The Gizeh 1924 print did not follow Abū Dāʾūd Sulaimān ibn Naǧāḥ's
at-Tabyīn li-Hiǧā’ at-Tanzīl,
nor Abū ʿAmr ʿUṯmān Ibn Saʿīd ad-Dānī's al-Muqni‘ fī ma‘rifat marsūm Maṣāḥif ahl al-amṣār
or the choice/mix of the two by Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Kharrāz.
After scrutinizing parts of the text, I guess that it mostly followed the common Maġribian rasm,
i.e. only in about 150 words al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī choose to write them differently.
Here is an example of a word, for which he choose the Eastern rasm, ad-Dānī's, Indian (& Indonesian), Persian.
The top line is from Hafiz ʿUṯmān the Elder (Büyük Hâfız
Osman Efendi): he has a dotless yāʾ for /ā/.
His 200 years younger namesake HO Qayišzāde
(Kayışzade) has no letter for it,
nor has Muṣṭafā Naẓīf Qadirġalī (Mustafa Nazif Kadırgalı).
Modern Turkish editions strangely have a "normal" yāʾ.
computer set for the State Religious Office
hand written by Hüsyin Kutlu.
al-Muḫallalātī,
and Libyia (Qālūn) follow ad-Dānī.
The Tunisian Republic (Qālūn),
the late 19th century editions
from Fās (Warš),
the 1931 Warš Alger edition,
the KFC ʿUT Warš edition,
all have an extra alif.
Since the KFE doesn't have it,
the ʿUṯmān Ṭaha editions do not have it either.
Nor do Indian editions ‒ here the South African
print from the Waterval Islamic Institute.
Nor Indonesian.
But the Persian calligrapher Nairizī (here from
the splendid 1965 AryaMehr print) has a dotless yāʾ.
For good measure,
five examples from
the Islamic Republik Iran.
As you can see in the middle of my examples,
the transmission (Ḥafṣ, Warš, Qālūn) is independent
of the spelling. In my German blog there is an other example
(it gets bigger when you click it once -- as always in the Blogger).
Wednesday, 28 April 2021
Sunday, 11 April 2021
IDEO's call for papers
The Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies in Cairo calls for papers for two conferences,
one in October, the second in three years.
Strangely the Arabic call is first for a conference on the King Fuʾād Edition (1924) of the qurʾān,
then for one of the "al-Qāhira print,"
the French conference is on « le Coran du Caire »/ « l'édition du Caire »,
the English one on "The Cairo Edition".
As there are about a thousand editions of the qurʾān published in Cairo, it just does not make sense to call a particular edition "l'édition du Caire".
Of course, once the edition is introduced correctely ‒ as the King Fuʾād Edition (KFE), the Egyptian Government Edition of 1924, the Education Ministry Edition (because there later was a Minsitry of the Interior Edition), the Amīriyya Edition (of 1924), (or wongly) the Amīrī Edition (taking Fuʾād as the Amīr, instead of refering to the Government Press/ مطبعة), the Gizeh print, the Survey of Egypt Gizeh 1924 print [at the time its name was مصلة المسحة , now it is الهيئة المصرية العامة للمساحة , hence it is named simply مصحف المسحة ], the 12-line-edition of the Qurʾān / المصحف ١٢ سظر, the official Egyptian edition of 1924, the edition prepared by Egypt's šaiḫ al-maqāriʾ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥusainī al-Mālikī aṣ-Ṣaʿīdī al-Ḥaddād (1282/1865‒1357/ 22.1.1939) ‒ one can refer to it as "Cairo edition", or "the 1924 edition", but not to "The Cairo Edition," nor "al-Qāhira print," nor "Azhar Edition".
The Azhar had almost nothing to do with it.
It was prepared by one man alone; of the four men that signed three are not called "šaiḫ", are not ʿulamāʾ, are not expert qurʾānologists, have never written anything on religious subjects.
Abū Mālik Ḥifnī Bey ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismaʿīl ibn Ḫalīl Nāṣif (16.12.1855‒25.2.1919) had been chief inspector of the Arabic department in the ministery of education. In his youth he had learned the qurʾān by heart, later he became a lawyer, was part of the modern intelligentzia of the capital.
Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-Iskandarī (1292‒1357/1875‒1938) and Muṣṭafā (al-)ʿInānī (d. 1362/ 1943) were teachers at the Pedagocial Seminary next to the Ministery of Education and have jointely written books on educational matters.
When you make a multilingual conference on "der Erste Weltkrieg," it should be about "la Première Guerre Mondiale" (not about "La Grande Guerre"), one on the July Revolution 1830 should be on la Révolution de Juillet 1830 (not Les Trois Glorieuses), and one on World War II, should be on вторая мировая война (not on Великая Отечественная Война).
But in the English call for papers 16 times "the Cairo edition" is used, a term for which no Arabic equivalent exists. (( When you google the Arabic term that come first to your mind "muṣḥaf al-Qāhira" you get hits, but nothing near the KFE.)) Hence in the Arabic call first ten times "the King Fuʾād muṣḥaf" is used and then six times the "Qāhira print", although al-Qāhira is the Old City founded by the Fatimides, where most private printers reside (have their siège social) and most had their workshop too, Būlāq lying outside, Gizeh, where the King Fuʾād Edition WAS printed even on the other side of the Nile: in an other Gouvernement /muḥāfaẓa. Twice "the Cairo edition" has as accidental qualification "of 1924", which is not good enough ‒ "the 1924 Cairo edition" with "1924" as necessary attribute, as defining property would be acceptable, but the Dominicans never use that term, nor "the 1924 Egyptian Government edition," nor "the edition of the Ministry of Education"(the Ministery of Interior had later maṣāḥif printed as well), nor "the edition prepared by the Šaiḫ al-maqāriʿ al-maṣrīya."
Strangely the Domanican Institute manipulates the image of the title box of the Fatīḥa:
Only the top and right side are okay, the bottom and left side (below in lighter yellow) are mirrored by software,
and more important: the text in the middle is NOT from the 1924 Gizeh print! The original is not self centred, but stands in relation with the title box of al-baqara on the opposite page.
the French conference is on « le Coran du Caire »/ « l'édition du Caire »,
the English one on "The Cairo Edition".
As there are about a thousand editions of the qurʾān published in Cairo, it just does not make sense to call a particular edition "l'édition du Caire".
Of course, once the edition is introduced correctely ‒ as the King Fuʾād Edition (KFE), the Egyptian Government Edition of 1924, the Education Ministry Edition (because there later was a Minsitry of the Interior Edition), the Amīriyya Edition (of 1924), (or wongly) the Amīrī Edition (taking Fuʾād as the Amīr, instead of refering to the Government Press/ مطبعة), the Gizeh print, the Survey of Egypt Gizeh 1924 print [at the time its name was مصلة المسحة , now it is الهيئة المصرية العامة للمساحة , hence it is named simply مصحف المسحة ], the 12-line-edition of the Qurʾān / المصحف ١٢ سظر, the official Egyptian edition of 1924, the edition prepared by Egypt's šaiḫ al-maqāriʾ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥusainī al-Mālikī aṣ-Ṣaʿīdī al-Ḥaddād (1282/1865‒1357/ 22.1.1939) ‒ one can refer to it as "Cairo edition", or "the 1924 edition", but not to "The Cairo Edition," nor "al-Qāhira print," nor "Azhar Edition".
The Azhar had almost nothing to do with it.
It was prepared by one man alone; of the four men that signed three are not called "šaiḫ", are not ʿulamāʾ, are not expert qurʾānologists, have never written anything on religious subjects.
Abū Mālik Ḥifnī Bey ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismaʿīl ibn Ḫalīl Nāṣif (16.12.1855‒25.2.1919) had been chief inspector of the Arabic department in the ministery of education. In his youth he had learned the qurʾān by heart, later he became a lawyer, was part of the modern intelligentzia of the capital.
Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-Iskandarī (1292‒1357/1875‒1938) and Muṣṭafā (al-)ʿInānī (d. 1362/ 1943) were teachers at the Pedagocial Seminary next to the Ministery of Education and have jointely written books on educational matters.
When you make a multilingual conference on "der Erste Weltkrieg," it should be about "la Première Guerre Mondiale" (not about "La Grande Guerre"), one on the July Revolution 1830 should be on la Révolution de Juillet 1830 (not Les Trois Glorieuses), and one on World War II, should be on вторая мировая война (not on Великая Отечественная Война).
But in the English call for papers 16 times "the Cairo edition" is used, a term for which no Arabic equivalent exists. (( When you google the Arabic term that come first to your mind "muṣḥaf al-Qāhira" you get hits, but nothing near the KFE.)) Hence in the Arabic call first ten times "the King Fuʾād muṣḥaf" is used and then six times the "Qāhira print", although al-Qāhira is the Old City founded by the Fatimides, where most private printers reside (have their siège social) and most had their workshop too, Būlāq lying outside, Gizeh, where the King Fuʾād Edition WAS printed even on the other side of the Nile: in an other Gouvernement /muḥāfaẓa. Twice "the Cairo edition" has as accidental qualification "of 1924", which is not good enough ‒ "the 1924 Cairo edition" with "1924" as necessary attribute, as defining property would be acceptable, but the Dominicans never use that term, nor "the 1924 Egyptian Government edition," nor "the edition of the Ministry of Education"(the Ministery of Interior had later maṣāḥif printed as well), nor "the edition prepared by the Šaiḫ al-maqāriʿ al-maṣrīya."
Strangely the Domanican Institute manipulates the image of the title box of the Fatīḥa:
Only the top and right side are okay, the bottom and left side (below in lighter yellow) are mirrored by software,
and more important: the text in the middle is NOT from the 1924 Gizeh print! The original is not self centred, but stands in relation with the title box of al-baqara on the opposite page.
Saturday, 10 April 2021
Efim Rezvan: Orthography in EQ3
The editors of Brill's Encyclopedia of the Quran thought it wise to let Efim Rezvan write an article, unfortunately about a subject, he did not master.
I just want to point out some of the mistakes:
"Arabic writing at that time conveyed only consonants"
As I have shown, Arabic at the time had just letters, that could stand for consonants and vowels.
"..., which permitted a shift from a scriptio defectiva to a scriptio plena."
Although Rezvan does not say it explicitly ‒ nor does he state the contrary ‒, he gives the impression that the early manuscripts had no diactrics, nor vowel signs. But ALL early manuscripts has SOME diacritics and vowel (and hamza) signs.
"al-Ḥajjāj [introduced] a system to designate long and short vowels"
Since we still do not have ONE system to designate ALL long and ALL short vowels, I'd like to read more about the system of the 8th century.
"In practice only two of the systems noted by Ibn Mujāhid became widespread: the Kūfan, Ḥafṣ (d. 246⁄860) ʿan ʿĀṣim (d. 127⁄744), and, to a lesser degree, the Medinan, Warsh (d. 197⁄812) ʿan Nafiʿ (d. 169⁄785)."
just wrong. That TODAY only four systems are widely used ‒ of which he mentioned only two ‒ does NOT mean AT ALL, that at Ibn Mujāhid (245-324/859-935)'s time or in the following centuries 12 of his 14 riwāyāt were hardly used. The opposite is true: more than his fourteen were used.
"It is possible that [the St.Petersburg/Kazan] edition played a decisive role in the centuries-long process of standardizing qurʾānic orthography."
"The final stage of the work on the unification of the qurʾānic text is connected with the appearance in Cairo in 1342⁄ 1923-4 of a new edition of the text"
nonsense
it was "Drawn up by a special panel of Muslim scholars"
nonsense, it was ONE man, Egypt's main recitor of the qurʾān (šayḫ al-maqāriʾ al-miṣrīya)
"today accepted throughout the Muslim world"
just wrong.
"in Zaydī Yemen, traditions remain which go back to a different transmitter of the text, Warsh."
it seems that Yamanī Zaydīs read Qālūn
The last two paragraphes are gibberish.
I just want to point out some of the mistakes:
"Arabic writing at that time conveyed only consonants"
As I have shown, Arabic at the time had just letters, that could stand for consonants and vowels.
"..., which permitted a shift from a scriptio defectiva to a scriptio plena."
Although Rezvan does not say it explicitly ‒ nor does he state the contrary ‒, he gives the impression that the early manuscripts had no diactrics, nor vowel signs. But ALL early manuscripts has SOME diacritics and vowel (and hamza) signs.
"al-Ḥajjāj [introduced] a system to designate long and short vowels"
Since we still do not have ONE system to designate ALL long and ALL short vowels, I'd like to read more about the system of the 8th century.
"In practice only two of the systems noted by Ibn Mujāhid became widespread: the Kūfan, Ḥafṣ (d. 246⁄860) ʿan ʿĀṣim (d. 127⁄744), and, to a lesser degree, the Medinan, Warsh (d. 197⁄812) ʿan Nafiʿ (d. 169⁄785)."
just wrong. That TODAY only four systems are widely used ‒ of which he mentioned only two ‒ does NOT mean AT ALL, that at Ibn Mujāhid (245-324/859-935)'s time or in the following centuries 12 of his 14 riwāyāt were hardly used. The opposite is true: more than his fourteen were used.
"It is possible that [the St.Petersburg/Kazan] edition played a decisive role in the centuries-long process of standardizing qurʾānic orthography."
"The final stage of the work on the unification of the qurʾānic text is connected with the appearance in Cairo in 1342⁄ 1923-4 of a new edition of the text"
nonsense
it was "Drawn up by a special panel of Muslim scholars"
nonsense, it was ONE man, Egypt's main recitor of the qurʾān (šayḫ al-maqāriʾ al-miṣrīya)
"today accepted throughout the Muslim world"
just wrong.
"in Zaydī Yemen, traditions remain which go back to a different transmitter of the text, Warsh."
it seems that Yamanī Zaydīs read Qālūn
The last two paragraphes are gibberish.
Wednesday, 17 March 2021
these Persians // -wa alone at the end of a line
In Arabic wa- is a prefix, not a word of its own:
Since in Persian it is a separate word, Persian calligraphers (and Indian ones too) treat the Arabic prefix as a word that can stand at the end of a line ‒ instead of standing at the start of the next line (prefixed to the "main part" of the word:
Here pages from the bestseller from the time before the Khomeini revolution: (pay attention to the omen above on the right and to wa- at the end of the last but fifth line)
and one from the imperial reprint of that period: (sixth line)
Here pages from the bestseller from the time before the Khomeini revolution: (pay attention to the omen above on the right and to wa- at the end of the last but fifth line)
and one from the imperial reprint of that period: (sixth line)
Wednesday, 24 February 2021
a miracle
From around 1900 until the end of WWI David Bryce from Glasgow
did not only print miniature New Testaments, but miniature Qurʾāns as well.
But what is special: he pre-printed the 1924 Gizeh print, as you can see in this article in the Guardian.
Could it be, that someone replaced a Mini-Muṣḥaf in bad shape
with a new one? Could it be, that the box is old,
but not the book?
The original looks like this: and it has a nice red+gold cover.
I found the miniature reprint of the 827+XXII Bulāq print in two university libraries: UvA: Allard Pierson Depot ; OTM: Mini 271 IN BEWERKING. Format [ca. 850 p] 4 cm, and Amherst College: Accession Number: acf.oai.edge.fivecolleges.folio.ebsco.com.fs00001006.b04362a3.f5de.5fc5.b277.97fbb1e2f507; they give J[ohann] Steinbrener Verlag & Buchbinderei as printer. It should be the binder as well, possibly -- if before 1945 -- from Winterberg/Bohemia or -- if after 1947 -- from Schärding/Austria.
Of course, there could be another pirated print.
But what is special: he pre-printed the 1924 Gizeh print, as you can see in this article in the Guardian.
Could it be, that someone replaced a Mini-Muṣḥaf in bad shape
with a new one? Could it be, that the box is old,
but not the book?
The original looks like this: and it has a nice red+gold cover.
I found the miniature reprint of the 827+XXII Bulāq print in two university libraries: UvA: Allard Pierson Depot ; OTM: Mini 271 IN BEWERKING. Format [ca. 850 p] 4 cm, and Amherst College: Accession Number: acf.oai.edge.fivecolleges.folio.ebsco.com.fs00001006.b04362a3.f5de.5fc5.b277.97fbb1e2f507; they give J[ohann] Steinbrener Verlag & Buchbinderei as printer. It should be the binder as well, possibly -- if before 1945 -- from Winterberg/Bohemia or -- if after 1947 -- from Schärding/Austria.
Of course, there could be another pirated print.
Saturday, 20 February 2021
Printing of the Qurʾān (EQ) by Michael W. Albin
In his 1990 article Early Arabic printing
Michael W. Albin writes one should not compete
with The Guiness Book of Records: the first
Qurʾān print in the Empire, the largest one, the smallest one.
Ironically his "Printing of the Qurʾān" in the Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an
Vol. IV: P‒Sh (2004) devotes more space to the "first printed Qur'an in the
Ottoman Empire" than to any other topic, and it qualifies
as "the worst Encyclopedia article ever published."
The chapter on the First states:
"None of the earliest Qurʾāns printed in Egypt have survived."
not considering the possibility that there were no earlier ones printed in Egypt before the ones that did survive.
"the first printing of portions of the Qurʾān (ajzāʾ) [in] April 1833"
"Certain aspects of the edition, however, are clear. It was printed in tablet or sheet form"
Nothing is clear about the supposed print, not even that it took place, and what is "tablet form", what "sheet form"? Clay tablets, paper sheets?
"and is often referred to as ajzāʾ al-Qurʾān, in distinction to a complete muṣḥaf."
"We do not know whether the text was typeset or lithographed."
"Before printing the 1833 edition, Muḥammad ʿAlī asked Shaykh al-Tamīmī, Muftī of Egypt, to put his seal on the printed copy, so that it could be sold or otherwise distributed. The shaykh agreed to this"
"Ignoring opposition, Muḥammad ʿAlī authorized the first Egyptian printing of the Qurʾān." ‒ definite article and no "portions of" anymore: THE whole thing!
"It is doubtful, whether this edition received the traditional attention of scholars and correctors before printing."
Remember, we know nothing about the supposed edition, so it goes without saying: everything about it is doubtful.
"sixty sheets (alwāḥ; sing. lūḥ) were printed for distribution to students, presumably students in the government’s schools."
Nobody knows whether this really happened, and in what form were the sheets presumably distributed?
"The Qurʾān portions printed in 1833 were no doubt sold to the populace."
I doubt it.
"It appears that sometime late in 1857 a project to correct the impounded maṣāḥif (see muṣḥaf) was begun."
So now, they are the complete thing, not portions, parts, selections, but maṣāḥif!
And he goes on: "Distribution of the 1833 muṣḥaf no doubt suffered from ..."
So Albin is devoting page after page on an imagined muṣḥāf, that never existed, he oscilliats between some sheets, tablets, ajzāʾ and a complete muṣḥaf.
According to Albin the 1924 muṣḥaf is "known as "royal (amīriyya) edition”. Utter nonsense. Egyptians called it , مصحف 12 سطر or مصحف المساحة or مصحف الأميرية either by the (almost unique) number of lines per page, by the printer (the Survey of Egypt in Gizeh) or by the publisher (the Royal Press, al-maṭbaʿa al-amīriyya) ‒ not by the King ‒ why else would it have the feminin form?
Albin is able to top this:
He calls the guy who headed the committee that prepared the 1924 edition Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī l-Ḥusaynī, which is so wrong that the editors of the EQ wanted to preserve it, to show to the world that this article was written by a librarian, not an Arabist. (If Alī and al-Ḥ. were joined, the ī of Alī would be short Ali'l-Ḥ., but since it is really Aliyyun the names are not joined: the man is Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī.)
"Many Qurʾāns printed elsewhere have been modeled on its ... printing conventions"
I know of two editions that used the same printing technique as the 1924 Gizeh print: Kabul 1352/1934, an edition largely ignored, and a line identical resetting with the Bulāq sorts in Hyderabad 1938 (each side opposite Pickthall's English translation in two volumes ‒ reprinted by the Islamic Call Society in the 1970s in one volume).
The committee "adopting the recitation conventions of Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim"
It is not a recitation convention marked by cantilation notes, but a transmission of a "reading".
And on the field of qiraʾa, the committee had nothing to decide, nothing to adopt. The riwāya in Egypt was (I guess for 400 years already) Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim.
"When the first printing (i.e. that of 1924) was sold out, the National Library of Egypt determined to bring out another edition. ... The 1924 edition remained the basis of subsequent editions in Egypt."
All wrong, the second printing (1925) added seals/rolls to the signitaries names, and added one word to the text about the edition, and the National Library had nothing to do with it, the Government Press in Būlāq (al-Amīriyya) did it.
In the next year, or a year later, they changed the spelling of ʾallan in 73:20 ‒ a spelling that was not kept in the big revision in 1952.
Albin confuses the small changes (in the back matter) of 1925 with the big revision in 1952.
Whereas the committee for 1924 was only one ʿālim plus three men from the state education sphere, men who could not contribute to the project, just symbolizing state involvement, the committee for 1952 were four ʿulamāʾ, headed ‒ as in 1924 ‒ by the (then) chief qāriʾ ʿAlī Muḥammad aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ (not Ḍibāʿ as far as I know). In 1952 there were about 900 changes (only three in the rasm).
Contrary to what Albin writes, the 1952 edition became the basis of subsequent edtions in Egypt (and later in the Mašriq).
And Albin invents an edition "called" so and so:
"The government issued an edition reviewed by the identical committee in 1936 called the Fārūq edition, after the Egyptian king, Fārūq (r. 1926‒52). The version was corrected by Shaykh Naṣr al-ʿAdlī, chief corrector at the government (amīriyya) press. In addition to the signatures of the five persons involved, the work bears the seal of the Shaykh al-Azhar."
((note the change from "royal" to "government press" for amīriyya!))
If he had consulted the 1936 print, he would have seen that it was not only made by the same men as in 1924, but that nothing had changed, not even the dedication to King Fuʾād!. Albin's (and Reynold's) "King Farūq Edition" is mere invention (as so many things in his article ‒ or at best hearsay.).
BTW, the private (re-)print of 1938 is not by Maktabat al-Šams al-Islāmiyya, as Albin writes, but by Maktabat al-Šarq al-Islāmiyya wa-Maṭbaʻatuhā, unless the librarians in Amsterdam and Jerusalem got it wrong.
LATER ADDITION
HSU CHENG-HSiANG writes in his Ph.D. THE FIRST THIRTY YEARS OF ARABIC PRINTING IN EGYPT, 1238-1267 (1822-1851) A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL STUDY WITH A CHECKLIST BY TITLE OF ARABIC PRINTED WORKS
The chapter on the First states:
"None of the earliest Qurʾāns printed in Egypt have survived."
not considering the possibility that there were no earlier ones printed in Egypt before the ones that did survive.
"the first printing of portions of the Qurʾān (ajzāʾ) [in] April 1833"
"Certain aspects of the edition, however, are clear. It was printed in tablet or sheet form"
Nothing is clear about the supposed print, not even that it took place, and what is "tablet form", what "sheet form"? Clay tablets, paper sheets?
"and is often referred to as ajzāʾ al-Qurʾān, in distinction to a complete muṣḥaf."
"We do not know whether the text was typeset or lithographed."
"Before printing the 1833 edition, Muḥammad ʿAlī asked Shaykh al-Tamīmī, Muftī of Egypt, to put his seal on the printed copy, so that it could be sold or otherwise distributed. The shaykh agreed to this"
"Ignoring opposition, Muḥammad ʿAlī authorized the first Egyptian printing of the Qurʾān." ‒ definite article and no "portions of" anymore: THE whole thing!
"It is doubtful, whether this edition received the traditional attention of scholars and correctors before printing."
Remember, we know nothing about the supposed edition, so it goes without saying: everything about it is doubtful.
"sixty sheets (alwāḥ; sing. lūḥ) were printed for distribution to students, presumably students in the government’s schools."
Nobody knows whether this really happened, and in what form were the sheets presumably distributed?
"The Qurʾān portions printed in 1833 were no doubt sold to the populace."
I doubt it.
"It appears that sometime late in 1857 a project to correct the impounded maṣāḥif (see muṣḥaf) was begun."
So now, they are the complete thing, not portions, parts, selections, but maṣāḥif!
And he goes on: "Distribution of the 1833 muṣḥaf no doubt suffered from ..."
So Albin is devoting page after page on an imagined muṣḥāf, that never existed, he oscilliats between some sheets, tablets, ajzāʾ and a complete muṣḥaf.
According to Albin the 1924 muṣḥaf is "known as "royal (amīriyya) edition”. Utter nonsense. Egyptians called it , مصحف 12 سطر or مصحف المساحة or مصحف الأميرية either by the (almost unique) number of lines per page, by the printer (the Survey of Egypt in Gizeh) or by the publisher (the Royal Press, al-maṭbaʿa al-amīriyya) ‒ not by the King ‒ why else would it have the feminin form?
Albin is able to top this:
He calls the guy who headed the committee that prepared the 1924 edition Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī l-Ḥusaynī, which is so wrong that the editors of the EQ wanted to preserve it, to show to the world that this article was written by a librarian, not an Arabist. (If Alī and al-Ḥ. were joined, the ī of Alī would be short Ali'l-Ḥ., but since it is really Aliyyun the names are not joined: the man is Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḫalaf al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī.)
"Many Qurʾāns printed elsewhere have been modeled on its ... printing conventions"
I know of two editions that used the same printing technique as the 1924 Gizeh print: Kabul 1352/1934, an edition largely ignored, and a line identical resetting with the Bulāq sorts in Hyderabad 1938 (each side opposite Pickthall's English translation in two volumes ‒ reprinted by the Islamic Call Society in the 1970s in one volume).
The committee "adopting the recitation conventions of Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim"
It is not a recitation convention marked by cantilation notes, but a transmission of a "reading".
And on the field of qiraʾa, the committee had nothing to decide, nothing to adopt. The riwāya in Egypt was (I guess for 400 years already) Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim.
"When the first printing (i.e. that of 1924) was sold out, the National Library of Egypt determined to bring out another edition. ... The 1924 edition remained the basis of subsequent editions in Egypt."
All wrong, the second printing (1925) added seals/rolls to the signitaries names, and added one word to the text about the edition, and the National Library had nothing to do with it, the Government Press in Būlāq (al-Amīriyya) did it.
In the next year, or a year later, they changed the spelling of ʾallan in 73:20 ‒ a spelling that was not kept in the big revision in 1952.
Albin confuses the small changes (in the back matter) of 1925 with the big revision in 1952.
Whereas the committee for 1924 was only one ʿālim plus three men from the state education sphere, men who could not contribute to the project, just symbolizing state involvement, the committee for 1952 were four ʿulamāʾ, headed ‒ as in 1924 ‒ by the (then) chief qāriʾ ʿAlī Muḥammad aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ (not Ḍibāʿ as far as I know). In 1952 there were about 900 changes (only three in the rasm).
Contrary to what Albin writes, the 1952 edition became the basis of subsequent edtions in Egypt (and later in the Mašriq).
And Albin invents an edition "called" so and so:
"The government issued an edition reviewed by the identical committee in 1936 called the Fārūq edition, after the Egyptian king, Fārūq (r. 1926‒52). The version was corrected by Shaykh Naṣr al-ʿAdlī, chief corrector at the government (amīriyya) press. In addition to the signatures of the five persons involved, the work bears the seal of the Shaykh al-Azhar."
((note the change from "royal" to "government press" for amīriyya!))
If he had consulted the 1936 print, he would have seen that it was not only made by the same men as in 1924, but that nothing had changed, not even the dedication to King Fuʾād!. Albin's (and Reynold's) "King Farūq Edition" is mere invention (as so many things in his article ‒ or at best hearsay.).
BTW, the private (re-)print of 1938 is not by Maktabat al-Šams al-Islāmiyya, as Albin writes, but by Maktabat al-Šarq al-Islāmiyya wa-Maṭbaʻatuhā, unless the librarians in Amsterdam and Jerusalem got it wrong.
LATER ADDITION
HSU CHENG-HSiANG writes in his Ph.D. THE FIRST THIRTY YEARS OF ARABIC PRINTING IN EGYPT, 1238-1267 (1822-1851) A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL STUDY WITH A CHECKLIST BY TITLE OF ARABIC PRINTED WORKS
Although there is no complete publication of the Qur'an, some parts of it may have been produced for study, for it was an important part of the curriculum in many of Muḥammad ʿAli's new schools. (p.146)Although it is difficult to prove that something is not the case, I think it very unlikely that the 1833 muṣḥaf existed.
Sunday, 7 February 2021
who wrote it? where was it printed?
If you can guess who wrote this
and/or have an idea where the muṣḥaf was printed,
please post a comment.
These posts might help.
Unlike Modern English Early Arabic had neither extra space between words, nor punctuation.
Therefore many sentences start with wa-, fa- (inna, lakina).
Just as many sentences end with waw+alif, many start with waw.
So not only because of the general rule "one letter particals are written as prefixes" (i.e. they are fixed to the <next> word), but because wa- often does not mean "and", but functions as a "full stop" or rather "full start" (i.e. end of sentence + start of sentence),
wa- CAN NOT stand at the end of a line.
When you see it ‒ like in the muṣḥaf shown above ‒, no Arab and no Ottoman had anything to do with it.
Only Farsi speakers (i.e. Iranian and Indians) make that mistake.
The muṣḥaf was produced in Qom.
Although written my Hafiz Osman, the lines you see, have nothing to do with him. They are the product of ignorant Iranians. ‒ Sorry to say so.
May they never again fiddle with print matter!
(in Arabic the wa- is connected to the next word, in Persian wa is a word of its own.)
and/or have an idea where the muṣḥaf was printed,
please post a comment.
These posts might help.
Unlike Modern English Early Arabic had neither extra space between words, nor punctuation.
Therefore many sentences start with wa-, fa- (inna, lakina).
Just as many sentences end with waw+alif, many start with waw.
So not only because of the general rule "one letter particals are written as prefixes" (i.e. they are fixed to the <next> word), but because wa- often does not mean "and", but functions as a "full stop" or rather "full start" (i.e. end of sentence + start of sentence),
wa- CAN NOT stand at the end of a line.
When you see it ‒ like in the muṣḥaf shown above ‒, no Arab and no Ottoman had anything to do with it.
Only Farsi speakers (i.e. Iranian and Indians) make that mistake.
The muṣḥaf was produced in Qom.
Although written my Hafiz Osman, the lines you see, have nothing to do with him. They are the product of ignorant Iranians. ‒ Sorry to say so.
May they never again fiddle with print matter!
(in Arabic the wa- is connected to the next word, in Persian wa is a word of its own.)
Sunday, 11 October 2020
Cairo + Surabaya
Islamology does not have a methodology of its own.
Gotthelf Bergsträßer was a philologist, a linguist,
but during his three months in Cairo 1929/30 he listened (and recorded)
recitation lessons by the best of Egypt's qurrāʾ ‒ he observed
listened, interviewed in the way of (musical) anthropologists.
And he interviewed the chief editor of the 1924 King Fuʾād Edition
and the chief editor of the (future) 1952 Edition.
The 19th century brought changes to the world of Islam by material change:
lithography, telegraph and steam ship changed the availability of maṣāḥif and news and the ease of making the haǧǧ. Now, there was a steady community of Šafiʿi scholars from the Malay world/archipelago in Mecca, and books in the Malay language (in Jawi script) were printed in Istambul, Mecca and Cairo.
For about twenty years I was looking for the muṣḥaf mentioned by G. Bergsträßer, that was printed in Cairo by Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī for al-Maktaba an-Nabhāniyya al-Kubrā of Sālim & Aḥmad ibn Saʿd an-Nabhān.
It looks like that the National & University Library of the Hanse City of Hamburg owns a copy ‒ helas without cover, title page or colophone. But they have a good copy of an enlarged edition made three years later (with a guarantee by the (Egyptian) Ministery of the Interior for its correctness).
For the first muṣḥaf printed in what is now Indonesia,
the one printed in Singapure for and written by Muḥammad al-Azharī,
resident of Palembang, South-East Sumatra, see Ali Akbars blog. Here is the colophon from the first edition
and the translation by Ian Proudfoot (Lithography at the Crossroads of the East p. 129)
and the colophon (from Ali Akbar):
Gotthelf Bergsträßer was a philologist, a linguist,
but during his three months in Cairo 1929/30 he listened (and recorded)
recitation lessons by the best of Egypt's qurrāʾ ‒ he observed
listened, interviewed in the way of (musical) anthropologists.
And he interviewed the chief editor of the 1924 King Fuʾād Edition
and the chief editor of the (future) 1952 Edition.
The 19th century brought changes to the world of Islam by material change:
lithography, telegraph and steam ship changed the availability of maṣāḥif and news and the ease of making the haǧǧ. Now, there was a steady community of Šafiʿi scholars from the Malay world/archipelago in Mecca, and books in the Malay language (in Jawi script) were printed in Istambul, Mecca and Cairo.
For about twenty years I was looking for the muṣḥaf mentioned by G. Bergsträßer, that was printed in Cairo by Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī for al-Maktaba an-Nabhāniyya al-Kubrā of Sālim & Aḥmad ibn Saʿd an-Nabhān.
It looks like that the National & University Library of the Hanse City of Hamburg owns a copy ‒ helas without cover, title page or colophone. But they have a good copy of an enlarged edition made three years later (with a guarantee by the (Egyptian) Ministery of the Interior for its correctness).
For the first muṣḥaf printed in what is now Indonesia,
the one printed in Singapure for and written by Muḥammad al-Azharī,
resident of Palembang, South-East Sumatra, see Ali Akbars blog. Here is the colophon from the first edition
and the translation by Ian Proudfoot (Lithography at the Crossroads of the East p. 129)
To begin with, this holy Quran was printed by lithographic press, that is to say on a stone press in the handwriting of the man of God Almighty, Haji Muhammad Azhari son of Kemas Haji Abdullah, resident of Pelambang, follower of the Shafi'i school, of the Ash'arite conviction [etc . ... ]. The person who executed this print is Ibrahim bin Husain, formerly of Sahab Nagur and now resident in Singapore, a pupil of Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi of Malacca. The printing was finished on Monday the twenty-first day of the month of Ramadan according to the sighting of the new moon at Palembang, in the year of the Prophet's Hijra - may God's blessings and peace be upon him - twelve hundred and sixty-four, 1264. This coincides with the twenty-first day of the month of August in the Christian year eighteen hundred and forty-eight, 1848, and the sixteenth day of the month of Misra in the Coptic year fifteen hundred and sixty-four, 1564 [etc ... ]. The number of Qur'ans printed was one hundred and five. The time taken to produce them was fifty days, or two Qurans and three sections per day. The place where the printing was done was the city of Pal em bang, in the neighbourhood of the Third Upstream Village, on the left bank, going upstream from the settlement of Demang Jayalaksana Muhammad N ajib, son of the deceased Demang Wiralaksana Abdul Khalik. May God the All-Holy and Allmighty bestow forgiveness on those have copied this, who have printed this, and who will read this, and upon their forebears and upon all Muslim men and women and their forebears.The cover of the second edition 1854 (from Proudfoot):
and the colophon (from Ali Akbar):
Sunday, 27 September 2020
Alger les débuts
In Algiers the print of maṣāḥif started only around 1900:
The most important print was made 1931 and 1937 (and probably in the years between ??): printed and printed again ... until 1970.
The most important print was made 1931 and 1937 (and probably in the years between ??): printed and printed again ... until 1970.
Saturday, 26 September 2020
Morocco before 1924
Bergsträßer saw the similarities between Warš editions and the Gizeh print.
Because he did not question al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād's assertion that "his" edition was a reconstruction based on the oral text and the literature about How to Write a Muṣḥaf, he assumed an immediate influence from Gizeh/Cairo to Fèz/Alger.
For me it was clear that it was the other way around.
But I had no proof.
I did not have an early print from the Maġrib (nor a Warš edition from Cairo from before 1920).
Finally, I can proof it. I have images from Faz prints from 1879,'81,'91, '92,'93,'94, '95,'99, 1900 and 1905.
The two oldes are in big format and still have red dots for hamza:
On the left the (presumably) first print by Ḥaǧǧ aṭ-Ṭaiyib al-Azraq 1879,
on the right the same text from Alger 1350/ 1931 (Maṭbaʿa aṯ-Ṯāʿlibiyya of Rūdūsī Quddūr ben Murād at-Turkī, likely ʿAbdal Qādir from Rhodes)
one from 1881: Later they are without colour and smaller:
Because he did not question al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād's assertion that "his" edition was a reconstruction based on the oral text and the literature about How to Write a Muṣḥaf, he assumed an immediate influence from Gizeh/Cairo to Fèz/Alger.
For me it was clear that it was the other way around.
But I had no proof.
I did not have an early print from the Maġrib (nor a Warš edition from Cairo from before 1920).
Finally, I can proof it. I have images from Faz prints from 1879,'81,'91, '92,'93,'94, '95,'99, 1900 and 1905.
The two oldes are in big format and still have red dots for hamza:
On the left the (presumably) first print by Ḥaǧǧ aṭ-Ṭaiyib al-Azraq 1879,
on the right the same text from Alger 1350/ 1931 (Maṭbaʿa aṯ-Ṯāʿlibiyya of Rūdūsī Quddūr ben Murād at-Turkī, likely ʿAbdal Qādir from Rhodes)
one from 1881: Later they are without colour and smaller:
Saturday, 8 August 2020
Kabul 1352 /1934
Gizeh 1924 is important because,
‒ with it Egypt by and large switched to the Maġribian rasm ‒ roughly Ibn Naǧāḥ,
‒ switched to the Maġribian way of writing long vowels, signalling muteness,
differenciating between three forms of tanwīn, but having one form of madd-sign only
‒ the afterword explained the principles of the edition
like in the Lucknow editions since the 1870s and the Muxalallātī lithographiy of 1890
‒ there was extra space between words and there were few ligatures,
base line oriented
‒ the text was type set, printed once; the print was adjusted before plates are made for offset printing.
The new orthography is quickly adopted by private Egyptian printers, in the mašriq only after 1980.
Šamarlī and the new ʿUṯmān Ṭāhā editions have almost no space between words,
while most newer Turkish maṣāḥif separte the words.
There is just one muṣḥaf that is type set and offset printed
‒ just like Gizeh 1924. It went largely unnoticed:
Kabul 1352/1934
Gizeh 1924 and Kabul 1934 side by side.






Sunday, 2 August 2020
Shortened Vowels
On four lines from al-Baqara and eight lines from Ṭaha I show if and how the KFE and IPak write vowel letters that are spoken short:
In the first two lines (and 5 + 6) ‒ both right and left ‒ yāʾ stands for /ā/ (dark pink),
in the third and fourth line only on the left there is a difference between /fī qulūbihi/ and /fĭ l-arḍi/ for /ī/ there is a ǧazm above yāʾ, for /ĭ/ there is no sign: the yāʾ is ignored.
In line 7 on the left ط above (4) forces a pause after the verse, so the two consonants at the beginning of the next verse do not shorten the /ā/ to /ă/ like the following /ʿală l-ʿarši/ as can be seen left and right: no small alif either side ((BTW left the short alif is a long vowel sign = turned fatḥa; on the right it would be converting sign = convert yāʾ to alif)).
In line 7 on the left ط above (4) forces a pause after the verse, so the two consonants at the beginning of the next verse do not shorten the /ā/ to /ă/ like the following /ʿală l-ʿarši/ as can be seen left and right: no small alif either side ((BTW left the short alif is a long vowel sign = turned fatḥa; on the right it would be converting sign = convert yāʾ to alif)).
In lines (7+) 8/ fī/ is shortened to /fĭ/ on the left (no ǧazm sign above yāʾ), on the right readers are supposed to know.
In line 9 (right 9 to 10) we see a difference: the KFE shortens the yāʾ/alif maqṣūra because two consonnant letters follow, IPak (on the left) has an obligatory pause (as shown by the hamza <no waṣl> on /allāh/), hence no shortening: a straight fatḥa just as twice in line 10 (lines 10 + 11 on the right).
The last three cases are fine on both sides. The /ī/s are long, because there are madda signs above, the /ă/ is short because there is no small alif (neither a converting sign on the right, nor a turned fatḥa on the left).
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