This leaf is written in a classic monumental hand, a kind of Kufic, Maghireli style. Kufic is named after Kufa, Iraq, an early intellectual center of Islam, and Maghireli was one of the languages originating on the shores of North Africa and Spain which were influenced by the Barbar tongue. Islamic languages are of extreme antiquity and have the longest record history. The work of these calligraphers frequently surpassed in beauty any of the book-hands of medieval Christendom. These facts illustrate how the Arabs accepted and assimilated the best cultural features of the nations they over-ran in their great period of Western conquest.