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 exact year, numbers of copies confiscated 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 written.
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 manu­script but on the ʿirāqī version.
While the ihmal-sign were deleted already 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 by a ḥarf sākin and others ‒ now ALL alifs-waṣl have a waṣl-sign (head of صـ)
‒ 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 gets a long-fatḥa,



Is there someone who has images of the manuscript?
on the right the first "normal" page of Muḥ. ʾAmīn 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  

the qurʾān ‒ a muṣḥaf

I am not too rigid, have no problem with "a copy of the qurʾān", "a printed qurʾān" or "ein Koranexemplar",
but there is a big difference between the qurʾān and a muṣḥaf.
The qurʾān is an (abstract) idea, a (performed) sound shape.
It's on the well-preserved tablet in heaven and fi ṣudūr an-nās/ in the hearts of believers.
A muṣḥaf is a concrete materialization between two covers, a codex.

This is a muṣḥaf:

These are not:

There is only one qurʾān.
One can even say, that there is only one umm al-kitāb,
from which the Hebrew Bibel, the New Testament and maybe other revealed books are imperfect transcriptions.
The point is not to confuse the perfect qurʾān and human materializations.

Catholics and Shiʿites think that fundamentalists mistake the "Authorized Version" and "muṣḥaf al-medina al-munawwara" for Verbum Dei resp. Kalām Allāh, while they believe that Verbum Dei is the Divine Logos Jesus Christ, the Acts and Words of God AND the Words and Acts of his Church ALL together.
Like Muslims thinks that God's Creation, God's Word and the Human Mind (created by God) can not be in absolute contradiction,
like Shi'ites believe that al-kitāb an-nāṭiq (Ahl al-Bait) and al-imām aṣ-ṣāmit (the Book) confirm each other, explain each other,
so Catholics think that the letters of the Bible need the Spirit to be understood, need the tradition of the Church to be translated to current conditions.
The belief in (multiple) hidden meanings behind the (apparent) truth, prevents Shi'ites and Sufis from overestimating the muṣḥaf of ʿUṯmān.


Neuwirth's

Islamic tradition, however, does distinguish between the (divinely) “authored Book,” labelled al-muṣḥaf ... and the Qur’ānic communication process, labelled al-qur’ān.
first in Oral Tradition, 25/1 (2010): 141-156, here: 143
later in Werner H. Kelber, Paula A. Sanders( eds.) Oral-Scribal Dimensions of Scripture, Piety, and Practice. Eugene, OR: Cascade 2016. pp. 170-187, here: 173?

without giving sources for the "tradition" is just nonsense.
The Divine Book is al-kitāb, not al-muṣḥaf and
Muslims do not see al-qurʾān as a "communication process".
That she sees it that way, is one thing,
to claim that "Islamic tradition" sees it with her eyes is a delusion.