Evolution of early Arabic (9th – 11th century). The
Basmala was taken as an example, from
kufic Qur’an manuscripts. (1) Early 9th century. script with no dots or diacritic marks
; (2) and (3)9th – 10th century under Abbasid dynasty, the Abu al-Aswad's system establish red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel. Later, a second black dots system was used to differentiate between letters like "
fāʼ" and "qāf"
; (4) 11th century, In Al Farāhídi's system (system we know today) dots were changed into shapes resembling the letters to transcribe the corresponding long vowels
.