Kashida: Do & Don't
Practical guidance for working with kashida in Arabic typography and digital layouts.
Natural Join Points
Place kashida where letters naturally connect along the baseline, where the stroke already exists between joined pairs.
Insert kashida randomly between any letters. Elongation at wrong joins distorts the word's shape.
Proportional Length
Keep kashida subtle — a gentle breath in the line that improves rhythm without drawing attention to itself.
Stretch kashida to fill space uniformly. Over-extended elongation makes words look distorted.
Justification
Distribute small kashida across multiple join points in a line for natural, even justified text.
Justify only by adding space between words. Large gaps create rivers of whitespace that break the text's texture.
Non-Joining Letters
Only place kashida between letters that actually connect. Letters like ا ,د ,ر ,ز ,و do not join to the next letter.
Add kashida after non-joining letters. It creates a floating line with no connection — a visible error.