It is not without reason that Mohammed’s cognomen for Jew and Christian alike was, “the people of the _Book_.” At first, like the Hebrew, Arabic had no vowel-points or diacritical marks. In the earliest Cufic Koran manuscripts these have the form of accents, horizontal lines or even triangles. The Arabs tell many interesting stories about the cause and occasion of their invention by Abu Aswad ad Duili or by Nasr bin ’Asim. In each case the awful sin of mispronouncing a word in the Koran leads to the device of vowel-points as a future preventative. According to another tradition it was Hasan-el-Basri (who died A. H. 110) that first pointed the Koran text with the assistance of Yahya bin Yámar. The vowel-points, so called, were in reality the abbreviated weak-consonants and were placed, in accordance with the sound of these letters, when so pronounced. The vowel-points and diacritical marks are always found in copies of the Koran, but seldom in other books and never in epistolary writing. They are considered by the Arabs themselves as at best a necessary evil, except for grammarians and purists. The story is told that an elaborate piece of Arabic penmanship was once presented to the governor of Khorasan under the Caliph al Mamun, and that he exclaimed, “How beautiful this would be if there were not so much coriander seed scattered over it!” [Illustration: MOGREBI ARABIC OF NORTH AFRICA (UNVOWELED.)] The demand for perfect accuracy in copying the Koran in every detail of point and accent, led the Arabs to glorify the art of caligraphy, and, as they followed neither painting nor sculpture because of their creed, they naturally put all their artistic taste into their manuscripts. Brilliantly colored and adorned with gold on delicately tinted parchment, or paper, the fanciful chapter-headings and the elegant tracery of each letter in the book make such an old manuscript Koran a real work of art. Three names are recorded of those who in the early days of Islam were the Raphaels and Michael Angelos of the reed-pen; Wazir Muhammed bin Ali, Ali bin Hilal al Bauwab, and Abu-’d-Dur bin Yakut al Musta’sami. As time went by there arose various schools of this art; chiefly distinguished as the Magrib-Berber or Western, and the Turko-Arab or Eastern style. In the decorations of the Alhambra the western school shows some of its most finished art, while Damascus and Cairo mosques show the delicate “Arabesque” traceries of the lighter oriental school. It is in manuscripts, however, that the best work is found; some of these are of priceless value and exceeding beauty. Even to-day there are Arab penmen whose work commands a good price as _art_ and gives them a position in society as it did the monkey, described in the Arabian Nights, who improvised poetry in five styles of caligraphy for the astonished king. [Illustration: PERSIAN STYLE EXTENSIVELY USED IN EASTERN ARABIA.]