I don't think you quite grasp the amount of variation there is in the Arabic alphabet relative to the Latin alphabet. Sure, there are few letters that look slightly different in cursive depending on how you write them, but they don't even compare to the fact that in Arabic, every single letter has a completely different form depending on whether it's written as an isolated, initial, middle, or final letter (four forms). Sometimes these forms are completely different, /and/ there are very specific rules that specify which form to use depending on the letter it follows. (That is to say, not only are there 4 forms, but they're not even uniform. You will either write the initial form or the middle form of a letter depending on the letter it follows). This is a good order of magnitude above Latin.
Just a pedantic note: "cursive" merely means slanted. Italic text is cursive without being joined. The term for joined-up writing is "current" (from the French courant, meaning "running"), and is not always cursive (think of the girlish ball-and-stick upright style).
Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet#Table_of_basic_...