Qālūn ‒ Tripolitania

100 years ago there were few maṣāḥif in Tripolitana, but many men knew the qurʾān by heart.
50 years ago there were Warš copies in the mosque, and reciters knew the differences between the two main transmissions of Imām Nāfiʿ by heart ‒ mostly by general rules (usul), few specific differences (furuʿ)
In 1975 the Education Secretariat of the Rule of the Libyan Masses issued a muṣḥaf established by a commitee of scholar, mainly Tunesians, but a Moroccan and two Libyans as well.

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Categorization of maṣāḥif ‒ spelling

I look at muṣḥaf-printing (and seldom muṣḥaf-writing before) worldwide.
So one of my interests are features to differentiate:
reading, transmission,
rasm authority,
layout (like 15-604, 15-522, 11-815, 12-827, 13-848)
with catchword?
whats in the header (r:name of guz,l:name of guz vs. name+number of guz ...)
titel page, title on cover?, on spine?
duʿāʾ?
dedication?
guarantor (mušayaḫa, named šuyūḫ, chief qārī, minstry of interior, auqāf ‒ page with stamps)
By far the most important features are
‒ the writing of long vowels,
‒ whether assimilation is noted.

For long vowels there are two systems (with some leeway):
in the West two signs are needed: a vowel sign and a letter
in the East there are short and long vowel signs (vowel letters can be ignored).

In the West (Mag), when there is not the proper vowel letter in the rasm after con­sonant + (short) vowel sign, a small letter is inserted.
When the following vowel is the wrong one, it gets converted by a sign into the proper one.

In the East, THE main system (IPak, Taj Comp Ltd) has three short, three long vowel signs + sukūn.
There was a system in India ‒ not in print ‒ (Hind) which always uses the long vowel sign, when the vowel is long.

traces of this system on the walls of Aleppo ...

... and a famous Persian muṣḥaf

The standard IPak uses the short vowel sign (for a long vowel), when the con­sonant is followed by the right vowel letter (like in the West),
writing the long vowel sign only when no or wrong vowel letter follows.
Osm (Ottoman) lacks long /ū/, so CT (Turkey) adds "madd" under­neath waw when leng­then­ing, "qaṣr" when not.
Per(sia) lacks long /ū/-sign, too.
nIran (developped my the Center for Printing and Distributing "Ṭabo Našr") has six vowel signs and NO sukūn.

in a way it is the opposite of the old Indian system in which the vowel letter (when not carrying a vowel sign that turns it into a consonant: /wa, ya, wi .../) is ignored; in it the vowel letter is read without the need of a vowel sign before it.
When a letter has no sign it is "unmoved" (like having a sukūn in other systems).

Indonesia has the IPak system. As they often reprinted Ottoman maṣāḥif, they added the Indian turned ḍamma where­ever needed.
The second BIG difference:
the West has three kinds of tanwīn (iẓhār, idġām/iḫfāʾ, tanmīm), the East just one
(compensated in some sub-systems by iẓhār nūn and having quṭni nūn/silsa nūn)

While both Mag and IPak note assimilation
both Turks (Osm and CT) and Persians (Per and nIran) do not.

While all Eastern systems show when a written vowel is not pronounce long (/ĭ ă ŭ/ in trans­cription), Mag and G24 (that is all Arabs nowadays) do not show when letter yāʾ is not /ī/.
‒ but show when alif maqṣūrā is not /ā/ but /ă/.
While Mag and Brunai have three kinds of waṣl signs (showing the vowel that is used IN CASE of a pause before it),
G24 and Q52 have only one, IPak was no wasl sign, has it has no hamza sign on/below leading alif; here a vowel sign includes hamz; no sign = waṣl

Before 1924 Egypt used Osm, since then more and more G24 (later Q52)
which are both improvements of Mag: the Maġribian spelling (with reduced Saǧawandi pause signs) and a differentiation:
Unlike Osm, where the sukūn-circle means un-moved (with vowel), it can stand in Maġ vor un-pronounced (mute) as well.
Here G24 introduced a three-fold differentiation: head of ǧīm (ǧazm): unmoved, circle: always un-pronounced, oval (zero): unpronounced unless when the reader stps here.
(waṣla-sign means unpronounce unless the reader has stopped before.

In Kein Standard I make a witty remark: With the KFE Egypt after fourhundred years belonging to the Ottoman empire returns to Africa.

So, IPak, Hind and nIran are the only good systems ‒
unless you accept the Arab excuse: EVERYbody knows when to shorten a vowel.

For those not knowing the muṣḥaf Brunai, here a page that
has both a-waṣl an (on the bottom) u-waṣl
‒ note that wa'l and fa'l dot not get the green waṣl-dot, because after /wa-/ and /fa-/ a pause is impossible.

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BHO 815

Many maṣāḥif are cross breeds.
UT combines the page layout of HOQz (Haǧǧ Ḥāfiẓ ʿUṯmān Ḫalīfa Qayiš­Zāde an-Nūrī al-Bur­durī = Küҫük Hafiz Osman = HO the Younger d. 1894) with the text of KFE2 (1952) without the after­word.
The Ḥaddād-Šamarlī com­bined the layout of MNQ 522 with the same 1952 text (including the after­word).
KFE1 (1924) crosses many Moroccan features with the eleven/twel­ve lines of BHO = Bülük Ḥafiẓ Osman = HO the ElderHâfız Osman (1642–1698)

If you say: the KFE has 827 pages, not 815.
you forget that the KFE was type set.
Just as the type set "child" of MNQ522 has 525 pages,
the child of BHO 815 has a few pages more.
Both a scribe and modern (!) IT can modify letter, con­nection and space bet­ween words to copy the page lay­out exactely,
metall type can not achieve justified lines exactly as in the handwritten "parent".

I critize German orientalists for largely ignoring India, Indo­nesian, and Africa.
They largely ignore Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and even the Levant and Meso­pota­mia.
They treat Egypt (and now Madina) as THE Musim world.
Many believe the KFE has changed every­thing for all muslims.
Yes, after 1924 the Amiriyya stopped reprinting maṣāḥif in the Ottoman spelling
and in Egypt, private publisher mostly switched to it too ‒ many kept the old spelling, both as base text with a tafsīr around, and for Qurʾān only.


Some know that in 1951 the ʿIrāqī state pub­lished a revisted Otto­man manu­script;
few know that it published another non berKenar muṣḥaf on 689 pages, written by Ḥasan Riḍā
printed as base text for a Turkish translation

Of course there are expensive fac­similes, reproducing the original faith­fully (while maṣāḥif for "lay" Muslims are adopted to the new standard)

While the berKenar muṣḥaf written by Ḥasan Riḍā were printed in Turkey and his non-ber­Kenar one in ʿIrāq, the 815pp 11liner by Hafiz Osman the Elder was extremely success­ful in Syria: it was THE muṣḥaf before ʿUṯmān Ṭaha.
As usual there was no title bad, the kolophon was pro­minent

let's start with images from the first print I came across 1298/1881

another Ottoman example is from 1304/1887

While the prints started in Istanbul, and most were made in Damuscus, the last is from Jerualam/Jodanian al-Quds 1380/

The information page before and the one com­ing next are not in the "normal" Syrian prints

Unlike the "normal" Syrian prints, the one from 1380 has elimi­nated most signs (see abvoe the list from al-Quds) be­cause they could confuse ‒ includ­ing the ih­mal signs (not in the list).
As typical for the time, it has a title page and ex­planat­ions of the remaining signs:

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