Script · a Light

Arabic got its dots and vowels after the Qur'an

The earliest Qur'anic manuscripts have almost no dots and no vowel marks. Arabic script distinguishes several consonants only by dots above or below an identical shape, and the short vowels are not written at all, so an unpointed text is a memory aid for somebody who already knows it. The sources credit Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, who died around 688, with introducing coloured dots for the vowels, and reciters working under the governor al-Hajjaj with systematising the consonant dots. Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad later replaced the vowel dots with the small shapes still used. Who did what is reported differently in different sources. The order is not in doubt: recitation first, notation built to serve it.

Basra and Kufa · late seventh century

Source · The early sources attribute the vowel dots to Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali and the consonant dots to reciters under al-Hajjaj, but they differ ove