KUFA was a town on the west bank of the Euphrates, about 40 miles from Baghdad, but it has entirely disappeared. It was founded during the khalifat of Umar, opposite Modain. Safah, the first khalif of the Abbassi, made it his capital, but when Mansur built Baghdad, he took there from Kufa a considerable part of the Kufa popula tion. It was much famed for its literary men. The two sects of Arab grammarians were named the Kufiput and Basriyan, from the towns of Kufa and Basra ; and the more ancient writing charac ters of the Arabs are called Kufic, from this town. The most ancient copies of the Koran are written in them. They are square and heavy, a good deal resembling the Syriac, and are more suited for inscriptions than for writing. The inscriptions on Mahmud's pillar at Ghazni are in the Kufic. All was buried at Kufa after his fall here.
Shortly before the institution of El Islam, a character differing little from that now generally used by the Arabs was introduced at Mecca from Irak. The Kufi or Kufic character, which for
inany years superseded the former, was a later invention, for Kufa was not founded until the 17th year of the Ilijira.
The city of Kufa, founded by the khalif Umar, was constructed from the ruins of Babylon. It is 88 miles south of Baghdad, built on an affluent of the Euphrates. It was the residence of the khalifs, and a great town till Mansur removed to Baghdad, A.D. 760. Four miles to the westward, Mashed Ali stands conspicuous. Kufa gives its namo to an old form in which Arabic was written.
Kufic coins have been largely found in Goth land. In the Stockholm Museum alone, 20,000 have been preserved minted in about seventy different towns within the former dominions of the Abbassi khalifs.—/Illynan's Travels, p. 325 ; Prideaux's Life of Mahorned, pp. 29, 30; Mac Gregor.