a month ago
- Arabic typesetting is complicated due to cursive script and essential ligatures, unlike Latin script which has few ligatures.
- Early font engines failed to render Arabic ligatures correctly, leading to distorted text, especially problematic for important phrases like the basmala.
- Unicode codepoint U+FDFD was created to represent the basmala, but glyphs vary across devices and are sometimes poorly designed.
- The basmala phrase 'bismillah al-raman al-raim' consists of four words with specific letter connections and diacritic marks.
- Arabic script includes diacritics, kashida for layout, and variations in letter forms based on position, with historical and cultural significance in calligraphy.