The Two Different Senses of "Principles" in Calligraphy and Disagreement about Its Components: The Persian Texts about Calligraphy From 13th Century to 21st Century Ad

In the tradition of calligraphy education, which is still alive, the students learn the twelve theoretical components as a basis for the practice. These components are sometimes considered wrongly as principles. A survey on historical sources about caligraphy shows that the concept of the principles in the sense of "twelve components" is recent: the interpretation of the principles has been altered over the course of history. The concept of principles had a general sense and a specific sense, by the way even its components were variant. From the 10 century AD onwards, the general sense of principles got fixed as  Ibn Muqla's geometric principles; and after the middle of the 14 century AD, the specific sense, i.e. the comprehensive set of other components of calligraphy, emerged. During this century, ʿAbdallāh Ṣayrafī presented its eight calligraphy components, but in Tuḥfat al-moḥibbīn, the other treatise on the subject, the components were six. Finally, in the 16th century AD, the twelve components were introduced in the Adab al-mashq by Bābāshāh Isfahānī.