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فار العر Fr
The first traces of writing has been found in Mesopotamia between 3400 and 3300 BC in the ruins of temples in Uruk and Lagash cities (present-day Iraq). This is where Sumerians used sharpened reed plants to carve signs on clay. Sumerians used writing to eternalize their history. Just Like the hero they depicted in the Epic of Gilgamesh who seeks the secret of eternal life. Sumerians achieved the eternity through writing their poetic history in a land that was later named SAWĀD (7th–12th centuries). SAWĀD in Arabic means Blackness and the territory appellation was referring to the black color of the fertile soil in the southern Mesopotamia. The term is also used in Arabic and Persian calligraphy and typography to refer to the blackness of text in contrast to its whiteness (type color). In Persian SAWĀD is used mainly for literacy or knowledge but it has also other definitions such as writing ink, text or copy.

SAWĀD ONLINE PLATFORM tries to be a land for Arabic type. It aims to support critical research and knowledge transmission in the field of Arabic typography and type design based on solid references.

By using the possibilities of web and digital Medias, SAWĀD also tries to develop and support, applied and experimental tools adapted to the morphology of Arabic script. SAWĀD TOOLS try to question the digital media standards such as Unicode that are ignorant to characteristics of non-Latin writing systems. This is with the aim of helping the development of Arabic writing system and improving its typographical representations.