Cairo + Surabaya

Islamology does not have a methodology of its own.
Gotthelf Bergsträßer was a philologist, a linguist,
but during his three months in Cairo 1929/30 he listened (and recorded)
recitation lessons by the best of Egypt's qurrāʾ ‒ he observed
listened, interviewed in the way of (musical) anthropo­logists.

And he interviewed the chief editor of the 1924 King Fuʾād Edition
and the chief editor of the (future) 1952 Edition.

The 19th century brought changes to the world of Islam by material change:
lithography, telegraph and steam ship changed the avail­abi­lity of maṣāḥif and news and the ease of making the haǧǧ. Now, there was a steady community of Šafiʿi scholars from the Malay world/archipelago in Mecca, and books in the Malay language (in Jawi script) were printed in Istambul, Mecca and Cairo.
For about twenty years I was looking for the muṣḥaf mentioned by G. Berg­sträßer, that was printed in Cairo by Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī for al-Maktaba an-Nab­hāniyya al-Kubrā of Sālim & Aḥmad ibn Saʿd an-Nabhān.
It looks like that the National & University Library of the Hanse City of Ham­burg owns a copy ‒ helas without cover, title page or colophone. But they have a good copy of an enlarged edition made three years later (with a guaran­tee by the (Egyptian) Minis­tery of the Interior for its correct­ness).

For the first muṣḥaf printed in what is now Indonesia,
the one printed in Singapure for and written by Muḥammad al-Azharī,
resident of Palem­bang, South-East Sumatra, see Ali Akbars blog. Here is the colophon from the first edition

and the trans­lation by Ian Proudfoot (Litho­graphy at the Cross­roads of the East p. 129)

To begin with, this holy Quran was printed by litho­graphic press, that is to say on a stone press in the handwriting of the man of God Almighty, Haji Muhammad Azhari son of Kemas Haji Abdullah, resident of Pelam­bang, follower of the Shafi'i school, of the Ash'arite conviction [etc . ... ]. The person who executed this print is Ibrahim bin Husain, formerly of Sahab Nagur and now resident in Singa­pore, a pupil of Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi of Malacca. The printing was finished on Monday the twenty-first day of the month of Rama­dan ac­cording to the sight­ing of the new moon at Palembang, in the year of the Prophet's Hijra - may God's blessings and peace be upon him - twelve hundred and sixty-four, 1264. This coin­ci­des with the twenty-first day of the month of August in the Christian year eigh­teen hun­dred and forty-eight, 1848, and the sixteenth day of the month of Misra in the Coptic year fifteen hun­dred and sixty-four, 1564 [etc ... ]. The number of Qur'ans printed was one hundred and five. The time taken to pro­duce them was fifty days, or two Qurans and three sections per day. The place where the printing was done was the city of Pal em bang, in the neighbourhood of the Third Upstream Village, on the left bank, going up­stream from the settle­ment of Demang Jayal­aksana Muhammad N ajib, son of the de­ceased Demang Wiral­aksana Abdul Khalik. May God the All-Holy and All­mighty bestow forgiveness on those have copied this, who have printed this, and who will read this, and upon their forebears and upon all Muslim men and women and their forebears.

The cover of the second edition 1854 (from Proudfoot):

and the colophon (from Ali Akbar):

Alger les débuts

In Algiers the print of maṣāḥif started only around 1900:

The most important print was made 1931 and 1937 (and probably in the years between ??):

printed and printed again ... until 1970.

Morocco before 1924

Bergsträßer saw the similarities bet­ween Warš editions and the Gizeh print.
Because he did not question al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād's asser­tion that "his" edition was a recon­struction based on the oral text and the litera­ture about How to Write a Muṣḥaf, he assumed an immediate influence from Gizeh/Cairo to Fèz/Alger.
For me it was clear that it was the other way around.
But I had no proof.
I did not have an early print from the Maġrib (nor a Warš edition from Cairo from before 1920).
Finally, I can proof it. I have images from Faz prints from 1879,'81,'91, '92,'93,'94, '95,'99, 1900 and 1905.
The two oldes are in big format and still have red dots for hamza:

On the left the (presumably) first print by Ḥaǧǧ aṭ-Ṭaiyib al-Azraq 1879,
on the right the same text from Alger 1350/ 1931 (Maṭbaʿa aṯ-Ṯāʿlibiyya of Rūdūsī Quddūr ben Murād at-Turkī, likely ʿAbdal Qādir from Rhodes)
one from 1881:

Later they are without colour and smaller:

Kabul 1352 /1934

Gizeh 1924 is important because,
‒ with it Egypt by and large switched to the Maġribian rasm ‒ roughly Ibn Naǧāḥ,
‒ switched to the Maġribian way of writing long vowels, signalling muteness,
     differenciating between three forms of tanwīn, but having one form of madd-sign only
‒ the afterword explained the principles of the edition
     like in the Lucknow editions since the 1870s and the Muxalallātī lithographiy of 1890
‒ there was extra space between words and there were few ligatures,
     base line oriented
‒ the text was type set, printed once; the print was adjusted before plates are made for offset printing.

The new orthography is quickly adopted by private Egyptian printers, in the mašriq only after 1980.
Šamarlī and the new ʿUṯmān Ṭāhā editions have almost no space between words,


while most newer Turkish maṣāḥif separte the words.


There is just one muṣḥaf that is type set and offset printed
‒ just like Gizeh 1924. It went largely unnoticed:
Kabul 1352/1934

Gizeh 1924 and Kabul 1934 side by side.

Shortened Vowels

On four lines from al-Baqara and eight lines from Ṭaha I show if and how the KFE and IPak write vowel letters that are spoken short:

In the first two lines (and 5 + 6) ‒ both right and left ‒ yāʾ stands for /ā/ (dark pink),

in the third and fourth line only on the left there is a difference between /fī qulūbihi/ and /fĭ l-arḍi/ for /ī/ there is a ǧazm above yāʾ, for /ĭ/ there is no sign: the yāʾ is ignored.
In line 7 on the left ط  above (4) forces a pause after the verse, so the two con­sonants at the beginning of the next verse do not shorten the /ā/ to /ă/ like the following /ʿală l-ʿarši/ as can be seen left and right: no small alif either side ((BTW left the short alif is a long vowel sign = turned fatḥa; on the right it would be con­verting sign = convert yāʾ to alif)).

In lines (7+) 8/ fī/ is shortened to /fĭ/ on the left (no ǧazm sign above yāʾ), on the right readers are supposed to know.

In line 9 (right 9 to 10) we see a difference: the KFE shortens the yāʾ/alif maq­ṣūra because two consonnant letters follow, IPak (on the left) has an obligatory pause (as shown by the hamza <no waṣl> on /allāh/), hence no shortening: a straight fatḥa just as twice in line 10 (lines 10 + 11 on the right).

The last three cases are fine on both sides. The /ī/s are long, because there are madda signs above, the /ă/ is short because there is no small alif (neither a con­verting sign on the right, nor a turned fatḥa on the left).

Cairo 1890

Most orientalist qurʾān-experts assume that the King Fuʾād Edition of 1924 was a revolution, was (almost) completly new.
First: It was more of a switch ‒ from Asian con­ven­tions to African.
Second: It came not out of the blue. The break happen­ed 34 years earlier:

 

Below is the first word that shows the African way. In India /-lahū/ is written with a "turned ḍamma" الٹة پيش ulṭa peš.

In Africa there are only short vowel signs; when a vowel is long,
a leng­thening letter (ḥarf madd) is needed ‒ always.

If there is none in the rasm, a small wau/yāʾ/alif is added
‒ as can be seen in this 1890 Cairo print.  The same is true for /ī/. In stead of a turned kasra under hāʾ as in Indian and modern Turkish maṣāḥif a small yāʾ stands after/below hāʾ

Here 2:31 with ʾādam "african" with a hamza-sign preceding alif
instead of the "asian" long-fatḥa following alif.

Below I compare page 3 (al-baqara after the ornamental page).

In the top line an Ottoman muṣḥaf,

below from  Būlāq 1313/1895,

than Warš (Alger 1931)

in the last but one line: Cairo 1308/1890 (muṣḥaf al-Muḫallalātī),

and in the last KFE  Gizeh1924.

The Cairo prints 1890 and 1895 have the same rasm as Gizeh1924 (with a normal/modern madd-sign vor /ʾā/ in the 1895 print, with does not change the rasm).

Scrutinizing the whole muṣḥaf, one finds that muṣḥaf al-Muḫallalātī is closer to IPak/ad-Dānī than to Maġrib/Abu Daʾūd; the important point here: it is a breack away from the Ottoman rasm.

1924 was not the Revolution, the change started in 1890 and ended ‒ thanks to ʿUṯmān Ṭaha ‒ a hundred years later.

Gizeh 1924 <> Cairo 1928 and after

See the end of Sura 73 in the Gizeh 1924 print (on the left)

and Cairo 1928 (on the right, slightly enlarged -- the Cairo print is a bit smaller and has much less margin).
First line  الن and ان لن
In 1952 it's back to الن

The Bairut (Paris, Amman) reprints oscillate between the two.
The original Damascus ʿUṯmān Ṭaha has   one word:

So has the first Saudi reprint:

But the next, the first done in the new printing complex, has two:

Kazan

Since 1802/3 (parts of) the Kur'an were printed in the Tartar centre of Tsarist Russia, Kazan.

  Here the first and last page of a book from the Bavarian National Library;
  the left side is page 58 of ǧuz 5 -- each ǧuz is paginated afresh

Like the 1787 Mollah Ismaʿīl ʿOsman St.Petersburg Muṣḥaf they were type printed.

I know of no studies on the orthography, the pauses, liturgical divisions and so one.

It clearly belongs to the Asian school, closest to Ottoman.

In the first 200 years there are small changes in calligraphy

and orthography: Where the original (black on white) is close to Ottoman, the modern one (black on yellow) has hamzat on alif, madda for lengthening, and alif alif for /ʾā/

Added later:
Walter Burnikel and Gerd-R. Puin published
„Gustav Flügels Vorworte, kommentiert. Ein Rückblick
auf die Geschichte des Korandrucks in Europa“ in
Markus Groß /Robert M. Kerr (Hg.):
Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion VI.
Vom umayyadischen Christentum zum abbasidischen Islam.
Berlin: Schiler & Mücke 2021, ISBN 978-3-89930-389-6
(INÂRAH Schriften zur frühen Islamgeschichte und zum Koran, Band 10), S. 64-129
with observations not only on Flügel and Redslob, but on Kazan (and Hamburg and Padua) too.

Since 2011 the rasm is very close to Gizeh 1924

‒- with the exception of dual alif (first: Kazan 1856, last line Kazan 2016)

The Tartar (both in Kazan and on the Crimea) most of the time have as title "Kalam Šarīf" (or al-Muṣḥaf aš-Ṣarīf) ‒ not "al-Qurʾān al-Karīm" (like the Arabs), nor "Q. maǧid" (like in Iran) nor "Q ḥakīm" (like in Hind).

Japanese Tartars being the exception:

here a page from a Japanese YaSīn edition:

Differences in maṣāḥif al-amṣār

There are many places where one can read about differences between the codices of the main (garrison) cities of the emerging Arab Muslim Empire.
— first ad-Dānī's Muqni fi rasm masahif al-amsar maa kitab al-Naqat,
— GdQ III = Die Geschichte des Korantexts von Gotthelf Berg­sträßer & Otto Pretzl
— in the internet, e.g. www.kuramer.org But tables that do not order the codices by proximity are second best.
Here kuramer's table reordered:

Here here the table I made with Kufa and Basra the other way round:

In this century, or said differently: Since Yasin Dutton's "Red Dots, Green Dots, Yellow Dots and Blue: Some Reflec­tions on the Vocalisation of Early Qur'anic Manu­scripts — Part I / ‮النقط الحمراء والخضراء والصفراء والزرقاء: تٲملات في تشكيل مخطوطات المصحف في عصر مبكر (القسم الٲول)‬" in Journal of Qur'anic Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 (1999), pp. 115-140 we pay more attention to the fact, that in Syria there were two ways of reading and two of marking "end of verse" — and according to some: two codices: Damascus and Ḥomṣ/Ḥimṣ. Cf. Intisar Rabb "Non-Canonical Readings of the Qur'an: Recognition and Authenticity (The Himsī Reading)" in Journal of Qur'anic Studies, 2006
We find an additional lām in 8:6 — for the definite article — not only in manu­scripts
Cambridge University Library: Add. 1125 (BNF Arabe 6140a belongs to the same muṣḥaf)
BL Or 2165 but it is mentioned by Abū Ḥātim Sahl b. Muḥ as-Siǧistānī and al-ʿAsqalānī.
So, Muslim scholars knew of more codices — not mentioned by ad-Dānī because
none of the seven readings canonized by Ibn Muǧāhid are based on them.
see further
[ ص: 271 ] وفي سورة الأنفال في إمام أهل الشام " ما كان للنبي "

عنوان الكتاب: تلخيص الحبير (ط. قرطبة)
المؤلف: ابن حجر العسقلاني؛ أحمد بن علي بن محمد الكناني العسقلاني، أبو الفضل، شهاب الدين، ابن حجر Šihāb ad-Dīn Abū‘l-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Nūrad-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī 773/1372—852/1449
Talḫīṣ al-Ḥabīr fī Takhrīǧ ar-Rāfiʿī al-Kabīr