Scheherazade New
Scheherazade is a traditional Naskh-style Arabic typeface that excels in readability and authenticity. Perfect for extended reading, academic texts, and projects requiring a classic Arabic aesthetic.
Key Features of Scheherazade New
Specifically engineered for academic and scholarly publications, ensuring exceptional clarity for extensive reading.
Features distinct character shapes, generous counters, and appropriate spacing for maximum legibility, even at small sizes.
Provides an extensive character set supporting numerous Arabic script-based languages beyond Arabic, including Persian, Urdu, Sindhi, and many Ajami scripts.
Comprehensive support for all Arabic diacritical marks (tashkil) and common scholarly notations, ensuring accurate text representation.
Developed by SIL International, serving linguists, translators, and minority language communities worldwide.
Available in Regular and Bold, providing essential typographic hierarchy for complex document structures.
A Legacy of Linguistic Support: The Story of Scheherazade
Named after the legendary storyteller of "One Thousand and One Nights," the Scheherazade typeface family is a testament to SIL International's commitment to serving language communities worldwide. SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) is a global, faith-based nonprofit that works with communities to develop language solutions that promote literacy, education, and cultural heritage.
The original Scheherazade font was designed to provide a high-quality, Unicode-compliant Naskh typeface for a wide range of Arabic script-based languages, particularly those requiring extensive diacritics or special characters not always found in standard Arabic fonts. The goal was to create a font that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional for complex scholarly and multilingual typesetting.
The Scheherazade New version, significantly updated in 2021, builds upon this legacy. It incorporates improved outlines, expanded character sets (including more support for Ajami scripts used in Africa and Asia), and enhanced OpenType and Graphite features. This makes it an even more robust and versatile tool for linguists, translators, publishers, and educators working with Arabic script languages.
Scheherazade New Alphabet Showcase
Note: Scheherazade New supports a much wider range of Arabic script characters, including those for Persian, Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto, and numerous other languages. Full character set details are available on the SIL website.
Scheherazade New in Context: Text Examples
Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?
A recurring verse from Surah Ar-Rahman in the Quran. Scheherazade New excels in rendering fully vocalized religious texts with utmost clarity.
Ideal Applications for Scheherazade New
Academic & Scholarly Publishing
The gold standard for journals, monographs, critical editions, and linguistic research papers using Arabic script.
Multilingual Documentation & Literature
Ideal for projects involving Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Kurdish, Pashto, Sindhi, and various Ajami scripts due to its vast character set.
Lexicography & Dictionaries
Its clarity and comprehensive glyph coverage make it suitable for complex dictionary entries and linguistic resources.
Religious & Classical Texts
Provides a clear, respectful, and accurate rendering of the Quran, Hadith, and other classical religious or literary works.
Educational Materials for Arabic Script Languages
Excellent for textbooks, literacy materials, and software aimed at learners of Arabic and other related languages.
Digital Archives & Libraries
Ensures long-term readability and accurate representation of historical and contemporary texts in digital formats.
Technical Specifications
SIL International (Updated by Bob Hallissy, et al.)
SIL International is a faith-based nonprofit organization focused on language development, literacy, and translation globally.
Scheherazade New (Version 3.300, released 2021)
The "New" version offers significant improvements over the legacy Scheherazade font, including Graphite and enhanced OpenType support.
Contextual alternates (calt), ligatures (liga, dlig), kerning (kern), mark positioning (mark, mkmk), localized forms (locl), character variants.
Advanced features ensure correct script behavior and provide fine-grained typographic control for complex layouts.
Extensive, covering Arabic, Arabic Supplement, Arabic Extended-A, Arabic Presentation Forms-A/B, and more.
Supports a wide array of characters for Arabic and numerous other languages using the Arabic script.
Arabic (Core), Persian, Urdu, Kurdish (Sorani & Kurmanji), Pashto, Sindhi, Uyghur, Balochi, Kashmiri, and many other Ajami scripts.
One of the most comprehensive fonts for minority languages using the Arabic script.
SIL Open Font License 1.1 (OFL-1.1)
Allows free use, modification, and redistribution, promoting its accessibility and use in diverse linguistic projects.