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 empty space to be filled out by scribes.

Best Sellers

The first best selling print was St.Petersburg-Kazan:

Next came "the Flügel" published 1834 in Leipzig by the publishing house Tauch­nitz, which pirated it in 1837 with an edition officially by Gustav Reds­lob, but basicly the Flügel without paying him: both were best­sellers but only among orienta­lists.
By that time, both in Iran and India print­ing maṣā­ḥif had began, but only after 1865 they were mass pro­duced, and afford­able.
Since they were even sold in the Ottoman empire, the ban against print­ing the scripture was lifted: So maṣāḥif written by Hafiz Osman and Muṣ­ṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġalī became best selling in Istanbul, Syria and Egypt.

here one of several MNQ from Tehran

The important editions by Muḫalla­lātī and al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād (HH) did not sell well ‒ the KFE at least not to Egyptians; they prefered the 522 pages written by Muṣ­ṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġalī ‒ now often in the reform /Andalu­sian/ HH ortho­graphy, but at least until 1967 in new editions in the original Ottoman spelling.
on the left from a 1981 MNQ Cairo edition on 522 pages, on the right the original:

a MZQ from Bairut

The top seller in Egypt was a line by line copy of the MNQ 522pager written by Muḥammad Saʿd Ibrā­hīm al-Ḥaddād famous under the name of the publisher: aš-Šamarlī.

What is mostly ignored: Šamarlī pub­lished MNQ in the new ortho­graphy even in the 1960s:

The government press, al-Amīriyya, tried to compete: in 1976 they produced a type set version with 15 lines on 525 pages. For more than a decade they made at least four differ­ent sizes: from small in flexibel plastic to Mosque size.

on the left from the pocket version 1977, on the right the normal one

the large Qaṭarī reprint 1988

Although the KFE was almost only sold to oritentalists, in the seventies many publisher "remade" it on there light tables (lay­out tables): the cut films they had made of the 12 liner and re­arranged them: either just more lines on a page as was first done around 1933 in the "muṣḥaf al-malik" al-maṭbʿa al-miṣiriyya (Muḥammad Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Laṭīf) printed in offset I assume:

die rechte Seite bekam immer einen Kustoden. Gelegentlich wurde eine Schmuckzeile ein gefügt, damit eine Sure auf einer neuen Seite anfangen kann.

Der Verleger hat zu seinem neu umbrochenen und neu gerahmten auch einen Tafsīr veröffentlicht:

Marwān Sowār, Damascus:

Dār aš-Šurūq:

or more and longer lines:

some editions with tafsir keep the original pages

other rearange the text

None of these were best sellers, but combined they spread the new spelling in spite of the KFE being extremely unpopular.

Now in the Arab world and Malay­sia ʿUṯmān Ṭaha versions dominate.
In India and Bangla Desh reprints of Tāj Comp. Ltd versions can be found every­where, while in Pakistan there is fierce competion.
In South Africa Taj's 848 pages 13liner dominates, al­though the latest version of WII (Waterval Islamic Insti­tute) is set in a UT like font.
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St. Petersburg 1787

The first print by and for Muslims (with the help of Muslims by Rus­sians) was paid by Catha­rina II.

Here as always in the blog (and on other sites) first click on the bad images than choose (after left-click in win­dows, alt-click on the Mac) "open link in new tab" (not:"open image..."), pos­sible "+" (plus) et voilà

This blog is called "no standard", i.e. many standards, no single standard:
numerically the most important standard is the Indo-Paki­stani or Eastern standard (with slight variants in Bombay, Kerala, Bengal ...),
among Orientalists and since about 1980 the standard among Arabs and Malaysia is the Western/Maghre­bian/Anda­lusian/Giza24-Cairo52 standard;
where I am (Berlin) the Turkish standard (based on Otto­man practice) is im­portant,
the most populous Muslim country has a standard of its own,
Persian and modern Iranian stan­dards are (like Ottoman ones) based on the Indian one.
As we will see now the Russian-Tartarian standard is similar to the Turkish one.
The images show the beginning of the Qurʾān first in the Modern Arab Standard, the IndoPak, the Turkish and than the Russian:

as in the first part of verse 7 the long-ā of /ʿalā/ is marked by a madda,
I added this part from two Kazan prints (1880 and 2000) in which this parti­cula­rity is norma­lized:

(Note: In verse 10 happened what was mentioned earlier: the personal pronoun that is part of the word فَزَادَهُمُ is put on the next line.)

now the first line of the next page ‒ because it has the first /lahū/ that is not written with a wau; long-ū is marked in the first two examples, but not in the Turkish, nor in the Russian print:

Here two pages corrected according to the list of errors published in the print:

I have been asked about complete sets of scans of St.Petersburg prints. So here are four more pages from two different scans:

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