The spread of Arabic calligraphy

Calligraphy is one of the civil industries that is strengthened and weakened by the strength and weakness of civilization. The Arabs, especially the people of the Hijaz, were before Islam a Bedouin nation whose livelihood did not require the spread of writing and reading. There is nothing in their monuments in the Hijaz that indicates that they knew how to write and read except before Islam, even though they were surrounded to the north and south by civilized Arab nations who left many writ...