Arabic calligraphy styles
Naskh is the hand you read in. It was made to carry a whole book and stay legible at a small size, which is why Qurans and works of scholarship were copied in it for centuries. Most printed and on-screen Arabic today descends from it.
Naskh is named after its job, since nasakh means to copy, and this was the hand of the copyists who reproduced books before printing. Ibn Muqla fixed its proportions along with the rest of the six pens, and around the year 1000 Ibn al-Bawwab wrote a complete Quran in it, which settled its place in Quran copying. The Ottoman masters, above all Sheikh Hamdullah and Hafiz Osman, tightened its rules until it became the clearest and most regulated of the hands. When Arabic printing arrived it took Naskh as the model for its types, and nearly every Arabic reading font on a computer still follows it.
Round, even letters running along a straight line that does not tilt. The uprights are short and clear, the dots are separate and easy to read, and the space between words is comfortable. You will not find stacking or interlocking here, because the hand was made for reading and not for display.
It is the hand of printed Qurans, books and newspapers, and of most Arabic text you read on a screen. Almost every Arabic body font on a computer goes back to it.
Write your paragraph or your verse, then set the tashkeel letter by letter until every mark sits where it belongs, and even out the line spacing until the text rests easy on the eye. Run the line around an arc or a circle if you like, colour the letters and marks as you wish, then export your work as a vector file for print.
Open the editor, write your phrase, and shape its letters yourself. The account is free and one word is enough to start.