Over the last few years, the popularity of learning both the spoken and written versions of the Arabic language has spiked amongst none native Arabic speakers and even after the initial spike, its popularity is still seeing solid growth with each passing year. One of the main issues with learning to write Arabic, both in script form as well as calligraphy form is that it can be hard to source a pen that is suitable for writing Arabic in western countries.
This has led to people reaching out for advice on the best pen for writing Arabic on various online forums and social media platforms. Although you can technically use any pen that is marked as left oblique (please note that Parker pens call this right oblique in their pen range) to write Arabic, some of them have a poor writing experience and can end up being pricey. On top of this, although bamboo reed pens are excellent for writing Arabic, you will often need to grind them to get the nib perfect.
With so many people who are looking for a pen to write Arabic with being students, we also wanted something that is very budget-friendly too. This is why we have decided to recommend the Pilot Parallel to our readers as the best pen for writing Arabic. It can be used for both traditional scriptwriting as well as Arabic calligraphy and the best part is that the pen is very budget-friendly ensuring that any of our readers who are currently students or are on a tight budget should easily be able to add it to their stationery collection.
We are fully aware that some of our readers will be short on time and not be able to read the full article, that said though, we know that some people will want to know as much as possible about the Pilot Parallel as possible so we have a full breakdown below. If you are a student of the Arabic language then you will want a pen that is reliable with minimal bleed, feathering, and scratch to ensure that you are able to use it on your course work without issue too.
The Best Pen For Writing Arabic Script And Calligraphy
Although the Pilot Parallel is a very popular calligraphy pen in its own right, it really does excel when it comes to writing Arabic in both its regular script or calligraphy forms. The pen has an excellent reputation amongst the community of Arabic writers in both the west and Asian countries such as Japan and China as it is so easy to source for such a low price tag too. The excellent performance and its great reputation and proven ability over the years with huge numbers of people using it as their Arabic pen of choice is the reason we felt that it had to be our main recommendation.
Do You Need To Grind The Pilot Parallel For Writing Arabic
One of the main issues when looking for a modern pen to write Arabic with is the many of them do need to be manually grinded yourself to ensure that you are getting the best possible performance out of the pen. If you have built up your nib grinding skillset over the years then a set of bamboo reed pens will be a better option than the Pilot Parallel as you can easily customize the reed pens to your specific requirements.
That said though, learning to grind pen nibs correctly can take a surprising amount of time, effort, and potentially money depending on the tools that you already have to hand. Thankfully, the Pilot Parallel performs very well right out of the box when it comes to writing Arabic and although you can grind the nib to customise it more if you wish, there is no need for the majority of people.
Depending on the nib size of your Pilot Parallel, you can get excellent horizontal and vertical strokes from the pen right out of the box. If you do go with a larger nib size though, there is a higher chance that you may have to grind the nib down to size for writing Arabic. We usually recommend that our readers go with this specific bundle of Pilot Parallel pens.
As the bundle offers four pens with a 1.5mm, 2.4mm, 3.8mm, and 6.0mm nib size, it lets you play around with the various options available to see what nib size you prefer. Depending on exactly what you will be doing, you can then use the 6mm nib size for practise on grinding pen nibs is needed as it is often too large for general use for the Arabic language. Once you have practised your grinding on the 6mm nib, you can then customize the smaller nib sizes if needed.
Arabic Script Or Arabic Calligraphy
We often see different people asking for pen recommendations for both regular Arabic script as well as Arabic calligraphy and although there are pens on the market that may be better for one or the other, the Pilot Parallel offers great performance for both and we would highly recommend it. The video above offers a great writing sample for writing Arabic calligraphy with the Pilot Parallel and shows how the pen glides over the paper resulting in beautiful Arabic text.
It usually makes much more sense for people to go with a single pen that offers good performance for both script and calligraphy rather than pick up the more expensive specialist pens that excel in one. As many people reaching out for pens that perform well when writing Arabic are students on tighter budgets, the Pilot Parallels price tag makes it the perfect option.
Its All In The Nib Size
As we touched on above, the nib size of your pen when writing Arabic actually matters more than most would think. Although the larger 6mm nibs are usually better for calligraphy in larger font sizes, the smaller <2mm nibs tend to be better for writing Arabic script. If you are not going with our recommended bundle of pens that have a range of nib sizes, be sure to try and get a nib size relevant to what you will be doing with the pen.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over what we feel is the best pen for writing Arabic. In our opinion, the Pilot Parallel just has too much going for it to be knocked off the top spot by any of the competitors on the market right now. Its ease of use, great performance, and budget-friendly price tag make it the obvious option when learning to write Arabic and thankfully, it is very easy to source in western countries compared to some other popular pen options.
