The language is written using a consonant script, like some other languages such as Hebrew. This means that it is written somewhat like SMS (TXT messages) … quite confusing as “bnk” could mean bank, bunk, bink, binak, banik etc. Additional vowel signs are shown by marks above and below the proper script to assist students and dumbos, or when accuracy is importance (as in the religious context).
I guess it isn’t the most practical way of writing, especially when the script is being applied to a non-Arabic language with non-compatible grammatical structure … little wonder countries like Turkey, Malaysia and Azerbaijan have switched to alternates like the Roman and/or Cyrillic alphabets.
I can read now but am a bit slow … my conversational skills are still limited. As children in school we referred to the Arabic script as “beansprouts” and didn’t pay much attention to the teacher! Much of the script have the same beansprout look and apart from the dots to distinguish between them. Hence it is very unforgiving to missing dots and also bad photocopiers.