40 years ago Adrian Alan Brockett submitted his Ph.D. to the University of St.Andrews:
Studies in Two Transmissions of the Qurʾān.
Now he was a doctor of philosophy but he did not get tenure at a university ‒ for a living he became an argicultural advisor in the UAE.
My main thesis ‒ on earth there is not THE Standard printed Qurʾān ‒ was already proven by him:
the "official" text of 1342/1924 is not official.
He showed:
the qurʾān was transmitted through the ages both orally and in writing.
the two tansmissions support each other, controll each other.
and:
Differences between transmissions are minor.
The sound form
(maṣāḥif murattal) and the graphic form of written/printed
maṣāḥif differ, but there is only ONE qurʾān.
He wrote this before the age of the internet, of Unicode, before ʿUṭmān Ṭāha, and editions of Qālūn from Damascus, Dubai, Tripoli und Tunis, before one could listen to fourteen riwayāt on CD and TV.
He collected many editions of Ḥafṣ and Warš from Egypt, Iran and Tunisia, and consulted a few manuscripts (in Edinburgh)
At the time, there were no critical editions neither of Zamaḫšarī's
Kaššāf nor Sībawaihī's
Kitāb. So when a word was given with a different spelling he had to
find out, whether it was a typo or a "real" difference.
Neither with typewriters nor on the computer it was easy to write text that had both Latin and Arabic script.
Therefore he used a "transliteration" of his own making (not as good as the one deviced by Rüdiger Puin later.
Unfortunately he did not known what a transliteration is, confused it with transcription.
trans
literation renders the
letters of the original unambiguously/objectivly, best one-to-one and onto
hence it is reversable (without deep knowledge of the languages)does not need to be speakable.
transcription renders the sounds of the original in the second language; should be pronouncable after a short instruction:
is not reversable without knowing the languages well,
which is not the case for Brockett's "transliteration".
I can't read it, I have to rely on chapter and verse.
The tilde sometimes stands for "not in the
rasm" sometimes for "extra-long".
Some of his terms are just stupid.
At least he defines them before using them.
"graphic" signifies "written in the
rasm,"
"vocal" for "not in the
rasm" ‒
"The term 'vocal form', with respect to the Qur'ān, is used throughout to
signify the letter skeleton fully fleshed out with diacritical marks,
vowels, and so on."
is nonsense:
1. his "vocal" is not the sceleton fully fleshed out"
but; "only the flesh (= diacritics) without the sceleton"
2. in the Qurʾān there are no consonats, but
just letters
3. the letter sceleton is not mute (avocal) and dots, strokes and signs are not all and only about sound,
both are written AND spoken, are both graphic and phonetic.
What he wants to say is:
some signs are there from the beginnings ,
others were added later: diacritical dots (although some dots were there in the earliest mss.), vowel signs
(harakat), tašdīd, hamza sign,
waṣla sign, signs for , signs for
Imala, Išmām, assimilation, non-pronounciation (either always or when no pause is made) of written letters, consonats having no vowel ("unmoved" as they say in Arabic), emphasis, hamza easing, hyper‑lengthening.
Since his dissertation remains the most substantial treatment of the subject available in English, and since I intend to make systematic use of it, I begin with the necessary critical remarks.
The major errors are attributable to the nature of the work: it is a doctoral dissertation, not a publication. The author was young and inexperienced, and he was not permitted to submit the text to others for correction, revision, or discussion. The purpose was not to produce a finished study, but to demonstrate the ability to conduct scholarly research. This he did, as shown by his dating of manuscripts through watermarks, his critical notes on the secondary literature, and the formulation and documentation of his own hypotheses.
It is noteworthy that he regarded the 1924 edition as a reproduction of a manuscript; that he assumed the 1982 Qatari reprint to be a reprint of that edition, although it is in fact a reprint of the 1952 edition, which diverges from the 1924 text in more than 900 places; and that he cites a colophon naming Ḥasan Riḍā as scribe, yet identifies “Āyat Barkenār” — unfamiliar to him — as the calligrapher.
His assumption that printing plates were transported from Pakistan to Johannesburg in 1978 in order to reprint a Tāj edition indicates a complete lack of familiarity with printing technology. For this reason, I disregard his numerous remarks on this topic. (If I had access to the editions he consulted, or if I knew the basis of his comments, the situation would be different.)
Fortunately, I possess almost all the editions he mentions, either in bound form or as PDFs. For the editions from Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta I have at least equivalent copies. I am therefore able to verify most of his statements, and for other points I have additional evidence. In no case do I reach different conclusions.
Ging es bisher hauptsächlich um Ḥafṣ-Ausgaben, wollen wir jetzt noch einen Blick auf andere Lesarten werfen, dabei geht es vor allem um Äußerlichkeiten. Beginnen wir mit den „unerheblichen Buchstaben“ (al-ḥurūf al-yasīra): den ganz wenigen Unterschieden, die nicht durch šadda, fatḥa, kasra, ḍamma, hamza, madda oder diakritische Punkte ausgedrückt werden, sondern im rasm.
"Ibrāhīm" hat bei Ḥafṣ weder alif noch yāʾ, bei Nāfīʿ jedoch yāʾ – ich sage nicht Warš, weil es in den drei Zeilen nicht den geringsten Unterschied zwischen beiden
riwāyāt gibt – für dies hier ein Beispiel: Während Qālūn mit
hamza zu sprechen ist, ist es bei Warš geschwächt. (Schreibungen von Uṭmān Ṭaha für den KFK.)
Während der Vers bei Ḥafṣ mit wa- beginnt, fehlt dies bei Qālūn.
Beide Male hat Ḥafṣ ein alif mehr: erst in der Mitte der Zeile, auf der nächsten Seite in Zeile Zwo
(ʾauʾan vs.
waʾan). Man beachte das winklige
ḍamma, in Unicode ein anderes Zeichen.
On the internet one finds a great deal of material on the differences between Ḥafṣ and Warš. Much of it is produced with the aim of demonstrating that the Muslim transmission is unreliable; others seek to determine which version represents the “correct” Qurʾān; still others claim that the differences are merely phonetic. The most accurate and methodologically sound presentation and assessment of these differences is that of Adrian A. Brockett. The following are several of the differences he identifies.
Ḥafṣ Warš Stelle
-kum, -hum, -him, -kumu, -humu, -himu,
-tum, -tumu bzw. -kumū xxx …
Ḥafṣ Warš Stelle
yaḥsabuhumu yaḥsibuhuma 2:273
taḥsabanna taḥsibanna 3:169
أَتُحَـٰٓجُّوٓنِّي أَتُحَـٰٓجُّونِي 6:80
سَوَآءٌ عَلَيۡهِمۡ ءَأَنذَرۡتَهُمۡ سَوَآءٌ عَلَيۡهِمُۥ ءَآنذَرۡتَهُم 2:6
أَتُمِدُّونَنِ أَتُمِدُّونَنِۦ 27:36
قُلۡ ءَأَنتُمۡ أَعۡلَمُ ڧُل̱ۡ آنتُمۡۥۤ أَعۡلَمُ 2:140
وَإِنِّيٓ أُعِيذُهَا وَإِنِّيَ أُعِيذُهَا 3:36
هَـٰٓأَنتُمۡ هَآنتُمُۥۤ 3:119
إِنِّيٓ أَعۡلَمُ إِنِّيَ أَعۡلَمُ 2:30
هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ إِن هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ ؈ں 2:31
5:3 faman iḍṭurra faman uḍṭurra
أَوۡ إِثۡمًۭا أَواِثۡمًۭا 2:182
أَوِ ٱخۡرُجُواْ أَوِ ﰩخۡرُجُواْ 4:66
قَرِيبٌ أُجِيبُ ڧَرِيبٌ اجِيبُ 2:186
6:10 ..qad istuhziʾa ..qad ustuhziʾa
بِئۡسَمَا يَأۡمُرُكُم بِيسَمَا يَامُرُكُم 2:93
نَبِيًّۭا نَبِيـًۭٔا 3:39
وَٱلصَّـٰبِـِٔينَ وَالصَّـٰبِـيںَ 2:62
ٱلنَّبِيَّ ؇لنَّبِيٓءَ 7:157
تُسۡـَٔلُ تَسۡـَٔلۡ 2:119
أَؤُنَبِّئُكُم اَو۟ ۬ نَبِّئُكُم 3:15
تُسَوَّىٰ تَسَّوّٜىٰ 4:42
Warš-Drucke erscheinen 1879 und 1891 als großformatige, dreifarbige Steindrucke in Fez; in den 1890ger gibt es jährlich kleinere Drucke in schwarz-weiß. Um 1900 erscheint der erste in Algerien.
The first muṣḥaf printed in Morocco was printed in 1296/1879 in Faz. It has 19 lines on a page, and uses black, red and blue
no changes
The next one has 25 lines per page:
one from 1313/1895/6
1331/1911/2 ar-Rūdūsī bn Murād at-Turkī from the island of Rhodes living in Algiers prints a
muṣḥaf
with 14 lines in his maṭbCat aṯ-ṯaCAlibiyya
The edition of 1350/1931 can be
downloaded in the net at several sides.
Instead of the counting "Madina 2" "Kufa" is used
((these days, other publisher both in Damascus and in Algiers use the Kufī numbering -- on the right the Tijani print:
Qurʾān Ma¬ǧīd, Alger: Ma¬ṭbaʿa aṯ-Ṯaʿālibīya 1356/1937 mit farbigem
ʿanwān
another one from the web site of the Foundation du Roi Abelaziz in Casablanca:
first pages and last of a
muṣḥaf in two volumes, 19 lines per page
In der period between the "World Wars" several publishers published Warš maṣāḥif. Here some by
Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī.
1929 in Egypt, where it was printed ‒ dedicated to Sulṭan Muḥmmad [V.] bn Yūsuf
This Cairo Warš Edition, Cairo 1929 Edition, al-Ḥabbābī edition, Zwīten edition is the first Moroccan edition with
numbers after each verse, and ‒ a revolution of sorts ‒ Kufī numbers;
so ʿAlī Muḥammad
aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ (1304/1886-1380/1960) writes four pages on the differences between (second) Madani and Kufi mumbering (pages 8-11):
the cover of the first edition
the first three pages:
instead of a title page:
(this is from the copy of the Academy of Sciences in Lissabon that is not paginated in quarters, but in halves; its index and the
duʿāʾ are set in normal Arabic letters, while handwritten in the original.)
the
ʿanwān of the first edition
So are no pagination.
As often, THE Zwīten does not exist, the original one is divided into four parts, and has before the quranic text
faḍl al-qurʾān and
ādāb at-tilāwa; all is handwritten, the last four pages in eastern
nasḫ pointed like in the east (no dots on final nūn, fā' and qāf, fā'-dot below, single qāf-dot above), all other parts in
maġribi masbūṭ, while the Lissabon copy (in halves) lacks most additions.
Maybe these two strange pages are due to merging quarters into halves (??) Or to have the
ḥizb start on a new page?
Normal pages have 15 lines
last page of first half
With a book seller I found a last quarter printed in 1990.
And other Cairo edition of Warš is by
the famous publisher ʿAbdarRaḥmān Muḥammad often called the "Unified Maġribī edition" / muṣḥaf bil-ḫaṭṭ al-maġribī al-muwaḥḥad
In Algeria Sufi fraternities had editions of their own:
Šaḏilī
Tijani
printed on salmon paper, printed at the expense of Tijani al-Muhammadi, owner of the al-Manar Press and Library, who was also responsible for calligraphy and decoration Tunisia 1365/1945/6
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