# Kufic (クーフィー体)

> Keeps the uprights short and draws the horizontals long, massing letters of straight strokes and right angles into a band of even height.

- IndexStyle No.182 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/kufic
- Kind: Style · Family: Calligraphic Traditions · Era: 8th century onward
- Mood: Luxury, Calm, Trust
- What this family collects: Cultures where writing or carving characters was institutionalized as the highest art, so that reading a text and admiring it were never separate acts.

## Defining characteristics

- Horizontals drawn long
- Short angular uprights
- Letters turning at right angles
- Lines massed into an even band

## Best used for

- Cutting an inscription into a wall or a vessel as a band
- Using the angular letterforms as figure, for titling and marks meant to be read from a distance

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Fix the ratio of upright to horizontal first, and turn every corner at a right angle
- Layout & structure: Align the top and the foot of the line, space the uprights evenly, and run the letters as a band
- Material & texture: Cut into stone, brick and tile, and on parchment hold the stroke to an even weight with the reed pen

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #ddd0b2
- The colour it is remembered by: #3b5398
- Text and outlines: #3f3028

## What to avoid

Copying only the right angles while breaking the joins between letters leaves an ornamental band that no longer reads as a word.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Horizontals drawn long
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Short angular uprights
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Letters turning at right angles
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Lines massed into an even band
- [ ] The layout follows: Align the top and the foot of the line, space the uprights evenly, and run the letters as a band
- [ ] The lettering follows: Fix the ratio of upright to horizontal first, and turn every corner at a right angle
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Cut into stone, brick and tile, and on parchment hold the stroke to an even weight with the reed pen
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #ddd0b2 as ground, #3b5398 carrying the style, #3f3028 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Islamic Geometric Pattern (イスラム幾何学文様)** — Divides, repeats and combines circles, squares, polygons and stars, building infinite extension and order on a finite plane. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/islamic-geometric-pattern
- **Calligram (カリグラム)** — Arranges words into the shape of what they say, so that reading and seeing happen in the same moment. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/calligram

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=kufic+islamic-geometric-pattern

## Further study

- Ibn Muqla's proportional theory
- the Six Scripts
- the tughra and official documents

## Reference works

- Kufic Qur'an manuscript, 8th–9th century — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Folio%20from%20a%20Koran%20(8th-9th%20century).jpg
- Prayer text in Thuluth script — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arabic%20prayer%20-%20Thuluth%20script.jpg
- Tughra of Suleiman I, 16th century — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tughra%20Suleiman.jpg

## Source of record

- Aga Khan Museum, Collection — https://www.agakhanmuseum.org/collection

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/kufic
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/kufic/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)