experts say ...

Experts say,
that there are hundereds more alifs in Ottoman and Turkish prints
then in modern Arab and in Indian prints.
Although not outright wrong, I think it is stupid to say.
Why?
Because there is not one alif, but nine:

	Q52 IPak	Q52 IPak	Q52 IPak
There are	leading	middle	trailing	Alifs
hamza	ء     vsign	ء    ء	ء   ء
mater lec.	‒	X	X
silent	waṣla X	circle X	circle   X X     X	Alif wiqāya accusative marker

In IPak a v(owel) sign on/below alif includes hamza

In spite of what the experts say,
there are not more alifs signifying or carrying hamza
‒ whether leading, in the middle or trailing,
nor more otiose/silent alifs.
Here Turks (last line) have the same silent alif; they shorten it, i.e. the fatḥa is valid, the alif is not.
BTW: In one of the three maṣāḥif of Muṣṭafā Naẓīf the yāʾ is missing -> the alif carries the hamza+kasra (first line on the right side).



Here Turks (first line) actually have an otisose alif LESS (END of my snippet)


What these experts want to say:
There are more Alif Matres lectionis, i.e. alifs standing for /a/.

millions good editions possible

There is only one qur'ān.
But there are many differences in the editions.
‒ differences in the style of writing, the gra­phic form
‒ different divisions (verses, manāzil, aḥzāb, pages ...)
BTW: the suras and their order are the same in all editions,
      but their names can be different,
      the informa­tion given in the Header can be dif­ferent,
‒ differences in the words, the sound of the qurʾān, the (micro)­meaning ‒
      this is meant with the ten canoni­cal readings,
      the twenty trans­missions, the four ad­ditional
      (less canonical) readings plus all the variants that are not re­cognized.
HERE I do not talk about the recitation style, nor about the (national) accents of re­citors,
but just about
‒ differences in the letters, writing of the words = the rasm,
‒ differences in the additional signs for vowells, doubeling,
      extra length, silence, required response.
When you multiply all of these, there are thousands of pos­sibili­ties.
You might say, but when one writes in Fāsī style, it is the trans­mission of Warš, the rasm of Ḫarrāz with Maġri­bian sub­divisions and additonal signs, Medinese verse endings.
Yes, very likely, but not certain.
Here images from two printed Tunisian editions
      of the trans­mission of Ḥafṣ written in Maġribī style:
If you a sceptical and lazy, here is mālik from the Fatiḥa with /ā/ red added alif:

And here the one verse where Ḥafs allows both fatḥa (black) and ḍamma (red): /ḍaffin/, /ḍuffin/

And when you think, that for the rasm there are five, six or maybe ten pos­si­bili­ties, you are wrong.
When you write a muṣḥaf (or prepare a printing) you do not have to stick to one authority.
You are free to write one word (even a word at one particular place) with a vowel letter or without.
The King Fahd Complex has adopted the rasm of the Qahira1952 Edition (which is rather obscure) changed one word (in 2:72), Qaṭar has changed another word (in 56:2). Indo­nesia (Ministry of Reli­gious Affairs) and Iran (the Center for the Printing and Dis­tri­bution of the Holy Quran) have made wild choices ‒ at least these are docu­ment­ed (albeit not in the muṣḥaf).
BTW, I called Q52 obscure, because it does itself not stick to an authority. There­fore careful editors have added "mostly"/ġāliban or "in the most"/fil ġālib to the state­ment made in the afterword, that the rasm is according to Ibn Naǧāḥ.

So millions of different ‒ equally valid ‒ editions are possible, thousands do exist.


I am mainly interest­ed in ortho­graphy:
i.e. the list of the written words ‒ but unlike Webster or Le Dictio­naire de l'Aca­démie Fran­ҫaise a word can be written dif­ferently at different places
(سِيمَىٰهُمۡ (7:48
(2:273, 47:40, 55:41) سِيمَـٰهُمۡ
(سِيمَاهُمۡ (48:29
The German expert for Qurʾānic paleo-orthography, who has studied the old mss.
‒ Diem has "just" studied the Nabataen precursor ‒
is convinced that first the yāʾ was used for writing the /ā/,
then nothing, before the modern strategy ‒ using an alif ‒ became common.
I do not give his name because I have to critize him strongly:
Although quoting the text of the Gizeh Qurʾān (1924/Būlāq 1952), which he calls "The Standard Text", he uses a dotted yāʾ where Gizeh uses an un­dotted one,
and he uses the circle for sukûn, where Gizeh uses the Indian (by now Qurʾānic) Jazm-sign.
He does not see that graphic style, di­visions, rasm writing, and the way of voweling are inde­pendent of each each.
what I have shown above.
Or even more to the point:
the differences in sounds (the qiraʾāt) reflected in very few differences in the rasm,
in few cases by different diacritical points,
but mainly by hamza sign, šadda and vowel signs
and most rasm differences (dif­ferences in writing long vowels)
are two separate things.

Just because the only edition of the trans­mission of Qālūn according to Nāfiʿ he owns, follows the rasm described by ad-Dānī in the Muqnī,
he calls that rasm "the Qālūn rasm",
he takes the delivery boy for the pizza backer.

Okay, I went too far.

Between Kufa (Ḥafṣ and five others) and Medina (Warš and Qālūn) there are 30 differences in the rasm.
When you look at the beginning of 46:15 in my pictures, there are two differences:
aḥsana(n) vs. ḥusna(n); this is a difference in sound, a difference between qiraʾāt, and
insān written with alif or without (i.e. with substitution alif = dagger alif = small alif = quṣair); this is a difference in writing only, a difference in the rasm.
The three last lines are all the trans­mission of Qālūn, the last but three with the Dānī-rasm, the two at the very bottom with Ibn Naǧāḥ's rasm,
which is common for Warš and Qālūn ‒ except for the edition pushed by Qaḏḏāfī ‒ and is used for Ḥafṣ since 1924 (common by now).
There are a few thousand difference in words/sound/local meaning ‒ rarely changing great things.
There are a few thousand difference in writing ‒ not affecting the sound/words/meaning at all.
Qālūn vs. Ḥafs belongs to the first category,
rasm writing (according to ad-Dānī or al-Arkātī or based on nine good editions) on the second.
And there is a little overlap: 30 differences in the rasm reflecting differences in the "readings".
but the Qālūn muṣḥaf the expert had in his hand is now called muṣḥaf ad-Dānī, because that's what sets it apart, not the reading.