Sejarah Perkembangan Seni Khat dan Pengaruhnya Terhadap Tulisan Jawi di Nusantara (The Developmental History of the Khat and its Influence towards the Jawi Writing System in the Malay Archipelago)

Khat or Arabic calligraphy comes with its own history and forms. Khat as a medium from Arabic characters develops along the advancement of civilization. These Arabic characters are influenced from the Ancient Egyptian heroglif based on manuscripts found in Syria and Palestine. Originally, informal khat emerged as a way of writing Arabic before the emerging of Islam as in the khat of musnad and free-style khat. Later on, khat has developed and evolved into six face along with the spread of Islam, into among others; Nasakh, ThulusRiq’ah, Farisi or Nesta’liq, Kufi, and Diwani. In our part of history, khat writing was the sole medium of writings in language, way before the arrivals of “westerners”. These can be found in the materials from “pondoks” where one can clearly noticed the Arabic characters and Jawi writings. Thus, this article analyse the situation by understanding the development of khat, its parts and influences to Jawi in Nusantara.