Saturday 15 June 2024

India 1883 (and 2000)

The British Libray holds Arabic books printed in Kerala (or around) by Muslims. The place of publication is يلشير (Tilshīr), possibly Thalassery.
from a modern print by Ch Muhammed And Son in Tirurangadi, Malappuram, Kerala

Friday 14 June 2024

all features are independent of each other

One of the ten most im­por­tant dis­cove­ries in this blog is:
when producing a muṣḥaf all features are inde­pendent of each other.
true, most maṣāḥif written in Maġ­ribī style have the text accord­ing to Warš,
but in Tunis e.g. there were Ḥafs copies written in Maġ­ribī style.
True, the first berkenar copies with 15 lines on 604 pages were in (Ottoman) naskh,
but today there are copies with that page layout in other styles.
The Iranian Center for Printing and Distribut­ing the Qurʾān has deviced a new system of voyelling without sukūn in which vowel letters stand for long vowels; they are not leng­thening the cor­res­ponding vowel sign (hence in that system the con­sonant before a vowel letter has no vowel sign ‒ vowel signs standing only for short vowels) and a new rasm.
In this post I show that this "neo-Iranian" (or Ṭab-o Našr-)rasm can occur with any writing style.
The Center has published a list of 17 words that they write as they see fit (of course respecting the sound) not following old manu­scripts or estab­lished maṣāḥif.
While in the first two colums the words are both in the new Iranian vowelling and in the new Iranian rasm, the third column is written in the "Lahorī" style just as the next two columns.
The last column is from the first Iranian print (type set Tehran 1827), and the one with light yellow background is Uṭmān Taha/Q52.

The other discoveries are:
there is no single standard
there is not THE Cairo edition, but hundreds
there are Eastern vs. Western features the writing of long vowels, of leading alif, of pronounced nūn sākin being among the differences
the main features of the KFE were
adoption of the Moroccon rasm
‒ adoption of many Moroccon features (like marking mute letters, having three kinds of tanwīn)
‒ droping of Eastern features (like nun quṭnī, having three kinds of madd sign, making for shortened vowels)
‒ easy readabiliy (clear base kine, clear right-to-left)
that the KFE did not FIX the text: both within Amiriyya prints, reprints and the great child in Medina there are changes
If anything is not clear, leave a comment!
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Wednesday 12 June 2024

India 1876

إنه لقرآن كريم في كتاب مكنون Innahu la-Qurʾān Karīm fī kitāb maknūn Bareilly, 2nd Edition 1876

India 1850

وعلى الله فليتوكل المتوكلون إنه لقرآن كريم في كتب مكنون Wa-ʿalá Allāh fal-yatawakkal al-mutawakkilūn innahu la-Qurʾān Karīm fī kitāb maknūn [Lucknow 1850?] Pages 624

Būlāq 1299/1881/2

As far as we know the first Egyptian muṣ­ḥaf was type set in 1299/1881/2 in der Govern­ment Press Būlāq it did not have verse numbers but...