facts about the KFE

the KFA was written by Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād alone
it was a sign of the independance from Istanbul (Nov 1914) (not from the UK Feb 1922)
it was the first offset printed muṣḥaf
it was set with less than 300 sorts out of the 470 designed by Muḥammad Ǧaʿfar Bey in 1906
(out which 406 were Arabic sorts, the rest: Persian, numbers, punctuation)
Muḥ Ḥifnī Bey Nāsif had advoated a muṣḥaf for people educated in state scholar, reading novels and news papers: baseline orientated without stacked ligatures
In 1906 the Amīrīya get new types: Ǧaʿfar Bey left the design almost unchanged, he reduced the ligatures by more than 150, and had the lower bodies of sorts undercut to allow tight kerning.

here you see the Amīrīya set text and the same text set in Hyderabad: mostly the same with the kasras higher, in the last example a different form of end-mīm was used (in the first line with the deep mīm kasratan are move slightly to the left)
the KFE(resp. al-Ḥaddād) did not reconstruct the spelling according to Ibn Naǧāh, he just follwed a Faz print
I base this assertion on two groups of facts: the adding of ġāli­ban in the information. first the original words 1342 to 1414:

the 1420 version

again in 2019

and in the grand edition:

and ‒ stated its sources (although ... see below),
‒ adopted ‒ except for the Kufic counting,
    and the pause signs, which were based on Eastern sources.
    ‒ the Maghrebi rasm (largely after Abū Dāʾūd Ibn Naġāḥ)
    ‒ the Maghrebi small substitute vowels for elongation
    ‒ the Maghrebian baseline hamzae before Alif at the begin­ning of the word (ءادم instead of اٰدم).
    ‒ the Maghrebic distinction into three kinds of tanwin (above each other, one after the other, with mīm)
    ‒ the Maghrebic spelling at the end of the sura, which assumes that the next sura is spoken imme­diate­ly after­wards (and with­out basmala): tanwin is modified accordingly.
    ‒ the Maghrebic absence of nūn quṭni.
    ‒ the Maghrebic non-spelling of the vowel shortening.
    ‒ the Maghrebic (wrong) spelling of ʾallāh.
    ‒ the Maghrebī (and Indian) attraction of the hamza sign by kasra

in G24 hamza with kasra is below the baseline ‒ in the Ottoman Empire (include Egypt) and Iran the hamza stays above the line

‒ noted assimi­lation like in the Magh­reb (an in India, Indo­nesia):

In both examples the first three lines are Ottoman
    (Rušdī, Ḥasan Riḍā in ʿIrāqī state editions, Muṣṭafā Naẓīf Qairġalī Cairo 1911),
in the middle Giza 1924
bellow Maġribī Warš editions ‒ note that in the older edition the second stem (vertical stroke) of لا is lam+šadda, while in the modern Algerian one, it is the first stroke

A new feature was the differentiation of the Maghrebic sukūn into three signs:
    ‒ the ǧazm in the form of an ǧīms without a tail and without a dot for vowel-lessness,
    ‒ the circle for never to be pronounced,
    ‒ the (oval) zero for "only pronounced if paused".
(while before ‒ as in IPak‒ the absence of any sign signifies "not to be pro­nounced").
Further, word spacing,
baseline orientation and
exact placement of dots and dashes.
and ‒ on the fact that al-Ḥaddād stated its sources (although ... see below),
‒ adopted ‒ except for the Kufic counting,
    and the pause signs, which were based on Eastern sources.
    ‒ the Maġribi rasm (largely after Abū Dāʾūd Ibn Naġāḥ)
    ‒ the Maġribī small substitute vowels for elon­ga­tion (needed because
        long vowel signs do not exist in the West)

    ‒ the Maġribī baseline hamzae before Alif at the begin­ning of the word (ءادم instead of اٰدم).
    ‒ the Maġribī distinction into three kinds of tan­win
        (above each other, one after the other, with mīm)
    ‒ the Maġribī absence of nūn quṭni = nūn ṣīla.

    ‒ the Maġribī spelling at the end of the sura, which assumes that the next sura is spoken imme­diate­ly after­wards (and with­out basmala): tanwin is modified accordingly.
    ‒ the Maġribī absence of rukūʿāt.
    ‒ the Maġribī non-spelling of the vowel shortening.
    ‒ the Maġribī (wrong) spelling of /ʾallāh/.
    ‒ the Maġribī (and Indian) attraction of the hamza sign by kasra

in G24 hamza with kasra is below the base­line ‒ in the Otto­man Empire + Iran hamza stays above the line

‒ noted as­si­mi­la­tion like in the Magh­reb (and in India):

the first three lines are Otto­man (Rušdī, Ḥasan Riḍā in ʿIrāqī state edi­tions, Muṣ­ṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġalī Cairo 1911),
in the middle Giza 1924
then Maġribī Warš edi­tions ‒ note that in the older edi­tion the second stem (vertical stroke) of لا is lam+šad­da, while in the modern Algerian one, it is the first stroke.
the Maġribī writers, al-Muḫalla­lātī, and G24 have no sign above the assi­mi­lated latter and a šadda above the assimi­la­ting one.



A new feature was the diffe­ren­tia­tion of the Maġ­ribī sukūn into three signs:
‒ the ǧazm in the form of a ǧīm with­out a tail and without a dot for vowel-less­ness,
‒ the circle for never to be pro­nounced,
‒ the (oval) zero: only pro­nounced after a pause.
(while before ‒ as in IPak ‒ the absence of any sign signified "not to be pro­nounced").
Further, word spacing, base­line orien­tation and exact placement of dots and dashes.
In 7:103 und 3:144+21:34 11:97+ 10:75+23:46+28:32+ 43:46 have the same rasm and are pro­nounced the same way, but written diffe­rently:
wa-malaʾihī
IPak: وَمَلَا۠ئِهٖ
Q52: وَمَلَإِي۠هِۦ
Both scripts use a mater lectio­nis in the rasm for /a/ and /i/ ‒ not for 7ā/ and /ī/,
since alif, yāʾ and wāw were the only letters available to signal the pre­sence of a vowel. in India alif is mute (= does not lengthens the fatḥa), yāʾ carries hamza
in the West alif carries the hamza, yāʾ is mute.

In 3:144 + 21:34 ʾa-faʾin
IPak: افَا۠ئِنْ
Q52: اَفإي۠ن
Inder und Türken machen das alif stumm
(früher setzten die Inder NICHTS auf das alif, heute den Stumm-Kreis,
die Türken das Wort qaṣr darunter)
die Araber sehen das alif als Hamza-Träger, das yāʾ als stumm.
Muṣṭafā Naẓīf lässt das stumme yāʾ in seinem (in Deutsch­land und Indo­nesia nach­ge­drucktem) 604er berkenar muṣḥaf in 21:34 weg: اَفَإنْ
Sonst hat er ‒ wie üblich ‒ alif und yā, aber in dem 604er fehlt das yāʾ und die meisten Heraus­geber der Re­prints stört(e) das nicht.

In 21:34 ʾa-faʾin
IPak: افَا۠ئِنْ
Q52: اَفإي۠ن
India and osm/Tur make the alif silent
(Indians used to leave the alif without any sign, now they put the silent making circle,
Turks write qaṣr underneath)
for Arabs alif carries hamza, yāʾ is silent.
Muṣṭafā Naẓīf in one of his manu­scripts (the 604 pages berkenar one) just drops the otiose letter. اَفَإنْ
It does not help to observe that in his other maṣāḥif he has the super­fluous letter. The 604 page muṣḥaf is often re­printed (not as often as the 522 page one, but in different countries) without "correc­tion".
Similar 6:24 min-nabaʾi

al-Ḥaddād switched from وَمَلَا۠ئِهٖ to وَمَلَإِي۠هِۦ , and from افَا۠ئِنْ to اَفإي۠ن , should be proof enough, that he uncrtical­ly copied Morocco.
I do not claim that al‑Ḥaddād is wrong; I merely note that he offers no argu­ment for his choice.
Now alif hosts the hamza while the yāʾ is silent, whereas pre­viously the alif was silent and the yāʾ served as the seat for both the hamza and the /i/ vowel.
















Incidentally, MNQ once forgets to write the otiose letter:

The Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim King Fuʾād 1924 edition

The field of study of printed editions of the Qur'an needs to be cleaned up.
Many German Orienta­lists refer to the offi­cial Egyp­tian edi­tion of 1924/5 as "the stan­dard Qur'an", others call it "Azhar Qur'an". Some call it "THE Cairo Edi­tion/CE" ‒ non­sensi­cal de­signa­tions. Many false ideas cir­culate about the King Fuʾād edition, the Giza Qur'an, the Egyp­tian Survey Autho­rity print (المصحف الشريف لطبعة مصلحة المساحة المصرية), the 12-liner (مصحف 12 سطر).
Some believe they are look­ing at a manu­script.^♦

♦ like Abdel Theo­dore Khoury, ʾAsmāʾ Ḥilālī, sogar A.A. Brocket (Two Trans­missions p. 9) ↩

Andreas Ismail Mohr calls it "type print­ing". Yet the epi­logue ‒ from the 1925 small (Būlāq) edi­tion even more clearly than the first, large one (Giza 1924) ‒ makes every­thing clear: The fair copy writ­ten by Egypt's šaiḫ al-maqāriʾ Muḥam­mad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥu­sainī al-Mālikī aṣ-Ṣaʿīdī al‑Ǧir­ǧāwī al-Ḥaddād (1282/1865-1357/ 22.1. 1939) ‒ not to be con­fused with the calli­grapher Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥad­dād (1919-2011) ‒ was set in Būlāq with five tiers per line (pause signs; fatḥa, damma, sukūn; letters [for base­line hamza includ­ing the vowel sign]; kasra; spac­ing).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Type printing is a letter­press pro­cess. Types/sorts leave small inden­ta­tions on the paper: they press the print­ing ink into the paper. Offset is plano­graphic: the paper ab­sorbs the ink; you can't find inden­ta­tions. With his eyes, Mohr saw that it was not hand­written. But he does not know that type print can only be re­cog­nised with the sense of touch.
"That's nonsense, instead of ela­bora­tely type­sett­ing and print­ing that ONCE, why not have a calli­gra­pher write it?" (Mohr) This fails to appre­ci­ate the tech­no­id sense of accuracy of the editors of 1924. The accuracy established by type­setting and now achieved through Open­Type tech­no­logy is matched by no one but ʿUṯmān Ṭaha: per­fect align­ment with every vowel sign sitting exactly above or below its letter.
Traditional letterpress struggles with this layout. While charac­ters on top of the line stay close enough to the eye, the des­cen­ders force the kasras too far below the base­line. This breaks the visual con­nec­tion, mak­ing the page harder to read.
A look at the Hyderabad 1938 print shows what hap­pens when you use (normal, like Monotype) movable-type: kasras sit beneath the des­cender of end-mīm, -lām, -ʿain, and -ḥāʾ, in 1906 Būlāq got new sorts, with notches/morizers these were lifted up next to a stroke, or into a counter. (On the image, I made the Giza kasras red.) The Amīrīya Press got interlocking lead types with precise, complementary notches and mortises along their lateral walls. This mechanical innovation allowed overlapping (kerning) letters and diacritics to seamlessly slide into one another's bodies like puzzle pieces, completely eliminating the vertical gaps of traditional rectangular blocks and achieving the fluid, uninterrupted connecting line of Arabic calligraphy.
When ʿUṯmān Ṭaha (UT) copied the Q52 text into the ber­Kenar lay­out he kept the linear form and the space between words of the 1924/52 print the 1938 kasras sit too low, making the page look dis­jointed and harder to read. (In the image below, I marked the kas­ras in red that had been "lifted" on the galley proofs for the Giza print).
Two examples to illu­strate.

While UT clearly reads yanhā, the beau­ti­ful Ottoman hand­writ­ing reads naihā; while the three vowel signs (fatḥa, sukūn, long-ā) are clear­ly in the right order (there is no other way, they are all on top), nūn (per­haps) comes before yāʾ (or does the nūn dot come before the yāʾ dots). Inci­den­tally, the two "tooth" letters have a tooth or spine in UT, but none in court Otto­man! While there is clearly no­thing bet­ween heh (I use the Uni­code name to clearly dis­tin­guish it from ḥāʾ) and alif maq­ṣūra in UT, there could well be a tooth in Otto­man: You only needed to put two dots over it and it would be hetā or some­thing like that.

2^nd example: wa-ma­lā­ʾi­ka­tihī Whereas the 1924 print (below) and UT (middle) use the small letter alif‑madda hover­ing in front of the yāʾ‑tooth ‒ an added long‑vo­wel that leaves the tooth free to carry a ham­za di­rect­ly beneath it, yield­ing a hamza‑yāʾ (/ʾ/, not /ī/ or /ā/) ‒ the Qa­ṭar muṣ­ḥaf (top) puts a mu­tat­ing alif‑madda direct­ly above the tooth, there­by turn­ing that tooth into a long‑vowel alif, and lets the hamza hover below after it. Sound and rasm re­main the same, but the ortho­gra­phy is dif­ferent ‒ not ad­missi­ble for those who do not to­lerate any ap­proxi­mation in the Qurʾān.
Now the whole of page 3 in com­pari­son. Giza print and UT: the Amīrī­ya is more calli­graphic than UT, which can be seen in the examples in the right margin.
All in all, UT follows the default. Base­line and clear from right to left. Only in the spac­ing bet­ween words is it less modern than the Amīriy­ya (which is why Dar al-Maʿrifa in­creased the spac­ing). While the Amīrīya has bāʾ/tā/ṯāʾ, sīn/šīn, mīm and fā above mim, UT writes it in front (right) of it. Simila­ri­ly: KFE: lām above heh, UT before heh.

if you don't want to read the whole page, but just some words, in which KFA is more calli­graphic can UT:^◉

◉ ↩

Also from page 3 Com­parison of Muṣḥaf Qaṭar and UT. In the first and last examples, Abū ʿUmar ʿUbaidah Mu­ḥam­mad Ṣāliḥ al-Banki / عبيدة محمد صالح البنكي does not place the yāʾ-dots EXACTLY under the tooth (in the first case because of the close nūn, in the second case with­out need). Three cases show tooth let­ters without a tooth. And a cuddle-mīm, which makes its vowel sign sit wrong (for modern readers): the mīm is to the right of the lām, but the mīm vowel sign is to the left, because the mīm is to be pro­noun­ced after the lām. So it is rightly "wrong".

letters from the KFE and from UT1 (below):
In the upper part you see that KFA (white back­ground) is more calli­graphic, UT (yellowish) more type­writer style.
The lower part shows Būlāq sorts not used for the qurʾānic text, i.e. used for the appen­dices or not at all in the KFA.

reprint

leaving the meaning partial reprint / offprint aside
"reprint" has two distinct meanings:
1. a reissue of a printed work using the same type, plates, etc, as the original
a new printing that is identical to an original; a reimpression.
a facsimile, a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print
that is as true to the original source as possible.
a new impression, without alteration, of a book or other printed work.

2. a reproduction in print of matter already printed, a new impression, with minor alterations.

We have seen that there are no reprints in the strict sense of the King Fuʾād Edition of 1924 at all.
The editions 1925 to 1929 are different in size and (slightly) in content.
The large KFE II of 1952 has the same size but has almost a thousand changes in content (but not those of 1925 to '29).
The small kfe II after 1952 are made with the 1925 plates but with about a hundred changes introduced in 1952. ‒ I'd say: their text is with­out value, because it is a mix of two different editions, the one made by al-Husainī al-Ḥaddād and the one made under the auspicies of aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ.

Now, let's have a look as the Hyderabad edition of 1938.
It is a double reprint in the second meaning:
double, because of the English trans­lation from 1930 by M.M. Pickthall, and the 1924 Amiriyya print, the KFE I.
But there are imp­rovements in both part:
The English text has four minor changes in verse numbering (here from XVIII al-Kahf):

with a kind of justification in English and Urdu

The Arab text is page and line identical with KFE I,
but has a technical dis­ad­vant­age (kasra being below the letters instead being inte­grated into the des­cen­ders like م)





kasra, kasratan, sequential kasratan, kasratan+mīm, and other signs below the base line (like sīn)











and minor improvement to make it acceptable to Indian Muslims.

/ʾallah/ with (short) kasra is changed into /ʾallāh/ with a (long) dagger;
ruquʿāt are added.

While there was no second impression in Hyderabad, in 1976, the year of a huge The World of Islam Festival in London, George Allen & Unwin made a reprint: with the unchanged original and an added foreword

this was reprinted in 1979, and in 1980 for Sharjah.

In the 1970s there were "reprints" in the second meaning (with slight changes) in Bairut:
Dar al-Kitab al-Lubnāni/al-Maṣrī printed (in one volume on Bible paper, just as in London) bilingual editions (with Pickthall's English trans­lation, and with the French one by Denise Masson) for the Lybian World Islamic Call Society.
In these "reprints" some mis­takes in the 1924 text mentioned in KFE II 1952 are changed: like (/ka­limat, qāʾim/ ...)

whether kasra draws the ham­za sign below the base­line has no­thing to do with the rasm, it is a con­ven­tion, but it must be the same in all places. While both the Maġ­rib and India have hamza near kasra, Otto­mans, Turks and Per­sians have it above the base­line.

and most of the time (some were forgotten) when a sura ends with tan­wīn it is changed to tanwīm
because in 1924 it was assumed that after a sura the next one is recited without a fresh basmala. Since 1952 a basmala is assumed, hence in­stead of /an, un, in/ now: /am, um, im/.

I will end with a horrific discovery for a German.
In the English language there is a proper term for our "Flachdruck":
pla·nog·ra·phy (plə-nŏg′rə-fē, plā-) n.
A process for printing from a smooth surface, as litho­graphy or offset.
And there is a wrong one:
li·thog·ra·phy (lĭ-thŏg′rə-fē) n.
A printing process in which the image to be printed is rendered on a flat surface, as on sheet zinc or aluminum, and treated to retain ink while the non­image areas are treated to repel ink.

This is just wrong: "lithos" meaning "stone", not "zinc", nor "aluminum"
The same mistake differently put:
lithography
1. the art or process of producing an image on a flat, specially prepared stone, treating the items to be printed with a greasy substance to which ink adheres, and of taking impressions from this on paper.
2. a similar process in which the stone is replaced by a zinc or aluminum plate, often provided with a photo­sensitive surface for reproduc­ing an image photo­graphical­ly.

While the first definition is fine, the second is stupidly wrong. Why use a word with "stone" in it   for a process with a metall plate, although there are proper terms for the process?
Since the language has the specific "offset" and the general "planography", there is no need to use "lithography" for printing with metall plates.

As much as I am happy with this 1980 reprint for Sharjah informing us of the printer, and the fact that it is an un­changed reproduc­tion, I am horrified by the use of "lithography" for "offset" (knowing that it is not a personal idiocracy).
thanks to Muhammad I. Hozien for providing this (and other images) from his huge collec­tions of maṣā­ḥif.
    ‒
­‒

Why are kasras flater in Hyderabad than in Būlāq?

In 1938 the 1342 Giza muṣḥaf was reset in Hyderabad:
the same text in lines as long as in Būlāq but slightly higher
although kasras and kasratain are not as steep as in the original.

While in Giza kasras are integrated into the descender of the main (letter) line,
in Hyderabad they are ‒ like the pause-sign-top-line, the Ḍamma-Fatḥa-Šadda-Ǧazm-line ‒
in a line of their own below the letters.
This is normal in type set/type printed maṣāḥif

In 1906 the Amīrīya get new types: Ǧaʿfar Bey left the design almost unchanged, he reduced the ligatures by more than 150, and had the lower bodies of sorts undercut to allow tight kerning.

The Monotype clones used in Hyderabad were not as sophisticated, here see a a top line for pause sign, a line for fatḥa, ḍamma, šadda, the main line for the letters and the kasra-line, while kasra, kasratain, kasra-with-small-mīm are integrated in Būlāq (i.e. next to a descender, close to the letters, even in the bowl of ح ج خ ع غ )

­‒

Mistake in the Andalusian/Maghribi/Arab Style

One of the errors in the 1924 Qur'an that Indians, Indone­sians, Persians and Turks take ex­ception to is that "God" is written with a short a: ʾallah instead of ʾaḷḷāh.
In "Kein Srandard" I call that a clear mistake.
But what is 100% clear?
The Arab advocates of the 1924 reform might say:
Even Ibn al-Bawwāb wrote like this

I reply: yes, but raḥmān is also with short a and ḏālika too.

If there is no long /ā/ sign in the whole codex, then you don't need one in ʾaḷḷāh.
But in the Giza Qur'an there is Long-ā (fatḥa + dagger-alif) every­where where needed!
As explained in "Kein Standard" Berg­sträßer and experts have over­looked that the 1924 orthography is not an invention, but just copied from a Warš muṣḥaf:

And just as these do not spell ʾaḷḷāh correctly but incorrectly,
so does G24 and since 1990 all Arabs (esp. Madina).
At least, they write ʾallah all the time:

instead of ʾaḷḷāh:

the Nizām of Hyderabad had it corrected (1938, reprinted by the Islamic Call Society 1976f.):

but not in allahumma (now­here, and in none of the bi­lingual editions ‒ cf. first line)

Two examples from Dalīl al-Ḫairāt, one from Mali without long /ā/, one from the Ottoman Empire with long /ā/: