“Evolution of early Arabic calligraphy (9th - 11th century). The Basmala was taken as an example, from kufic Qur’an manuscripts. (1) Early 9th century. script with no dots or diacritic marks; (2) and (3)9th - 10th century under Abbasid dynasty, the Abu al-Aswad's system establish red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel. Later, a second black dots system was used to differentiate between letters like "fāʼ" and "qāf"; (4) 11th century, In Al Farāhídi's system (system we know today) dots were changed into shapes resembling the letters to transcribe the corresponding long vowels.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_chat_alphabet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet
