Note 233 — THE PORTER AND THE THREE LADIES OF BAGHDAD. (continued 2)

The copying and transcribing hand which is either Arabi or Ajami. A great discovery has lately been made which upsets all our old ideas of Cufic, etc. Mr. Löytved of Bayrut has found, amongst the Hauranic inscriptions, one in pure Naskhi, dating A.D. 568, or fifty years before the Hijrah; and it is accepted as authentic by my learned friend M. Ch. Clermont-Ganneau (p. 193, Pal. Explor. Fund; July 1884). In D'Herbelot and Sale's day the Koran was supposed to have been written in rude characters, like those subsequently called "Cufic," invented shortly before Mohammed's birth by Murámir ibn Murrah of Anbar in Irák, introduced into Meccah by Bashar the Kindian, and perfected by Ibn Muklah (Al-Wazir, ob. A.H. 328=940). We must now change all that. See Catalogue of Oriental Caligraphs, etc., by G. P. Badger, London, Whiteley, 1885.