Saturday 22 May 2021

Taj Compagny Ltd editions

The most important publisher of maṣāḥif world wide is the Taj Com­pagny Ltd.
It was founded 1929 in Lahore. They expanded to Bombay and Delhi. After partition the main office was in Karachi, later offices in Rawal­pindi and Dhakka were added. As you can see below Pesha­war was another pub­lishing place.
They published maṣāḥif with nine, ten, eleven, twelve, 13, 16, 17 and 18 lines. 848 pages with 13 lines of qurʾānic text plus 14 pages prayers and explanation became the South African standard. Another muṣḥaf with 13 lines has 747+4 pages, an other one has 15 lines (611 berkenar pages) ...
They were reprinted from Kashgar to Johannis­burg, sometimes copied line by line,
the one on 611 pages with 15 lines was reprinded by many pub­lishers around the world, from Delhi to Medina (starting in 1989)
... 16 lines (both with 485 pages of q.text, and with 549 of q.text plus additional ten pages), with 17 lines per page (489+4 pages), 18 lines (486+3 pages), plus many bi­lin­gual editions.
Inside Pakistan they were copied indirectely: Many publishers had calli­graphers rewrite editions with exactely the same page layout, line by line copied.
So although tremendiously influencial, they had no commeri­cal success. Twice they went bankrupt. In 1980 and in 2004 "Taj Compagny Ltd" was refounded.
Besides systemic differences to the "African" way (long vowel signs, nūn quṭnī, no leading hamza sign but alif as hamza für /ʾā, ʾī, ʾū/, ḥizb = quarter juz <not half>) there are a couple of silent alifs in the "Asian" tradition (but even by one publisher not consistent, but all allowed):
For 5:29 and 7:103 I added early examples from Lucknow prints.

Sunday 16 May 2021

al-Baqara 72

Many think that all King Fuʾād Editions are the same.
Idiots say: The Cairo Edition is The Cairo Edition.
Many think that the King Fahd Complex ("Madina") has only one Ḥafṣ edition by ʿUṯmān Ṭaha.
On the top right Gizeh24, left Būlāq52:
four different (new) pause signs, only two that stayed the same.
And look at the zai in ʿazīz (3:5 last line): the alternative (swash) form.
On the left, beneath Būlāq52 an early Damaszene ʿUṯmān Ṭaha (UT0):
all pause signs ‒ and the swash zai ‒ the same as 1952.
On the right below Gizeh24 UT1: changed by the King Fahd Complex.
Alternative/swash form is gone, pauses are different (all لا are gone).
In the third line UT2, the form ʿUṯmān Ṭaha wrote in this (Gregorian) century in Madina.
Nowhere the KFC has explained why and how they differ from Būlāq52.

minute things in Maghribian maṣāḥif

I wanted to post about signs used in Maghrebian maṣāḥif resp. in Medina maṣāḥif of readings used in the Maġrib (Warš and Qālūn). I decided...