The major problem, according to Thomas Milo, is the number of glyph combinations, or ligatures if you prefer the Latin term, that occur in calligraphic Arabic. Of the twenty-eight letters in the standard language (leaving out for the moment, the Farsi, Urdu and other extensions), only six are not modified according to their position in a word (and even they have two forms). If we were to create ligatures for every possible glyph combination, says Milo, we'd end up with over twenty thousand.

Arabic would rank up with Chinese, Japanese and Korean in terms of Unicode space requirements. Milo adds that ligatures were never intended to be part of the Unicode Standard; Arabic Extension-A and Extension-B represent significant compropmise. Milo's proposal is a stroke-based approach to the language; one which would be part of the operating system rather than the user interface. It's an attractive approach, but not one which MicroSoft and Apple are rushing to embrace.

The alternative to Milo's proposal is a simplified, Unified Arabic, perhaps based on Kufic. There have been several moves in this direction over the past century, but apparently none have been embraced by the Arabic community to a major extent. Cursive Arabic is gorgeous; it's part of a distinct, cultured and wide-flung community. Why should it be watered down for the sake of computer economy?.

When you come down to it, calligraphic Arabic doesn't work so well below 12-points anyway, even when you equate the aleph-height to the Latin cap height (as opposed to the x-height). Newspapers and telephone directories lose much of the exquisite form of historic and religious texts; it's inevitable. There should, however, be a middle path. MicroSoft has proposed it in part by including only part of the Unicode collection in their Omnibus fonts (see above). A survey of the glyphs used in periodicals and informational publications in the Arabic world suggests that publishers would prefer to have at least 100 more glyphs.