Cyrillic version of Abu Dhabi font

Pehlevi is a Cyrillic version of the Abu Dhabi typeface, which imitates Arabic script. There is exactly one Arabic-style Cyrillic typeface, DS Arabic, and it is absolutely awful, fit only for shawarma stands.

Unfortunately, every “Arabic” sign in Russia is set in it.

Reproducing Arabic script in another language is extremely difficult. In Arabic, each letter has three forms: the same letter is written differently at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of a word. On top of that, Arabic calligraphers twist inscriptions into elaborate shapes, literally drawing with words. That is what makes the script so beautiful and unique.

Pehlevi surpasses DS Arabic in every respect and looks very much like real Arabic. Look at the same phrase written in Arabic and in Russian, set in Pehlevi and in DS Arabic. Which one looks more like the original?

The stylization doesn’t reach the heights of Arabic calligraphy, but Pehlevi is about the best that can be squeezed out of the Cyrillic alphabet.

The headings in my travel stories about Iran and Saudi Arabia are set in Pehlevi.

The font contains a huge number of ligatures, predefined letter combinations that simulate continuous script.

To enable ligatures in Photoshop, open the Character panel from the Window menu, turn on ligatures and select Russian as the language.

The ligatures don’t cover every letter combination. Where they don’t kick in, reduce the kerning manually: place the cursor between the letters and set the value to −60.

Pehlevi is completely free, and you can use it for any purpose, personal or commercial.

Keep in mind that it is a Cyrillic adaptation of the commercial Abu Dhabi font. For commercial use, it is better to use only the Cyrillic letters or buy the original font.