Ligatures

Sometimes I see two Arabic letters fuse into a single shape — a ligature. The most famous one is لا (lam-alef), and I'm actually not allowed to write it as two separate letters; that would be a typographic error. Once I started looking, I noticed good Arabic fonts are full of these little merges.

Mandatory vs. Stylistic

Unlike Latin, where ligatures like "fi" and "fl" are decorative refinements, Arabic's mandatory ligatures are part of the script's orthographic rules. Breaking a لا ligature is considered a typographic error. Beyond mandatory forms, Arabic typefaces (especially those inspired by Thuluth, Nastaliq, or Diwani) can include hundreds of optional ligatures that create denser, more calligraphic textures. The range of ligatures in a font is one of the strongest signals of its typographic quality.

Common Ligatures