The earliest preserved Koran on paper in Naskh was written by Ibn al-Bawwab in Bagdad during the Seljuk period, in the year 1001. Molded from the Kufi  script into more gracious and fluid forms, the early Naskh script showed graceful and flowing styles in which the flexibility of pen or brush tip has dictated the shape and finish of each stroke.

From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the Naskh script was perfected; Yaqut al-Mustasimi gave it its elegant quality which both Persian and Ottoman calligraphers used as a model form. The regular marching rhythms of the early Naskh gave way in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to a dancing movement in the titles of poems.