Battle of Herat ). The state of the city was reportedly much better than that of Kabul. In 2004, Mirwais Sadiq , Aviation Minister of Afghanistan and

873-430: A curved sin and stretched forms and introduced variations in the thickness of the line. So a new script was created, to be named nastaʿliq . After a while Tabrizi [scribes] modified what Shirazi [scribes] had created by gradually rendering it thinner and defining its canons, until the time when Khwaja Mir ʿAli Tabrizi brought this script to perfection. Thus, "our earliest written source also credits Shirazi scribes with

970-641: A few years later. The city reached its greatest glory under the Timurid princes , especially Sultan Husayn Bayqara who ruled Herat from 1469 until 4 May 1506. His chief minister, the poet and author in Persian and Turkish, Mir Ali-Shir Nava'i was a great builder and patron of the arts. Under the Timurids, Herat assumed the role of the main capital of an empire that extended in the West as far as central Persia . As

1067-506: A former lack of software supporting the Persian alphabet, and/or due to a lack of knowledge about the software that was available. Although Persian writing is supported in recent operating systems , there are still many cases where the Persian alphabet is unavailable and there is a need for an alternative way to write Persian with the basic Latin alphabet . This way of writing is sometimes called Fingilish or Pingilish (a portmanteau of Farsi or Persian and English ). In most cases this

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1164-727: A garden one day, don't be sad Baháʼís use a system standardized by Shoghi Effendi , which he initiated in a general letter on March 12, 1923. The Baháʼí transliteration scheme was based on a standard adopted by the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists which took place in Geneva in September 1894. Shoghi Effendi changed some details of the Congress's system, most notably in the use of digraphs in certain cases (e.g. s͟h instead of š ), and in incorporating

1261-463: A group of calligraphers. It suffered from two problems in the 1990s: its non-availability on standard platforms such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS , and the non- WYSIWYG nature of text entry, whereby the document had to be created by commands in Monotype's proprietary page description language . In 1994, InPage Urdu, which is a functional page layout software for Windows akin to QuarkXPress ,

1358-629: A head." The city remained in ruins from 1222 to about 1236. In 1244, a local prince Shams al-Din Kart was named ruler of Herāt by the Mongol governor of Khorāsān and in 1255 he was confirmed in his rule by the founder of the Il-Khan dynasty Hulagu . Shamsuddin Kart founded a new dynasty and his successors, especially Fakhruddin Kart and Ghiyasuddin Kart, built many mosques and other buildings. The members of this dynasty were great patrons of literature and

1455-416: A process of gradual attrition." The shekasteh nastaliq emerged in the early 17th century and differed from proper nastaliq only in so far as some of the letters were shrunk (shekasteh, lit. "broken") and detached letters and words were sometimes joined. These unauthorized connections "mean that calligraphers can write shekasteh faster than any other script." Manuscripts from this early period show signs of

1552-475: A simplification of one of the strict transliteration schemes (typically omitting diacritical marks ) and/or unsystematic choices of spellings meant to guide English speakers using English spelling rules towards an approximation of the Persian sounds. Transcriptions of Persian attempt to straightforwardly represent Persian phonology in the Latin script , without requiring a close or reversible correspondence with

1649-510: Is a simplified form of shekasteh which is faster to write and read, but less artistic. Long used in governmental and other institutions in Iran, shekasteh degenerated in the first half of the 20th century, but later again engaged the attention of calligraphers. Shekasteh was used only in Iran and to a small extent in Afghanistan and Ottoman Empire. Its use in Afghanistan was different from

1746-553: Is an ad hoc simplification of the scientific systems listed above (such as ALA-LC or BGN/PCGN), but ignoring any special letters or diacritical signs. ع may be written using the numeral "3", as in the Arabic chat alphabet (though this is rarely done). The details of the spelling also depend on the contact language of the speaker; for example, the vowel [u] is often spelt "oo" after English, but Persian speakers from Germany and some other European countries are more likely to use "u". In

1843-672: Is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan . In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province , situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains ( Selseleh-ye Safēd Kōh ) in the fertile valley of the Hari River in the western part of the country. An ancient civilization on the Silk Road between West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia , it serves as

1940-402: Is described by Estakhri and Ibn Hawqal in the 10th century as a prosperous town surrounded by strong walls with plenty of water sources, extensive suburbs, an inner citadel, a congregational mosque, and four gates, each gate opening to a thriving market place. The government building was outside the city at a distance of about a mile in a place called Khorāsānābād. A church was still visible in

2037-543: Is mentioned in the provincial lists that are included in various royal inscriptions, for instance, in the Behistun inscription of Darius I (ca. 520 BC). Representatives from the district are depicted in reliefs, e.g., at the royal Achaemenid tombs of Naqsh-e Rustam and Persepolis . They are wearing Scythian -style dress (with a tunic and trousers tucked into high boots ) and a twisted Bashlyk that covers their head, chin and neck. Hamdallah Mustawfi , composer of

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2134-673: Is not separately encoded in Unicode as it is a particular style of Arabic script and not a writing system in its own right. Nastaliq letterforms are produced by choosing a Nastaliq font to display the text. Romanization of Persian Also in Iran being named = " Finglish" Being a combination of Farsi and English . Romanization is familiar to many Persian speakers. Many use an ad hoc romanization for text messaging and email ; road signs in Iran commonly include both Persian and English (in order to make them accessible to foreigners); and websites use romanized domain names . Because

2231-562: Is often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, but rarely for Arabic . Nastaliq developed in Iran from naskh beginning in the 13th century and remains widely used in Iran , India , Afghanistan , Pakistan , and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art. The name Nastaliq "is a contraction of the Persian naskh-i ta'liq ( Persian : نَسْخِ تَعلیق ), meaning a hanging or suspended naskh. " Virtually all Safavid authors (like Dust Muhammad or Qadi Ahmad ) attributed

2328-468: Is the native language of Herat and the local dialect – known by natives as Herātī – belongs to the Khorāsānī cluster within Persian. It is akin to the Persian dialects of eastern Iran, notably those of Mashhad and Khorasan Province , which borders Herat. This Persian dialect serves as the lingua franca of the city. The second language that is understood by many is Pashto , which is the native language of

2425-415: Is very low, and mostly falls in winter. Although Herāt is approximately 240 m (790 ft) lower than Kandahar , the summer climate is more temperate, and the climate throughout the year is far from disagreeable, although winter temperatures are comparably lower. From May to September, the wind blows from the northwest with great force. The winter is tolerably mild; snow melts rather quickly, and even on

2522-588: The Afghan National Army (ANA) 207th Corps . Herat was one of the first seven areas that transitioned security responsibility from NATO to Afghanistan. In July 2011, the Afghan security forces assumed security responsibility from NATO. Due to their close relations, Iran began investing in the development of Herat's power, economy and education sectors. In the meantime, the United States built

2619-631: The Conquest of the Western Turks . By 659–661, the Tang claimed a tenuous suzerainty over Herat, the westernmost point of Chinese power in its long history. This hold however would be ephemeral with local Turkish tribes rising in rebellion in 665 and driving out the Tang. In 702 AD Yazid ibn al-Muhallab defeated certain Arab rebels, followers of Ibn al-Ash'ath , and forced them out of Herat. The city

2716-631: The Czech one). Besides being one of the simplest variations proposed for the Latinization of the Persian alphabet, this variation is based on the Alphabetic principle . Based on this principle, each individual speech sound is represented by a single letter and there is a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letters that represent them. This principle, besides increasing the clarity of

2813-608: The Persian alphabet that are pronounced identically in Persian. Therefore, transliterations of Persian are often based on transliterations of Arabic . The representation of the vowels of the Perso-Arabic alphabet is also complex, and transliterations are based on the written form. Transliterations commonly used in the English-speaking world include BGN/PCGN romanization and ALA-LC Romanization . Non-academic English-language quotation of Persian words usually uses

2910-451: The Perso-Arabic script is an abjad writing system (with a consonant -heavy inventory of letters), many distinct words in standard Persian can have identical spellings, with widely varying pronunciations that differ in their (unwritten) vowel sounds. Thus a romanization paradigm can follow either transliteration (which mirrors spelling and orthography ) or transcription (which mirrors pronunciation and phonology ). Transliteration (in

3007-568: The Sadozai Sultanate of Herat . They were conquered by the Afsharid Persia in 1732. After Nader Shah 's death and Ahmad Shah Durrani 's rise to power in 1747, Herat separated from Persia became part of Afghanistan . It became an independent city-state in the first half of the 19th century, facing several Qajar Iranian invasions until being incorporated into Afghanistan in 1863. The roads from Herat to Iran (through

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3104-649: The Seleucid Empire . However, most sources suggest that Herat was predominantly Zoroastrian . It became part of the Parthian Empire in 167 BC. In the Sasanian period (226–652), 𐭧𐭥𐭩𐭥 Harēv is listed in an inscription on the Ka'ba-i Zartosht at Naqsh-e Rustam ; and Hariy is mentioned in the Pahlavi catalogue of the provincial capitals of the empire. In around 430, the town is also listed as having

3201-555: The solar letters when writing the definite article al- (Arabic: ال) according to pronunciation (e.g. ar-Rahim , as-Saddiq , instead of al-Rahim , al-Saddiq ). A detailed introduction to the Baháʼí Persian romanization can usually be found at the back of a Baháʼí scripture. It is common to write Persian language with only the Latin alphabet (as opposed to the Persian alphabet ) especially in online chat , social networks , emails and SMS . It has developed and spread due to

3298-529: The 14th-century geographical work Nuzhat al-Qulub writes that: Herāt was the name of one of the chiefs among the followers of the hero Narīmān , and it was he who first founded the city. After it had fallen to ruin Alexander the Great rebuilt it, and the circuit of its walls was 9000 paces. Herodotus described Herat as the bread-basket of Central Asia . At the time of Alexander the Great in 330 BC, Aria

3395-707: The 20th century, "the use of nastaliq declined. After World War II, however, interest in calligraphy and above all in nastaliq revived, and some outstandingly able masters of the art have since then emerged." The use of nastaliq very early expanded beyond Iran. Timurids brought it to the India subcontinent and nastaliq became favorite script at the Persian court of the Mughals . For Akbar (1556–1605) and Jahangir (1605–1627) worked such famous masters of nastaliq as Muhammad Husayn Kashmiri (d. 1611/1612) and Abd al-Rahim Anbarin-Qalam . Another important practitioner of

3492-523: The Arab forces in a battle of Qohestān in 651-52 AD, trying to block their advance on Nishāpur , but they were defeated. When the Arab armies appeared in Khorāsān in the 650s AD, Herāt was counted among the twelve capital towns of the Sasanian Empire. The Arab army under the general command of Ahnaf ibn Qais in its conquest of Khorāsān in 652 seems to have avoided Herāt, but it can be assumed that

3589-536: The Great was born in Herat, and in Safavid texts, Herat is referred to as a'zam-i bilād-i īrān , meaning "the greatest of the cities of Iran". In the 16th century, all future Safavid Persian rulers, from Tahmasp I to Abbas I, were governors of Herat in their youth. By the early 18th century Herat was governed by the Abdali Afghans . After Nader Shah 's death in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani took possession of

3686-764: The Islamic world. Under the rule of Shah Rukh , the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance , whose glory is thought to have matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth. After the fall of the Timurid Empire , Herat has been governed by various Afghan rulers since the early 18th century. In 1716, the Abdali Afghans inhabiting the city revolted and formed their own Sultanate,

3783-566: The Pashtuns. The local Pashto dialect spoken in Herat is a variant of western Pashto , which is also spoken in Kandahar and southern and western Afghanistan. Religiously, Sunni Islam is practiced by the majority, while Shias make up the minority. The city has high residential density clustered around the core of the city. However, vacant plots account for a higher percentage of the city (21%) than residential land use (18%) and agricultural

3880-740: The Persian Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), the surrounding district was known by the Old Persian name of Haraiva (𐏃𐎼𐎡𐎺), and in classical sources, the region was correspondingly known as Areia ( Aria ). In the Zoroastrian collection of Avesta , the district is referred as Haroiva . The name of the district and its principal town is a derivative from that of the local river, the Herey River (from Old Iranian Harayu , meaning "with velocity"), which goes through

3977-520: The Persian language are in the majority. There is no current data on the precise ethnic composition of the city's population, but according to a 2003 map found in the National Geographic Magazine , Persian-speaking Tajik and Farsiwan peoples form the majority of the city, comprising around 85% of the population. The remaining population comprises Pashtuns (10%), Hazaras (2%), Uzbeks (2%) and Turkmens (1%). Persian

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4074-561: The Persian norm and sometimes only as experimental devices ( tafannon ) Modern Nastaliq typography began with the invention of Noori Nastaleeq which was first created as a digital font in 1981 through the collaboration of Ahmed Mirza Jamil (as calligrapher) and Monotype Imaging (formerly Monotype Corp & Monotype Typography). Although this employed over 20,000 ligatures (individually designed character combinations), it provided accurate results and allowed newspapers such as Pakistan's Daily Jang to use digital typesetting instead of

4171-710: The Perso-Arabic script, and also without requiring a close correspondence to English phonetic values of Roman letters. or G as in genre Notes : In the pre-Islamic period Old and Middle Persian employed various scripts including Old Persian cuneiform , Pahlavi and Avestan scripts. For each period there are established transcriptions and transliterations by prominent linguists. Notes : A sample romanization (a poem by Hafez): gomgaşte báz áyad be Kanân qam maħor kolbeye ahzán şavad ruzi golestán qam maħor یوسف گم گشته باز آید به کنعان غم مخور کلبه‌ی احزان شود روزی گلستان غم مخور The lost Joseph will get back to Canaan, don't be sad The hut of madness will become

4268-687: The Taherids from Khorasan in 873. The Sāmānid dynasty was established in Transoxiana by three brothers, Nuh , Yahyā , and Ahmad . Ahmad Sāmāni opened the way for the Samanid dynasty to the conquest of Khorāsān, including Herāt, which they were to rule for one century. The centralized Samanid administration served as a model for later dynasties. The Samanid power was destroyed in 999 by the Qarakhanids , who were advancing on Transoxiana from

4365-631: The USSR from 1931 to 1938, the Persian alphabet based on Latin was used . It was used for teaching in schools, the Bejraqe Sorx (Red Banner) newspaper was published in Ashgabat , as well as textbooks and other literature. The Tajik language or Tajik Persian is a variety of the Persian language. It was written in the Tajik SSR in a standardized Latin script from 1926 until the late 1930s, when

4462-459: The arts. By this time Herāt became known as the pearl of Khorasan . If anyone asks thee which is the pleasantest of cities, Thou mayest answer him aright that it is Herāt. For the world is like the sea, and the province of Khurāsān like a pearl-oyster therein, The city of Herāt being as the pearl in the middle of the oyster. Timur took Herat in 1380 and he brought the Kartid dynasty to an end

4559-401: The border town of Islam Qala ) and Turkmenistan (through the border town of Torghundi ) are still strategically important. As the gateway to Iran, it collects high amount of customs revenue for Afghanistan. It also has an international airport . Following the 2001 war , the city had been relatively safe from Taliban insurgent attacks. In 2021, it was announced that Herat would be listed as

4656-492: The capital of the Timurid empire, it boasted many fine religious buildings and was famous for its sumptuous court life and musical performance and its tradition of miniature paintings. On the whole, the period was one of relative stability, prosperity, and development of economy and cultural activities. It began with the nomination of Shahrokh , the youngest son of Timur, as governor of Herat in 1397. The reign of Shahrokh in Herat

4753-642: The city and became part of the Durrani Empire . In 1793, Herat became independent for several years when Afghanistan underwent a civil war between different sons of Timur Shah . The Iranians had multiple wars with Herat between 1801 and 1837 (1804, 1807, 1811, 1814, 1817, 1818, 1821, 1822, 1825, 1833). The Iranians besieged the city in 1837 , but the British helped the Heratis in repelling them. In 1856, they invaded again, and briefly managed to take

4850-514: The city eventually submitted to the Arabs, since shortly afterward an Arab governor is mentioned there. A treaty was drawn in which the regions of Bādghis and Bushanj were included. As did many other places in Khorāsān, Herāt rebelled and had to be re-conquered several times. Another power that was active in the area in the 650s was Tang dynasty China which had embarked on a campaign that culminated in

4947-676: The city on 25 October; it led directly to the Anglo-Persian War . In 1857 hostilities between the Iranians and the British ended after the Treaty of Paris was signed, and the Persian troops withdrew from Herat in September 1857. Afghanistan conquered Herat on 26 May 1863, under Dost Muhammad Khan , two weeks before his death. The famous Musalla of Gawhar Shah of Herat, a large Islamic religious complex consisting of five minarets, several mausoleums along with mosques and madrasas

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5044-431: The city with their families. Between 10 and 20 March 1979, the Afghan Army in Herāt under the control of commander Ismail Khan mutinied. Thousands of protesters took to the streets against the Khalq communist regime's oppression led by Nur Mohammad Taraki . The new rebels led by Khan managed to oust the communists and take control of the city for 3 days, with some protesters murdering any Soviet advisers. This shocked

5141-506: The cost of thousands of civilians killed. This massacre was the first of its kind since the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, and was the bloodiest event preceding the Soviet–Afghan War . Herat received damage during the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s, especially its western side. The province as a whole was one of the worst-hit. In April 1983, a series of Soviet bombings damaged half of the city and killed around 3,000 civilians, described as "extremely heavy, brutal and prolonged". Ismail Khan

5238-469: The countryside northeast of the town on the road to Balkh , and farther away on a hilltop stood a flourishing fire temple , called Sereshk, or Arshak according to Mustawfi . Herat was a part of the Taherid dominion in Khorāsān until the rise of the Saffarids in Sistān under Ya'qub-i Laith in 861, who, in 862, started launching raids on Herat before besieging and capturing it on 16 August 867, and again in 872. The Saffarids succeeded in expelling

5335-598: The development of nastaʿliq and Mir ʿAli Tabrizi with its canonization." The picture of origin of nastaliq presented by Elaine Wright was further complicated by studies of Francis Richard, who on the basis of some manuscripts from Tabriz argued that its early evolution was not confined to Shiraz. Finally, many authors point out that development of nastaʿliq was a process which takes a few centuries. For example, Gholam-Hosayn Yusofi, Ali Alparslan and Sheila Blair recognize gradual shift towards nastaʿliq in some 13th-century manuscripts. Hamid Reza Afsari traces first elements of

5432-415: The district and ends 5 km (3.1 mi) south of Herat. Herey is mentioned in Sanskrit as a yellow or golden color equivalent to Persian "Zard" meaning Gold (yellow). The naming of a region and its principal town after the main river is a common feature in this part of the world— compare the adjoining districts/rivers/towns of Arachosia and Bactria . The district Aria of the Achaemenid Empire

5529-403: The first Persian-speaking city to be captured by the Taliban. The Taliban's strict enforcement of laws confining women at home and closing girls' schools alienated Heratis who are traditionally more liberal and educated, like the Kabulis, than other urban populations in the country. Two days of anti-Taliban protests occurred in December 1996 which was violently dispersed and led to the imposition of

5626-400: The government, who blamed the new administration of Iran following the Iranian Revolution for influencing the uprising. Reprisals by the government followed, and between 3,000 and 24,000 people (according to different sources) were killed, in what is called the 1979 Herat uprising , or in Persian as the Qiam-e Herat . The city itself was recaptured with tanks and airborne forces , but at

5723-514: The hands of Faik to whom the defense of Herāt had been entrusted by Nuh III. In 994, Nuh III invited Alptegin to come to his aid. Alptegin, along with Mahmud of Ghazni, defeated Faik and annexed Herāt, Nishapur and Tous . Herat was a great trading center strategically located on trade routes from Mediterranean to India or to China. The city was noted for its textiles during the Abbasid Caliphate , according to many references by geographers. Herāt also had many learned sons such as Ansārī . The city

5820-427: The head of the scriptorium ( kitabkhana ) of prince Baysunghur (therefore his epithet Baysunghuri). Jafar trained several students in nastaliq , of whom the most famous was Azhar Tabrizi (d. 1475). Its classical form nastaliq achieved under Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520), a student of Azhar (or perhaps one of Azhar's students) who worked for Sultan Husayn Bayqara (1469–1506) and his vizier Ali-Shir Nava'i . At

5917-537: The influence of shekasteh taliq ; while having the appearance of a shrunken form of nastaliq, they also contain features of taliq "due to their being written by scribes who had been trained in taʿlīq." Shekasteh nastaliq (usually shortened to simply skehasteh ), being more easily legible than taliq gradually replaced the latter as the script of decrees and documents. Later, it also came into use for writing prose and poetry. The first important calligraphers of shekasteh were Mohammad Shafiʿ Heravi (d. 1670–71) (he

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6014-416: The invention of nastaliq to Mir Ali Tabrizi , who lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. That tradition was questioned by Elaine Wright, who traced the evolution of Nastaliq in 14th-century Iran and showed how it developed gradually among scribes in Shiraz . According to her studies, nastaliq has its origin from naskh alone, and not by combining naskh and taliq , as

6111-442: The mountains does not lie long. The eastern reaches of the Hari River , including the rapids, are frozen hard in the winter, and people travel on it as on a road. India, Iran and Pakistan operate their consulate here for trade, military and political links. Of the more than dozen minarets that once stood in Herāt, many have been toppled from war and neglect over the past century. Recently, however, everyday traffic threatens many of

6208-551: The name of Islam. The region of Herāt was under the rule of King Nuh III , the seventh of the Samanid line—at the time of Sebük Tigin and his older son, Mahmud of Ghazni . The governor of Herāt was a noble by the name of Faik , who was appointed by Nuh III. It is said that Faik was a powerful, but insubordinate governor of Nuh III, and had been punished by Nuh III. Faik made overtures to Bogra Khan and Ughar Khan of Khorasan . Bogra Khan answered Faik's call, came to Herāt, and became its ruler. The Samanids fled, betrayed at

6305-419: The northeast, and by the Ghaznavids , former Samanid retainers, attacking from the southeast. Ghaznavid Era Sultan Maḥmud of Ghazni officially took control of Khorāsān in 998. Herat was one of the six Ghaznavid mints in the region. In 1040, Herat was captured by the Seljuk Empire . During this change of power in Herat, there was supposedly a power vacuum which was filled by Abdullah Awn , who established

6402-400: The predominant style in western Iran, as artists gravitated to work in Safavid royal scriptorium. The most famous of these calligraphers working for the court in Tabriz was Shah Mahmud Nishapuri (d. 1564/1565), known especially for the unusual choice of nastaliq as a script used for the copy of the Qur'an. Its apogeum nastaliq achieved in writings of Mir Emad Hassani (d. 1615), "whose style

6499-404: The province in contrast with the role of the Hephthalites tribal lords, who were settled in the Herat region and in the neighboring districts, mainly in pastoral Bādghis and in Qohestān . It must be underlined, however, that Herat remained one of the three Sasanian mint centers in the east, the other two beings Balkh and Marv . The Hephthalites from Herat and some unidentified Turks opposed

6596-421: The remaining unique towers by shaking the very foundations they stand on. Cars and trucks that drive on a road encircling the ancient city rumble the ground every time they pass these historic structures. UNESCO personnel and Afghan authorities have been working to stabilize the Fifth Minaret. The population of Herat numbered approximately 592,902 in 2021. The city houses a multi-ethnic society and speakers of

6693-399: The same time a different style of nastaliq developed in western and southern Iran. It was associated with ʿAbd al-Rahman Khwarazmi, the calligrapher of the Pir Budaq Qara Qoyunlu (1456–1466) and after him was followed by his children, ʿAbd al-Karim Khwarazmi and ʿAbd al-Rahim Anisi (both active at the court of Ya'qub Beg Aq Qoyunlu ; 1478–1490). This more angular western Iranian style

6790-620: The script its distinctive and definite form." The tradition of Taleqani was later followed by Mirza Kuchek Esfahani (d. 1813), Gholam Reza Esfahani (d. 1886–87) and Ali Akbar Golestaneh (d. 1901). The added frills made shekasteh increasingly difficult to read and it remained the script of documents and decrees, "while nastaʿliq retained its pre-eminence as the main calligraphic style." The need for simplification of shekasteh resulted in development of secretarial style ( shekasteh-ye tahriri ) by writers like Adib-al-Mamalek Farahani (d. 1917) and Nezam Garrusi (d. 1900). The secretarial style

6887-613: The script was Abd al-Rashid Daylami (d. 1671), nephew and student of Mir Emad, who after his arrival in India became court calligrapher of Shah Jahan (1628–1658). During this era Nastaliq became the common script for writing the Hindustani language , especially Standard Urdu . Nastaliq was also adopted in Ottoman Empire , which has always had strong cultural ties to Iran. Here it was known as taliq (Turkish talik ), which should not be confused with Persian taliq script . First Iranian calligraphers who brought nastaliq to Ottoman lands, like Asadullah Kirmani (d. 1488), belonged to

6984-720: The script was officially changed to Cyrillic . However, Tajik phonology differs slightly from that of Persian in Iran. As a result of these two factors romanization schemes of the Tajik Cyrillic script follow rather different principles. Even though it is largely unused, Google Translate implements the alphabet as the Latin transliteration for Tajik. A variation (that is sometimes called "Pârstin") proposed by linguist Mir Shamsuddin Adib-Soltani in 1976 has seen some use by other linguists, such as David Neil MacKenzie for

7081-667: The son of Ismail Khan, was ambushed and killed in Herāt by a local rival group. More than 200 people were arrested under suspicion of involvement. In 2005, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) began establishing bases in and around the city. Its main mission was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and help with the rebuilding process of the country. Regional Command West , led by Italy, assisted

7178-574: The strict sense) attempts to be a complete representation of the original writing, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. Transliterations of Persian are used to represent individual Persian words or short quotations, in scholarly texts in English or other languages that do not use the Arabic alphabet. A transliteration will still have separate representations for different consonants of

7275-448: The style in 11th-century copies of Persian translations of the Qur'an. Persian differs from Arabic in its proportion of straight and curved letters. It also lacks the definite article al- , whose upright alif and lam are responsible for distinct verticality and rhythm of the text written in Arabic. Hanging scripts like taliq and nastaliq were suitable for writing Persian – when taliq

7372-465: The surrender of the city, the slaughter of the local sultan's army of 12,000, and the appointment of two governors, one Mongol and one Muslim. The second, prompted by a rebellion against Mongol rule, lasted seven months and ended in June 1222 with, according to one account, the beheading of the entire population of 1,600,000 people by the victorious Mongols, such that "no head was left on a body, nor body with

7469-461: The text and preventing confusion for the reader, is specifically useful for representing the native sounds of the Persian language, for which there are no equivalents in most other languages written in a Latin-based alphabet. For instance, compound letters used in the other variations, such as kh and gh , in addition to sh and zh are respectively represented by x , q , š and ž . Herat Herāt ( / h ɛ ˈ r ɑː t / ; [Dari])

7566-468: The transliteration of the Perso-Arabic scripture. The letters of this variation of the Latin alphabet are the basic Latin letters: Aa , Bb , Cc , Dd , Ee , Ff , Gg , Hh , Ii , Jj , Kk , Ll , Mm , Nn , Oo , Pp , Qq , Rr , Ss , Tt , Uu , Vv , Xx , Yy , Zz , plus the additional letters to support the native sounds: Ââ , Čč , Šš , Žž (the latter three from Slavic alphabets, like

7663-542: The waning power of the Caliphate became apparent, native rulers once again established themselves independent. Among these, the Saffarids of Seistan shone briefly in the Afghan area. The fanatic founder of this dynasty, the coppersmith's apprentice Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari, came forth from his capital at Zaranj in 870 AD and marched through Bost , Kandahar , Ghazni , Kabul , Bamiyan , Balkh and Herat, conquering in

7760-509: The west to defeat the Sasanians in 642 AD and then they marched with confidence to the east. On the western periphery of the Afghan area, the princes of Herat and Seistan gave way to rule by Arab governors but in the east, in the mountains, cities submitted only to rise in revolt, and the hastily converted returned to their old beliefs once the armies passed. The harshness and avariciousness of Arab rule produced such unrest, however, that once

7857-409: The western tradition. But relatively early Ottoman calligraphers adopted eastern style of nastaliq . In 17th century, student of Mir Emad, Darvish Abdi Bokharai (d. 1647), transplanted his style to Istanbul. The greatest master of nastaliq in 18th century was Mehmed Yasari (d. 1798), who closely followed Mir Emad. This tradition was further developed by son of Yasari, Mustafa Izzet (d. 1849), who

7954-400: Was celî nastaliq used in inscriptions and mosque plates. Shekasteh or Shekasteh Nastaliq ( Persian : شکسته نستعلیق , شکسته نستعلیق , "cursive Nastaliq " or literally "broken Nastaliq ") style is a "streamlined" form of Nastaliq . Its development is connected with the fact that "the increasing use of nastaʿlīq and consequent need to write it quickly exposed it to

8051-555: Was a real founder of distinct Ottoman school of nastaliq . He introduced new and precise proportions of the script, different than in Iranian tradition. The most important member of this school in the second half of the 19th century was Sami Efendi (d. 1912), who taught many famous practitioners of nastaliq , like Mehmed Nazif Bey (d. 1913), Mehmed Hulusi Yazgan (d. 1940) and Necmeddin Okyay (d. 1976). The specialty of Ottoman school

8148-430: Was commonly thought. In addition to study of the practice of calligraphy, Elaine Wright also found a document written by Jafar Tabrizi c.  1430 , according to whom: It must be known that nastaʿliq is derived from naskh . Some Shirazi [scribes] modified it [naskh] by taking out the flattened [letter] kaf and straight bottom part of [the letters] sin , lam and nun . From other scripts they then brought in

8245-795: Was developed for Pakistan's newspaper industry by an Indian software company Concept Software Pvt Ltd. It offered the Noori Nastaliq font licensed from Monotype Imaging. This font is still used in current versions of the software for Windows. As of 2009, InPage has become Unicode based, supporting more languages and the Faiz Lahori Nastaliq font with Kasheeda has been added to it along with compatibility with OpenType Unicode fonts. The Nastaliq style uses more than three general forms for many letters, even in non-decorative documents. For example, most documents written in Urdu . Nastaliq

8342-682: Was dynamited during the Panjdeh incident to prevent their usage by the advancing Russian forces . Some emergency preservation work was carried out at the site in 2001 which included building protective walls around the Gawhar Shad Mausoleum and Sultan Husain Madrasa, repairing the remaining minaret of Gawhar Shad's Madrasa, and replanting the mausoleum garden. In the aftermath of the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929) , Herat

8439-495: Was enlarged and embellished under the Timurids. The tomb of the poet and mystic Khwājah Abdullāh Ansārī (d. 1088), was first rebuilt by Shahrokh about 1425, and other famous men were buried in the shrine area. In the summer of 1458, the Qara Qoyunlu under Jahan Shah advanced as far as Herat, but had to turn back soon because of a revolt by his son Hasan Ali and also because Abu Said 's march on Tabriz. In 1507, Herat

8536-481: Was known as Shafiʿa and hence shekasteh was sometimes called shafiʿa or shifiʿa ) and Mortazaqoli Khan Shamlu (d. 1688–89). Both of them produced works of real artistic quality, which does not change the fact that in this early phase shekasteh still lacked consistency (it is especially visible in writing of Mortazaqoli Khan Shamlu). Most modern scholars consider that shekasteh reached its peak of artistic perfection under Abdol Majid Taleqani (d. 1771), "who gave

8633-523: Was largely dominant at the beginning of the Safavid era , but then lost to the style canonized by Sultan Ali Mashhadi – although it continued to be used in the Indian subcontinent. The most famous calligrapher of the next generation in eastern lands was Mir Ali Heravi (d. 1544), who was master of nastaliq , especially renowned for his calligraphic specimens ( qitʿa ). The eastern style of nastaliq became

8730-412: Was marked by intense royal patronage, building activities, and the promotion of manufacturing and trade, especially through the restoration and enlargement of the Herat's bāzār. The present Musallah Complex, and many buildings such as the madrasa of Gawhar Shad , Ali Shir mahāl, many gardens, and others, date from this time. The village of Gazar Gah , over two km northeast of Herat, contained a shrine that

8827-565: Was obviously an important district. It was administered by a satrap called Satibarzanes , who was one of the three main Persian officials in the East of the Empire, together with the satrap Bessus of Bactria and Barsaentes of Arachosia. In late 330 BC, Alexander captured the Arian capital that was called Artacoana . The town was rebuilt and the citadel was constructed. Afghanistan became part of

8924-692: Was occupied by the Uzbeks but after much fighting the city was taken by Shah Isma'il , the founder of the Safavid dynasty , in 1510 and the Shamlu Qizilbash assumed the governorship of the area. Under the Safavids, Herat was again relegated to the position of a provincial capital, albeit one of particular importance. At the death of Shah Isma'il the Uzbeks again took Herat and held it until Shah Tahmasp retook it in 1528. The Persian king, Shah Abbas

9021-539: Was the last stronghold of Saqqawist resistance, holding out until 1931 when it was retaken by forces loyal to Mohammad Nadir Shah . In the 1960s, engineers from the United States built Herat Airport , which was used by the Soviet forces during the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Even before the Soviet invasion at the end of 1979, there was a substantial presence of Soviet advisors in

9118-592: Was the leading mujahideen commander in Herāt fighting against the Soviet-backed government. After the communist government's collapse in 1992, Khan joined the new government and he became governor of Herat Province . The city was relatively safe and it was recovering and rebuilding from the damage caused in the Soviet–Afghan War. However, on 5 September 1995, the city was captured by the Taliban without much resistance, forcing Khan to flee. Herat became

9215-446: Was the model in the following centuries." Mir Emad's successors in the 17th and 18th centuries had developed a more elongated style of nastaliq , with wider spaces between words. Mirza Mohammad Reza Kalhor (d. 1892), the most important calligrapher of the 19th century, reintroduced the more compact style, writing words on a smaller scale in a single motion. In the 19th century nastaliq was also adopted in Iran for lithographed books. In

9312-546: Was the scene of conflicts between different groups of Muslims and Arab tribes in the disorders leading to the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate . Herat was also a center of the followers of Ustadh Sis . In 870 AD, Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari , a local ruler of the Saffarid dynasty conquered Herat and the rest of the nearby regions in the name of Islam. ...Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam came out of

9409-421: Was used for court documents, nastaliq was developed for Persian poetry, "whose hemistiches encourage the pile-up of letters against the intercolumnar ruling. Only later was it adopted for prose." The first master of nastaliq was aforementioned Mir Ali Tabrizi , who passed his style to his son ʿUbaydallah. The student of Ubaydallah, Jafar Tabrizi (d. 1431) (see quote above), moved to Herat , when he became

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