India 1870

In that year three editions were published of which the British Library has a copy:
one with the Arabic text, one with the Arabic text plus the Urdu translation of Shah ‘Abd al-Wahhāb Rafi ad-Din ad-Dihlawī (1749‒1818 completed in 1776), one of the sons of Shah Waliullah Dehlavi (1703‒1762).
one with the Persian translation (by his father?) as well.
First the "simple" one by مولوي محبوب ۤلي عبد الحفيظ محمد مخدوم
it has 1113 pages, and has features that occured often between Indonesia and Istanbul, but are not understood by many today.

above on the left margin هـ for (Kufī) 5
خب for Baṣrī 5 -- "Baṣrī" is mostly Baṣri, but can be Šāmi, Ḥimsī, Madanī
تب Baṣri pause
۵ Baṣri end of aya
ء a hint to the ruqūʿ ع sign on the right margin

لب Baṣri: no end of aya

on the left: (هـ) 5 or 15 or 25 ...
خب Baṣrī 10 (or 20 or 30 ...)
on the right: these signs refer to text on the right margin and to the rukūʿ sign
last on the right: turned what is written above ۵ لا "šāmī aya": end of verse in the system of Damascus
on the bottom left: 10, 20, 30

تب Baṣrī end of Aya
عب Baṣrī tener
هـ fiver
خب Baṣrī fiver

عب Baṣrī ten
note sign

the first two sign refer to marginal text
5er
Baṣrī tener, no pause

Next the bilingual version printed in Kanpur (in Oudh/Awadh):

here pages from the threelingual version

India 1868

This Arabic only muṣḥaf was the cheapest printed so far: 1 1/2 Rs. the price of 30 ser of split lentils or 24 ser of milk according to Ulrike Stark, The Empire of books. p.68f.
1 ser = 870 gr = 28 oz

India 1879

Again with the translation by Shah ‘Abd al-Wahhāb Rafi ad-Din ad-Dihlawī (1749‒1818) completed in 1776:

India 1867

a smaller format, published in Lucknow:

India 1866

1866 brings us two excellent specimen, one with two translations plus tafsīr,

one without translation ‒ just explanations on the margins; its design connects between Culcutta 1838 and the later Naval Kishore Press (NKP) maṣāḥif.

orthography again

These last days, I posted again after a break. Orthography or more to the point: the latitude with ortho­graphy is my inter­est.

first half a line from the 15 liner (611 pages), twice Taj Ltd Com. first from the 1960s, than from this millenium, and last from the King Fahd Com­plex; Taj just deleted the hamza sign and moved the fatha on the alif, "Medina" moved the parts of one word closer together.
Now the same verse in the 13 liner (848 pages): top with a hamza sign (aka head of ʿain) and a mute alif, later without a head of ʿain and a fatha on the hamza letter (aka alif); this later version is often pirated.

BTW in 19th century maṣāḥif tabūʾa always has a hamza sign sometimes followed by alif:

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India 1840

In 1840 a lithography, a muṣḥaf with a translation was published in Lucknow with the title سب تعريف واسطى الله كي ثابت هي كه پالنی والا عالمونكا
759 pages

India 1837

The next years saw more typographical masahif, and the first printed in the principality of Avdadh/Oudh: in Kanpur.

That's the part that interests me, the Arabic part. But the readers/buyers were most intrested in the Persian part, or let's say in the whole page:

India 1831

The first qurʾān prints were made in the Calcutta area ‒ Hugli/Hooghli and Serampore lay a bit north, are part of the metropolitan area.
In 1831 a fine Arabic muṣḥaf was printed, good type, quality paper, and unlike the earlier and most later prints without (Persian/Urdu) translation nor commentary:

after the first pages, the last two:






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Shiraz 1830

lithography British Library

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India 1829-1880

For hundreds of years German Orientalists, German Islamologists ignored South Asian and Malay Islam ‒ even the Maghrib lay outside their interest.
Many German Islamologists had never seen an Indian, Indonesian, or Moroccan muṣ­ḥaf. When they wrote about Indian prints, they relied on lists made by Chau­vin (Bobzin) or claimed to have seen books in a library that has no such books (R. Schulze, Bonn univer­sity library).
The only early Indian maṣāḥif I had seen, were copies given by the great publisher Munshi Naval Kishore to Oxford Univer­sity Library and scanned by Google ‒ in the wrong order.
Now there are hundreds of early Indian prints held by the British Libray and scanned by Gale avail­able.
So here are some of these holdings.

this is the beginning of the qurʾān taken from a 1829 print with translation and commentary by Shah ʿAbdul Qadir, a younger son of Shah Waliullah Dihlavi called Mūẓiḥ al-Qurʾān

A Calcutta print of 1256/1840 is remarably similar:

from Sahib Alam (Egypt, Qatar)

Before I will show more early prints from India, let me give the global picture.
At the time maṣā­ḥif were printed in Kazan and Persia (Tehran 1829, Shiraz 1830 Tebriz 1832) ‒ see the next post
In Istanbul there were officially prints from 1875 on;
from Cairo we have prints from that period, a bit later (1879,'81,'91, '92,'93,'94, '95,'99, 1900 and 1905)
from Faz.



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