No Standard ‒ Main Points

there is no standard copy of the qurʾān.
There are 14 readings (seven recognized by all, three more, and four (or five) of contested status).
there are 14 canonical transmissions (riwājāt) (two of each of the Seven),
each of which has ways/paths (ṭuruq) and versions/faces (wuǧuh).

All of this is not our main interest, because
‒ except in the greater Maghrib, Sudan, Somalia and Yaman and among the Bohras ‒
rank and file Muslims read only one riwāja: Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim.

The second big dif­ference between copies of the qurʾān that does not inter­est us here, is the rasm: there are three main rasm au­tho­ri­ties to follow: ad-Dānī, Ibn Naǧāḥ, al-Ḫarrāz, and al-Ār­kātī

As far as I know most editions follow a mix of diverent authorities ‒ the Lybian Qālūn Edition (muṣḥaf al-jamāhīriya, 1987, second ed. 1989, Libyan after the death of the prophet 1399) fol­low­ing ad-Dānī being an ex­ception. Authorities in Iran and Indo­ne­sia publish lists where they follow whom, others just have their (secret) way.

What interests me is
the spelling and
the layout.
Other points are important, like the
pauses and
the divisions (juz, ḥizb, para, manzil, niṣf ...),
but I do not know enough to post about them.

There are two main spellings: western and eastern
IPak is THE eastern spelling;
Ottoman, Persian, Turk, Tartar, NeoIran, Indonesian are eastern sub-spellings.
G24 and Q52 are realisation of the western spelling, Mag being their "mother".

The main difference between West and East is the writing of long vowel.

While in the East the (short) signs are turned to make them long,

in the West a leng­then­ing vowel has to follow: either one that is part of the rasm or a small sub­stitute.










G24/Q52 differentiate between /a/ and /ā/, but not between /i/ and /ī/ when there is a yāʾ in the text.
IPak always makes the difference.
(just to make clear: in the middle column, in /hāḏā/ the dagger in IPak is a vowel sign, in Mag it is a small letter leng­thening the sign before it ‒ al­though they look the same, they are dif­ferent things)

Mag, G24, Q52 have three kinds of tanwin, Bombay instead has izhar nun, IPak, Osm ... have nothing

Maybe the most remarkable difference are the initial alif: the Africa they have ḥamza-sign or a waṣl-sign. In Asia a voyell-sign includes ḥamza, absence of all sign signifies "mute" or waṣl.

Because letters without any sign the four yāʾs in the three lines standing for ī need a sukūn not to be ignored.
all in all: a large part of the letters have a different sign in Africa and Asia.

Another differences lies in as­simila­tion: both Mag and IPak do mark assimi­la­tion, Osm, Turk, Pers, NIran do not.

While IPak has three different madd signs, Mag/G24/Q52 have only one.

The main feature of page layout is the number of lines per page.
Leaving the layout with a page for a thirtieth or sixtieth on the side
there are layouts with nine to twenty lines per page,
the berkenar with 604 pages of 15 lines being the most common
  (due to Hafiz Osman and ʿUṯmān Ṭaha).

My motivation was anger about old German orientalists calling the King Fuʾād Edition "the Standard Edition";
later I came across young orientalist calling it "CE" / "the Cairo Edition",
althought there are more than a thousand maṣāḥif printed in Cairo,
more than a hundred conceived in Cairo,
so calling one of these the "CE" is madness, ignorance, carelessness.
The only new thing about the KFE: it is type set, but offset printed;
its text is not new, but a switch.
It turns out that there are different KFEs, 27 cm high ones printed 1924, 1925, 1952, 1953 in the Survey of Egypt in Giza, later in the press of Dar al-Kutub in Gamāmīz,
and 20 cm high oneS printed in Būlāq;
there is one written by Muḥam­mad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥusai­nī al-Mālikī aṣ-Ṣaʿīdī al-Ḥad­dād
and one revised under the guidance of ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm al-Maṣrī aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ.
The text of 1924 is history,
the text of 1952 survives in the "Shamarly" written by Muḥammad Saʿd Ibrāhīm al-Ḥaddād
and in the Ḥafṣ 604 page maṣāḥif written by ʿUṯmān Ṭaha.
The Amīriyya itself printed the text of 1952 in the large KFE printed in Gamāmīz
and the Muṣḥaf al-Azhar aš-Šarīf (with four in-between-pause-signs merged into one) printed in Būlāq;
but their small kfes have the '24 text with a few '52 changes ‒ a strange mix that stayed largely unnoticed.

Just as there are seven different KFE/kfe, there are four different UTs:
UT0 1399‒1404 with (up to) five mistakes, basically KFE II, without after­word ‒ printed in Damascus, Istanbul, Tehran
UT1 1405‒1421 without mistakes, with a dagger under hamza in 2:72, and the small sīn under ṣād elimi­nated in 8:22 ("photo­shopded") ‒ first with the 1924 after­word, later with "mostly" added ‒ printed in Madina and many places
UT2 1422‒'38 without space between words and no lead­ing bet­ween lines (written by UT in Madina) ‒ and printed in Madina
UT3 since 1438 without headers at the bottom of pages, with­out end if aya at the beginn­ing of lines, with cor­rected sequen­tial fathatan ‒ rearranged and printed in Madina

When you compare UT2 (above) with UT3 you see:
they are very similar;
but while there are small differences between the same words in UT2
the same word in UT3 is identical.

Another difference: in UT2 sometimes there is zero space between words;
that does not occur in UT3.

­‒

all features are independent of each other

One of the ten most im­por­tant dis­cove­ries in this blog:
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 with­out ḥarkāt 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 from the left 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 ways of 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, noting assimi­lation, 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 line, clear right-to-left), vowel sign exactely above/below base letter
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!
The Centre for the Printing and Distribution of the Qur'an, which reports to the leader/rahbar, has intro­duced three improvements:
First, three lower­case vowel signs at the places where there used to be red vowel signs (VS) in manuscripts: for words that begin with alif-waṣl, but before which the reader pauses, i.e. which are to be read with Hamza, the initial alif is given a small VS.
Then a completely new spelling of long vowels: While in Africa it is VS + ḥarf al-madd (stretching letter),
according to neoIran, the vowel letter is read as such, there is no VS (because there is no /a/, /i/, /u/ to ne read, only /ā/, /ī/, /ū/.
If there is no sign and no vowel letter follows, the con­sonant is vowel­less = there is no sukūn sign. Letters that are not read at all   are in a different colour:
(In the centre of the excerpt: /fĭl-ardi/ with a short i the kasra is to be read, not the yāʾ)

This simplified vocalisa­tion is based on the con­vent­ions of Persian writing.

Furthermore, the مكز طبع و نشر has established a new rasm. Ṭab-o Našr is con­cerned with legibili­ty and uniformi­ty, i.e. fewer missing, super­fluous or unusual letters, fewer expressions that are some­times written one way and some­times another.
They prefer to rely on recognis­ed editions (including Warš and Qālūn editions) or a rasm authority.
If necessary, however, they also simplify with­out good support. They state that they write 17 words in 36 places ‘simply’ with­out a model.
The 17 words are quite different:
easier to understand (6:41,16:95) اِنّ ما instead of إِنَّمَا ,
the opposite (2:240,5:58): فيما instead of فِى مَا – because of parallel passages;
for the same reason (30:28, 63:10): مِمّا instead of مِن مَّا ;
Avoiding a silent Alifs اَبناۤءُ instead of أَبۡنَٰٓؤُا۟۟ (5:18),
اَنباۤءُ instead of أَنۢبَٰٓؤُا۟ (26:6),
يُنَبَّاُ instead of يُنَبَّؤُا (75:13),
Avoiding a silent yāʾ for /ā/ تَراني instead of تَرَىٰنِى (7:143),
اَرانيۤ instead of اَرَىٰنِىۤ (12:36),
اؚجتَباهُ instead of ٱجۡتَبَىٰهُ (16:121, 22:78);
statt ءَاَتَىٰنِى (19:30) ءاتانِي – like Solṭānī/Hirīsī, Nairizī und Arsan­ǧā­nī, but not Faḍāʾilī;
اَرانيۤ instead of اَرَىٰنِىۤ (12:36);
Avoiding some "dagger alifs" خَطايٰكم instead of خَطَٰيَٰكُمۡ (2:58, 20:73),
لَساحِرٌ instead of لَسَٰحِرٌ (7:109, 26:34),
قُرءانًا instead of قُرۡءَٰنًا (12:2),
نادانا instead of نَادَىٰنَا (37:75),
اِحسانًا instead of إِحۡسَٰنًا (46:15),
جِمالَتٌ instead of جِمَٰلَتٌۭ (77:33).
كِذّابًا instead of كِذَّٰنًۭا (78:35).
Of the 17 words, eight follow nOsm/CT.
In a random sample of 10% of the Qur'anic text, I dis­covered four more plene spellings 15:22 biḫāzinīna, 40:16 bāri­zūna, 40:18 kāẓimīna, 40:29 ẓāhirī­na, which occur in old Persian or Ottoman maṣā­hif, but not in the editions or authori­ties cited by the Centre (al-Ārkātī, ad-Dānī, Ibn Naǧāḥ). In other words, they write as they like it. I suspect that ‘mis­takes’, archa­isms in Arabic re­inforce the ‘sacred char­acter’ of the script. But since Arabic is ‘the sacred language’ for Persians any­way, they don't need the mis­takes to per­ceive it as un­pro­fane = out of the ordinary.
In the first twenty verses of al-Baqara they write against Q24 al-kitābu (2: 2), razaqnāhum (3), tujādiʿūn (9), aḍ-ḍalālaha (16), ẓulumātin (17), ẓulumātun, ʾaṣābiʿahum (19) and bil-kāfirīna (20) like Q52, ʾabṣārihim, ġišāwatub (7), ṭuġyānihim (15), tiǧāratuhum (16), aṣ-ṣwāʿiqi (19), ʾabṣāra­hum and wa-abṣāri­him (20) such as iPak and Lib in Solṭānī and Osm also šayāṭīni­him (2:14) with alif.
Secondly, they usually omit every­thing that is omitted when writ­ing Persian, i.e. hamza signs on or under the initial alif (fatḥa, ḍamma, kasra include hamza), - but when writ­ing /ʾā/, nIran Q24 follows: isolated hamza+alif not alif+long-fatḥa - fatḥa before alif, kasra before yāʾ, ḍamma before wau (long vowel letters do not denote the elongation of the vowel as in Arabic, but the long vowel itself); how­ever, if a short vowel sign precedes the vowel letter, this applies: the vowel letter is silent; further­more, sukūn signs are miss­ing (if there is no vowel sign, the con­sonant is vowel­less), as well as indi­ca­tions of as­simi­la­tion that go beyond that in Standard Arabic.
Turks and Persians are the only ones who do not note assimi­lation – in the word and across word boundaries. (for example, from vowel­less nūn to rāʾ: mir rabbihi in 2:5 On the other hand, in 75:27 there is the non-assimilation sign: مَنۜ راقٍ). or in the word 77:20 /naḫluqkum/ instead of /naḫlukkum/), also the different tanwīn forms - nIran follows Solṭānī and Osm against IPak, Mag and Q24.

A small-nūn + kasra is placed when the nūn of the preceding tanwīn is read with i (e.g. 23:38). In these editions, the once red vowel signs on alif waṣl, which is to be spoken after an obligatory pause with hamza and initial sound, become small-fatḥa (e.g. 2:15), small-ḍamma (38:42) or small-kasra (58:16,19). As in the Indonesian adaptations of UT1, in the modern Iranian editions - both those in the style of ʿUṯmān Ṭāhā and those in the style of Naizīrī - the Fatḥas are straight across allāh. In addition, there are countless editions of ʿUṯmān Taha reworked to different degrees according to Soltani or nIran. If you count the spellings on TV, smartphones and the web (e.g. makarem.ir/quran), you end up with over a hundred different orthographies.
Es wird ein kleines-nūn + kasra ge­setzt, wenn das nūn des voraus­gehenden tanwīn mit i gelesen wird (z.B. 23:38). Aus den einst roten Vokal­zeichen auf alif waṣl, das nach obliga­ter Pause mit Hamza und Anlaut zu sprechen ist, wird in diesen Aus­gaben Klein-fatḥa (z.B. 2:15), Klein-ḍamma (38:42) oder Klein-kasra (58:16,19). Wie auch in den in­do­ne­si­schen Adap­ta­tionen von UT1 sind in den moder­nen ira­ni­schen Aus­gaben – sowohl jene im Duktus ʿUṯmān Ṭāhās wie die im Stile Naizī­rīs – die Fatḥas über allāh gerade. Daneben findet man zig Aus­gaben von ʿUṯ­mān Ta­ha zu unter­schied­lichen Graden nach Soltani oder nach nIran um­ge­arbeitet. Zählt man die Schrei­bungen im Fern­sehn, auf dem Smart­phone und dem Web (etwa makarem.ir/quran) mit, kommt man auf über hundert ver­schie­dene Ortho­gra­phien.
Turks, Arabs and Indians have fixed standards; Indians have had them for two hundred years, Arabs since around 1980, Turks since 1950 - or a little later.
Indonesians, Persians and Tunisians are looking for improvements. Tunisia is part of the Maghreb, and most of what is written here follows Qālūn ʿan Nāfiʿ. However, from the end of the 16th century until the end of the 19th century, the Ottomans maintained a garrison in Tunis.
Türken, Araber und Inder haben feste Standards; die Inder schon zwei­hundert Jahre, die Araber seit etwa 1980, die Türken seit 1950 – oder etwas später.
Qurans were written on site for their officers. At least two of them are facsimiles: one on sixty pages - Qurʾān Karīm, scribe: Zubair ibn ʿAbdallah al-Ḥanafī. Tunis: ad-Dār at-Tūnisīya lin-Našr n.d. - and one in which opposite pages repeatedly show the same words. Muṣḥaf Šarīf written by Zuhair Bāš Mamlūk 1305/1885, Tunis: ʿAbd al-Karīm Bin ʿAbdallah 1403/1983 (printed in Verona). Both record the reading Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim in Maghrebi scribal conventions.
Two words from 2:8 according to five different standards, all Ḥafṣ. The top (Q52) and bottom (nIran) look similar but are fundamentally different, the bottom two (nOsm and nIran) are the same although they look different. Both are due to the fact that nIran completely dispenses with sukūn characters: the nūn in the bottom one is therefore with sukūn and the qāf with ū (both as in nOsm directly above). In the uppermost, the nūn has kéin sukūn and according to the rules of Q24 this means: not to speak as nūn; the word sounds: ‘mai’. The same situation (incomplete assimilation) is expressed by IPak (third from bottom) and Standar Indonesia (2nd-4th line) with sukūn above the nūn (i.e.: not mute) and šadda above the yāʾ (i.e.: doubling mai yaqūl). nOsm and nIran never note (half and full) assimilation.


‒­