From the 1930s to 1974 the Bombay muṣḥaf was the norm, especially since the six million copies supplied in 1960 as part of the Japanese reparation.
Besides defining a Braille muṣḥaf (see below), the experts had two guide lines: Ǧalāl ad-Dīn as-Suyūṭī's Al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān esp. chapter 76 Marsūm al-ḫatt adāb al-kitāba): and bringing the Ottoman (Bahriye) and Indian (Bombay) spelling closer to each other: the easies are the pause signs:
all MSI have the six ʿalāmāt al-waqf of KFE
the Baḥriye/Ottoman/MNQ does not get signs for iqlāb (small mīm before bāʾ after nūn sākin), nor for assimilation (šadda on the second ḥarf) = it stays as simple as before (trusting the teachers to teach this)
While after 1985 the 604‑page berkenār muṣḥaf of ʿUṯmān Ṭaha became a global standard, Indonesia did not join this development, because it had already introduced a 604‑page muṣḥaf by reprinting Muṣṭafa Naẓīf Qadirġalī’s Ottoman‑orthography muṣḥaf aimed at pesantren and/or maʿāhid tahfīz. This made a shift to UT less attractive.
btw, the calligrapher was not named, the (re-)print is known by the press, the Marine press. Maṭbaʿa Baḥrīya.
Bombay reprints
Bombay Nov 1960 low resolution
Bombay 1967
MSI 1985
| Verse | 1985 | 2002 | 2016 | 2016 | Dānī | ADSIN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2:2 | ||||||
| 2:5 | وَاُولٰۤىِٕكَ هُمُ | وَاُولٰۤىِٕكَ هُمُ | وَاُولٰۤىِٕكَ هُمُ | |||
| 2:22 | ||||||
| 2:43 | الرّاكِعين | الركعين | ||||
| 2:65 | ||||||
| 2:69 | النّاظِرِيْنَ | النّٰظِرِيْنَ | ||||
| 2:116 | ||||||
| 2:257 | اوليـٔهُمُ | لولياؤُهُمُ | اَوْلِيَاۤؤُهُمُ | |||
| 2:167 | ||||||
| 2:187 | ||||||
| 2:191 | ||||||
| 2:198 | ||||||
| 2:233 | ||||||
| 3:7 | ||||||
| 3:33 | ||||||
| 3:35 | ||||||
| 3:43 | ||||||
| 3:54 | ||||||
| 3:114 | الْخَيْراتِۗ | الْخَيْرٰتِۗ | ||||
| 3:134 | ||||||
| 3:146 | ||||||
| 4:18 | ||||||
| 4:24 | ||||||
| 4:43 | ||||||
| 4:95 | ||||||
| 4:95 | ||||||
| 4:100 | ||||||
| 4:117 | ||||||
| 4:162 | ||||||
| 6:143 | نَبِّـُٔوْنِيْ | نَبِّـُٔوْنِيْ | ||||
| 12:59 | اُوْفِ الْكَيْلَ | اُوْفِى الْكَيْلَ | اُوْفِى الْكَيْلَ | |||
| 25:49 | لِّنُحْيِ َۧ بِهٖ | لِّنُحْيِ َۧ بِهٖ | ||||
| 26:176 | لْـَٔيْكَةِ | لْـَٔيْكَةِ | ||||
| 32:10 | بِلِقَاۤئِ | بِلِقَاۤءِ | ||||
| 33:51 | وَتُؤْوِيْٓ | وَتُـْٔوِيْٓ | ||||
| 51:47 | بِاَيْىدٍ | بِاَيْىدٍ | ||||
| 88:22 | بِمُصَۜيْطِرٍۙ | بِمُصَيْطِرٍۙ |
Braille
Pakistan and Jordan were amomg the first. Indonesia, Tunesia, Lybia, Saʿūdīa each produced a Braille muṣḥaf of their own.
Arabic Braille ist written from the left. And today all countries write/punch one line: letter, sign, letter, sign...
In the 1950s Egypt adopted an other system: signs in an extra line above the letters. But that is history (What Natalia Suit wrote in Quranic Matters Material Mediations and Religious Practice in Egypt, Bloomsbury,2020 was the opposite of the reality at the time of publishing.
1985 the Indonesian commitee (Muker ʿUlemaʾ) decided that Braille would render imlāʾī rather than ʿUṯmānī. Many blind Indonesian Muslims did not like this.
So in 2010 a revison was made. /ṣalāh/ and /zakāh/ stayed as they were (no waw), different madd-sign were not deviced (because madd wāǧib is within a word, madd ǧaʾiz at the end of a word, so the following word-space "makes" it ǧaʾiz. The greates simplification styed as before: mute letters are not rendered in braille (except after fatḥatan), so no mute-sign is needed.
saktah is "(س)" in Braille
išmām "( إش )"
imala "( إم )"
tashīl is not marked in Braille
extra signs for /ʾā/اٰ , /lā/ لا
ي ,ى ,ئ are three different signs
šadda stands BEFORE the letter it doubles!
But for some other things: braille follows ʿuṯmāni after 2010; now, the muṣḥaf for the visually impaired is not much different from those for normal Muslims.


