Tuesday, 28 July 2020

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.

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