I am no expert in this area but I am particularly fond of Rosetta's Arabic fonts:

http://rosettatype.com/index.php?action=carro/search_by_kw&kwId=1&kwName...

There was a discussion related to this subject on Typedrawers recently. Titus Nemeth from Rosetta chimed in.

Many thanks, will investigate.

If you can get in touch with Dr. Nadine Chahine at Linotype she can advise you quite expertly. But Rosetta's stuff is definitely a strong option too. I'll alert both of them to this thread and they can duke it out. :->

BTW there are in fact differences in taste between Arabs and Iranians when it comes to type. Also note that two of their numerals are different (although one of those is only mildly so). At least for any large/display type you should seriously consider diverging your design. Not least because they don't like being mistaken for one-another...

Wow, I just had [another] great idea. Too good to reveal yet.

hhp

Alphapeta > I wouldn't want to go and select the Arabic version of Comic Sans or something.

Love to kern, Ligate, swash and overlap?! You can go Comic Sans too!
http://typophile.com/files/QB-20130624.pdf

Well, what should I add. Thanks for the recommendations of Rosetta fonts. You have essentially three options:

Nassim which is currently most know for being used by BBC Arabic/Persian/Urdu/Pashto in language-specific design versions, probably most classic from the lot.

Aisha which is more playful, but still solid Arabic typeface in Maghribi style.

Eskorte which is an excellent design, softer, but still serious. And the accompanying Latin is proper Pro font with small caps and other typographic extras.

Nassim and Aisha are by Titus Nemeth, Eskorte is by Elena Schneider, but it was developed with Titus’ consultancy. These are high-quality OpenType fonts and available as webfonts.

If you have more questions, do not hesitate and get in touch via email david@rosettatype.com .