Ibn Muqla

Abu 'ali Muhammad Ibn 'ali Ibn Muqlah Shirazi (Persian: ابن مقلهٔ شیرازی) (born 886 in Baghdad, died there 20 July 940) was an Islamic calligrapher, one of the foremost of the Abbasid age. It is thought that he invented the thuluth script, the first cursive style of Arabic, though none of his original work remains.

Ibn Muqlah was also a government official. By age 22 he was a scribe as well as holding two other important jobs. He was the vizier three times under the Abbasaid caliph in Baghdad. After years of fighting for causes he believed in, he was publicly disgraced and imprisoned in 936. After four years of maltreatment, he died.

It is said that writing poured from his hands, and to his followers he was considered a prophet and a hero. Along with Ibn al-Bawwab and Yaqut al-Musta'simi, he is considered the founder of the modern style.