Friday 19 November 2021

... and it was never reprinted. And hardly any Egyptian bought it.

It sold so badly that five year later Gotthelf Bergsträßer still could buy copies of the first print both for himself and for the Bavarian National Library.
Strange that the experts write again and again of THE King Fuʾād Edition,
although there are many, different ones ‒ different not only in size and binding, but in content.
The first one ‒ lets called it KFE Ia was printed in Giza because only the Egyptian Survey could make offset prints ‒ they had experience in the tech­nique because they pro­duced colour maps.
The second one ‒ KFE Ib ‒ was produced in Būlāq, since the Govern­ment Press had aquired offset presses.

There are changes on two pages ‒ both times: right the Giza print, left the first Būlāq print:

At least as important as seals/stamps instead of signa­tures is an added word.
Because there were no gaps between sorts as was typical in Būlāq prints, readers had assumed hand­written pages. The word "model" made clear that al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī had "only" written a copy for the type setters.
In the third edition ‒ KFE Ic ‒ one more page was changed: the first page afer the qurʾānic text:
In the fourth edition ‒ KFE Id ‒ one more page was changed, the only change IN the qurʾānic text before 1952 (in the first line a (silent) nūn was added):
Let's resume:
all KFEs were Amīriyya editions,
the first one was printed 1924 in Giza
from 1925 to 1972 they were printed in Būlāq
from 1972 to 1975 print was in Imbaba.
All KFEs have 827 pages of qurʾānic text with 12 lines
+ 24 (or 22) pagi­nated back­matter pages + four unpagi­nated pages
(until 1952 24 pages, after the revolu­tion with­out the leaf mentioning King Fuʾād)
None of the KFEs has a title page, nor a title on the cover, nor on the spine,
they are all hardcover and octavo size (not excately the same)

All KFE-like editions by commercial Egyptian presses and forgein editions (except the Frommann edition) do have title pages, most of them have one con­tinuous pagination.
There was one minuature reprint of KFEI and at least two private editions + the 1955 Peking reprint; of KFEII there were many re-editions, many rearranged with 14 or 15 longer lines ‒ in many sizes, on thinner paper and with different covers ‒ from Bairut to Taschkent.
In Egypt all the time editions with 522, 525 (later 604) pages of qurʾānic text were more popular.

The changes of the second, third and fourth edition did not survive the big change of 1952, which had about 900 changes, but reverted in all things just mentioned ("dedication", seals, aṣl, extra nūn in allan) to the first print.
Most private and foreign reprints (and later ʿUṯnān Ṭaha) keep the silent nūn.

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