The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century.

Harvard Semitic Studies 43. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993.

The book provides an overview of the origin of the Arabic alphabet and serves as a reference book on the dating of earlier Arabic manuscripts. It shows the gradual transition of the alphabet from the Nabataean stage (2nd cent. BC), its adoption for the Arabic language and its early Islamic use up to 100 AH / 720 A.D. It contains chronological tables with analysis of the form, placement, connection and diacritical marking of each grapheme and discussion of the development of early Arab scriptures.