Kein Standard Six, Before 1924

When you want to understand The French Revolu­tion, you should not start with Storming the Bastille, but with the economic, social and politi­cal situation in the decade before.

In order to understand the impor­tance of the King Fuʾād Edition,
we will have a look on the techni­cal side of book printing,
the science of "rasm and dabṭ",
the calligraphers writing maṣāḥif.

Let's start with debunking a statement made in the Muqad­dima which was a leaf­let put into the KFE.
In it it is stated that the govern­ment used to import foreign copies to be used in state schools, but that these often had to be distroyed because of mistakes. Around 1900 a sub­stantial num­bers had to be buried in the Nile.
I take it for a mysti­fication. Imports came from Bairut, Damas­cus or Istan­bul, all part of the Ottoman Empire, to which Egypt be­longed upto Novem­ber 1914.
I do not believe a story without years, numbers and a list of mis­takes
‒ and who paid how much in com­pen­sa­tion to the owner of the books.

In the forty years before the KFE
several times the text of the qurʾān had been type printed in Būlāq:
both in Ottoman Style (eg. صِراط) with ḥarakāṭ
and bir-rasm al-ʿUṭmānī: as report­ed in Dānī's Muqniʿ, Ibn Naǧāḥ's Tabyīn or aš-Šāṭibī's ʿAqīla without ḥarakāt (صرط).
Local printers repro­duced Ottoman litho­gra­phies (written by Hâfız Osman (1642–1698), by Haǧǧ Ḥāfiẓ ʿUṯmān Ḫalīfa Qayiš­Zāde an-Nūrī al-Bur­durī d. 1894 or by Muṣṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġālī/ Kadir­ğali d. 1913 ‒ do not mix up with his fellow cal­li­grapher Mehmed Naẓīf, who died in the same year) ‒ both with taf­sīr and without.

That something is not the case,
is difficult to prove.
But I declare ‒ whatever others say: A 1833 Būlāq Muṣ­ḥaf does not exist!
Before 1873, in the Ottoman Empire it was for­bidden to print a muṣ­ḥaf.
(For an illegal one see here.)
Starting 1874 many have been printed in Istan­bul ‒ both by private and state presses.
Private printers (notably Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī) are said to have pro­duced litho­graph maṣā­ḥif in Cairo starting in the 1860s.
Because no exact years are given, and no name of the calli­graphers,
and because in the 1880s more copies of Istan­bul litho­graphs were printed in Cairo than local calli­gra­phers,
I doubt that there were many ‒ anony­mous ‒ Egyp­tian muṣḥaf writers before the 1880s.
The first Cairo litho­graph I have seen is now in the Azhar library.
In Michael W. Albin's article "Printing of the Qurʾān" in Brill's Ency­clo­pe­dia of the Quran
it is mentioned as two dif­ferent ones: one by the prin­ter Muḥammad Abū Zaid, and one [directed, edited] by Muḥammad Raḍwān [sic].
It is the 1308/1890 copy directed/edited by Abū ʿĪd Riḍ­wān ibn Muḥammad ibn Sulai­mān al-Muḫal­la­lātī ( ١٢٥٠هـ-١٣١١هـ / 1834-1893), written by ʿAbdel­ḫāliq al-Ḥaqqī Ibn al-Ḫo­ǧa/Ibn al-Ḫa­waǧa

Both in Istanbul

and Cairo
type set tafāṣīr with different spellings in the frame and at the margin were pub­lished
‒ in Būlāq the unvocalized rasm at the margin.

Both in large size for the use in Mosques,

gilded, with red as second colour for men of emi­nence,

and small for crafts­men and house­wives
litho­graphies written by the chief calli­grapher of the Otto­man Marine were pub­lished.
Founda­tions, Tombs of Holy Men were offered ex­pensive prints,
schools   sets of cheap ones.
Three of his maṣāḥif are re­pro­duced in other cities:
The one with 15 lines on 522 pages in Bairut, St. Peters­burg, Tehran, in Cairo by ten dif­ferent pub­li­shers ‒ as late as 1954 in the original Ottoman spelling by ʿAlī Yūsuf Sulai­mān 1956
sometimes by the minstery of the Interior in the 1924 spelling,
the one with 15 lines on 604 pages in Tehran and Ger­many with red as ad­di­tional colour,
in Nusan­tara in black and white (en­riched with the {Indian} sign for /ū/,
the one with 17 lines on 486 pages in Damas­cus and by Turks in Ger­many.
Sometimes with tafsīr at the margins.
Sometimes with a different ortho­gra­phy.
Until today the version written by Muḥammad Saʿd al-Ḥaddād for aš-Šamarlī ‒ in style very similar to Muṣṭafā Naẓīf and line by line iden­tical to the 522 page ver­sion is very popular ‒ a thousand times more popular than the Amiriyya prints, whose 855 page edition was never bought by normal Egyp­tians: it is no co­in­ci­dence that the only copies of the ori­ginal Giza prints sur­vive in Orienta­lists libra­ries and studies.

In the 1960s aš-Šamarli had pub­lished the origi­nal by MNQ in the Q52 ortho­graphy (see on the left), but from 1977 he sold al-Ḥaddād in dif­ferent sizes, hard­cover, plastic and soft;
on the right the ori­ginal in Ottoman spelling;
Here a Bairūt edition in Q52 with explana­tions of words on the margin: Here the Ottoman original published by Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalābī before MNQ had died (1913)  

The 815 page muṣḥaf by Hafiz Osman (1642-98) was printed in Cairo with one of the bigger Tafsir around, in Syria it was till about 1960 the muṣ­ḥaf
 

Here pages 2 + 3 from the Cairo print (without the commen­tary)

At least until islamist Qaṭar supplied islamist forces in Syria with arms and money thus starting a bitter "civil" war, in Aleppo "Otto­man" parts of the Qurʾān were printed:

and until 1990 in al-ʿIrāq two Ottoman maṣāḥif were printed by the state.
in the Turkish Republic only expensive fac­si­miles re­produce old manu­scripts,
"reprints" for believers are heavily edited.

In 1370/1951 the ʿIrāqi Dīwān al-ʾAuqāf had it printed under the super­vision of Naǧm­addīn al-Wāʾiz with Kufi numbers after each verse and sura title boxes written by Hāšim Muḥammad al-Ḫaṭṭāt al-Baġdādī,
1386/1966 for the ʿirāqī state by Lohse in Frank­furt/Main,
1398/1978 for the su­ʿūdī govern­ment in West Germany,
1400/1979 in Qaṭar, 1401/1981 for Ṣaddām.
In 1236 Muḥam­mad Amīn ar-Rušdī had written the original muṣḥāf. In 1278 ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz's mother offered it to the tomb of Junaid in Baghdād. Today it is kept in the library of the tomb of Abu Ḥanīfa.
Whereas in the manuscript ‒ as I guess ‒ waṣl-sign were only on alifs before sun-letters, in the ʿIrāqi print most initial alifs have one, which leads to the annomaly that some­times an alif has both "waṣl" under­neath and a waṣl-sign above.

After every tenth verse a yāʾ (in the abjad system: ten) hovers before the number (see above); what was help­ful in the ori­ginal manu­script that had only end-of-verse-markers, is kind of ridi­culous in the printed edi­tion.

Of interest as well: "bi-yāʾ wāhida" under riyyīn in 5:111, which in another Ottoman muṣḥaf is written yāʾ + šadda + turned kasra + yāʾ and in the mordern Turkish ones with one yāʾ and in Q24 with a normal yāʾ plus a high small one. Brock­ett studied in Edin­burgh an Ottoman Manu­script from 1800, in which under 41:47 bi-ʾaidin   bi-yāʾain is written. How-to-write-notes were common (in the same Ms. in 43:3 under a hamza-letter "bi-ġair alif" is wriiten.
The Dīwān al-auqāf pub­lished ‒ with similar front and back matter ‒ reprints by Ḥafiz ʿUṯmān and Ḥasan Riḍā. 
on the right the cover of the M.A.ar-Rušdī edition, in the middle Ḥasan Riḍā, on the left the editor. ‒ After the US-inter­vention there are two autho­rities: Dīwān al-waqf as-sunnī and ... aš-šiʿī, both pub­lished maṣā­ḥif on 604 pages: the Sunni took the text from KFC (UT1, cf Kein Standard), the Ši'i had the ʿirāqī Calli­grapher, Hādī ad-Darāǧī, write it.  
In anearlier post (and above) I retold the history of the manu­script and its prints.
Except for the back­matter and the di­vision into aḥzāb they are all the same: al-Wāʾiz's edition



Recently I learned that in 1415/1994 an Iranian reprint was made ‒ not based on the manusscript but on the ʿirāqī version.
While the ihmal-sign were deleted alredsy in 1370/1951 forty years later other "confusing" stuff had to go:
‒ high yāʾ barī for every tenth verse,
‒ the differentiation between leading alif followed ḥarf sākin and others ‒ now ALL alifs-waṣl have a waṣl-sign (head of صـ)‒ nicht nur die vor
‒ signs for pauses or vowels are placed nearer to "their" base letter
‒ sometimes the space between words is enlarged, a swash nūn replaced by a normal one
‒ a normal ḍamma-sign was replaced by a turned one, where it is pronouinced ū (due to rules of prosody)
‒ Mūsā bekam ein Lang-fatḥa,



Is there someone who has images of the manuscript?
on the right the first "normal" page of M.A.ar-Rušdī's muṣḥaf, on the left: Ḥasan Riḍā:
 

Remarkable below:
‒ in lignes 3,5,6,7,9: the boundary between words is between alifs
‒ in lign 2: before (10) a small high yāʾ, which in the manucrpt was needed to signal: 10
‒ some Ihmal-signs below letter signalling: without dot