[ham]

This touches on a complex subject-- here are a few thoughts which hopefully will clarify the use of the term "Arabic": Arabic is both a language belonging to the Semitic family, spoken by Arab peoples, and the name of the alphabet used to express that language beginning in 4th century Arabia; it predates the rise of Islam and derives from Nabatean. After the spread of Islam, Arabic script was adopted by subject peoples, many of whom also became Muslim. Some of these adopted Arabic as a spoken language as well, most did not. Any Muslim who became a scholar however, regardless of origin, necessarily learned it.

Contrary to popular conception, Arabic, Persian and the Turkic languages are linguistically unrelated. However Arabic, as the language of the conquerors AND Islam, strongly influenced both Persian and Turkish, primarily through loan words and to a lesser extent, gramatically. Prior to their exposure to Islam and the Arabic language and alphabet, both Persian and Turkic cultures also had alphabets of their own. These fell out of use after the advent of Islam but are preserved in coins and other artefacts as well as stone carvings in a variety of spots throughout Iran and the Central Asian steppes. The use of the Arabic alphabet also occurred among subject peoples who did not convert to Islam-- in the 10th-12th century, the Muslim Fatimid Dynasty of North Africa contained large numbers of Christians and Jews in its capital at Cairo. Both churches and synagogues there bore public texts in Coptic and Hebrew; these were often expressed in the Arabic alphabet.

Regardless of the culture which uses it then, this symbol system qualifies as, simply, the Arabic alphabet. Certain "fonts" of Arabic are associated more with particular areas than others, however. In the Ottoman Empire, a font called "sulus," the Turkish rendering of the Arabic "thuluth" (meaning "one third," and refering to the even proportions of that particular font) was popular for official documents and public embellishments, while in Iran, "Nastaliq," a very flowing font, was popular for the same purposes during the height of the Safavid Dynasty. Despite the addition of certain characters (such as a "ch" and "p,") both the alphabets used in the Ottoman Empire and Iran remain Arabic. (As a side issue, Battara's comment above is quite accurate: Persian was also used as a poetic language among educated aristocrats in the Ottoman Empire -- a bit like graduate students at ivy league philosophy department cocktail parties tossing around Latin or French phrases in conversation, with the intention of dazzling coeds.)

Further, Arabic was (and is) the liturgical language of any Islamic state worldwide, though not necessarily the spoken language. Returning to the pistol under discussion above, the inscription definitely uses the Arabic alphabet, however it is not distinctive enough to assign a font-- nor for that matter is it even distinct. It is either exceedingly esoteric... or very poorly written, probably the latter. Often in cases like this, the inscription was copied from another item by an illiterate craftsman.

Comparable circumstances apply in Western Europe. The Latin alphabet used by the Romans was imposed upon and adopted by the peoples they conquered as well, including Europe and the British Isles. Today, English, French, German, and Italian to name a few, are written in the same Latin alphabet, though all have added characters or diacriticals (the French accent grave and aigu marks, and the German umlauts) to allow them to express the sounds of their particular languages more accurately. Therefore, a Frenchman can easily read English or German letters, whether or not he comprehends the meaning of the words. Likewise, though perhaps more painful on the ears, an Englishman can do the same... again however, he will likely not know their meaning.

To recap: despite the fact that Arabic, Persian and Turkish all used the same alphabet well into the 20th century, they are mutually legible though not mutually intelligible (outside of loan words and certain religious quotations which are universal among Muslims.) Part of the problem for students of Islamic cultures is that the term "Arabic" identifies both the language and the alphabet. For this reason, the written languages discussed above are referred to by their names, i.e. Arabic, Turkish, Persian... since it it is already understood that they are all rendered in the same alphabet.

Hopefully, the brief and general nature of the foregoing does not limit its usefulness.


Ham