The origin and history of the Arabic alphabet is exceedingly interesting. All writing was originally pictorial, the next stage being that of the ideogram. Perhaps a trace of this earliest writing still remains in the _wasms_ or tribal marks of the Bedouin. Scholars maintain that the earliest Semitic writing we possess of certain date is that on the Moabite Stone, discovered by the missionary Klein in 1868. Almost of equal age is the Cyprus and Sidon alphabet, and that of the Phœnicians, found on ancient coins and monuments. The date of this writing is put at 890 B. C. On these monuments and coins the system of orthography is already so carefully developed as to prove that the Semites understood the art centuries before that date. The oldest forms of these Semitic alphabets are in turn derived (Halévy, Nöldeke) from the Egyptian hieratic characters. The oldest inscriptions found in North Arabia by Doughty and Enting, in the Nabatean character, and in South Arabia by Halévy and others in Himyaritic character, are both written, like modern Arabic, from right to left. Although the characters do not resemble each other, this would seem to indicate a common origin. The intimate connection of the present Arabic alphabet with the Hebrew or Phœnician, is shown not only by the forms of the letters, but by their more ancient numerical arrangement called by the Arabs _Abjad_, and which corresponds with the Hebrew order. [Illustration: CUFIC CHARACTERS.] Accounts differ even among the Arabs as to who adapted or invented the present Arabic alphabet from the older Cufic forms. Some even hold that they both developed simultaneously out of the Himyaritic. The Cufic, it is true, is found on old monuments and coins from the Persian Gulf to Spain, and is a square, apparently more crude kind of writing. But the cursive script (now called _Naskhi_) seems to have been in use also long before Mohammed’s time, the Arab historians to the contrary notwithstanding, for the exigencies of daily life. That writing was known at Mecca before the era of Mohammed is acknowledged by Moslem tradition and the close intercourse with Yemen long before that time would certainly indicate some knowledge of Himyaritic. Syriac and Hebrew were also known in Mecca and Medina because of the Jewish population, and it is not improbable that this may have had influence on the present form of the Arabic alphabet. [Illustration: MODERN COPYBOOK STYLE OF ARABIC (VOWELED.)] [Illustration: ORDINARY ARABIC HANDWRITING (UNVOWELED.)]