Amiri

Amiri is a classical Naskh typeface for books and long-form Arabic text, drawn by Khaled Hosny as a revival of the type used by the Bulaq Press in Cairo in the early twentieth century — the press also known as Amiria, which gives the font its name.

It is a genuinely calligraphic design, with rich ligatures and carefully placed vowel marks, which makes it one of the best free choices for scripture, poetry and academic text where harakat matter. It comes in regular and bold, each with an italic.

Give it room: the tall forms want generous line spacing, and at small sizes on screen it can feel dense. For interface text a simpler sans like Cairo serves better; for anything that should read like a printed book, Amiri is the one.