Kashida

Article summary

Kashida or kasheeda ( , ), also known as tatweel or tatwīl ( ), is a type of justification in written Arabic scripts, in which the line connecting letters is extended. In contrast to white-space justification, which increases the length of a line of text by expanding spaces between words or individual letters, kasheeda creates justification by elongating characters at certain points. Kasheeda justification can be combined with white-space justification. The analog in European (Latin-based) typography (expanding or contracting letters to improve spacing) is sometimes called expansion, and falls within microtypography. Kashida is considerably easier and more flexible, however, because Arabic–Persian scripts feature prominent horizontal strokes, whose lengths are accordingly flexible. For example, and with and without kasheeda may look like the following: The terms kasheeda and tatweel can also refer to a character that represents this elongation ( ) or to one of a set of glyphs of varying lengths that implement this elongation in a font. The Unicode standard assigns code point . contains a long kasheeda with a natural string-like curve. The kasheeda can take a subtle downward curvature in some calligraphic styles and handwriting.…

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