UT0 UT1 UT2 UT3

It is common knowledge that the King Fuʾād Edition of the Ḥafṣ qirāʾa was an immediate success in the Muslim world. Common knowledge, but not true. Orien­t­alists bought it, but hardly an Egyp­tian because with almost 850 big pages it is too bulky ‒ they pre­fered the edition written by Muṣṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġalī on 522 pages. Because the govern­ment pushed the new ortho­graphy, adapta­tions of the old muṣḥaf with 15 lines on 522 pages but with the new ortho­graphy were published.
Later Aḥmad Šamarlī paid Muḥammad Saʿd Ibrāhīm al-Ḥaddād to copy the MNQ line by line but in the new ortho­graphy and had it printed in dif­ferent sizes and with different covers.
In 1976 the Govern­ment produced a type set muṣḥaf on 525 pages. So, althought the King Fuʾād Edition was not a best­seller, its ortho­graphy was estab­lished in Egypt within sixty years.
But for the Andalu­sian ortho­graphy of Ḥafṣ to con­quer the Arab world, the genius of a scribe and some oil money were needed. ʿUṯmān Ṭaha had learned calli­graphy in Aleppo and Istan­bul, were Hamid Aytaç / Ḥāmid al-Āmidī taught him. In Damascus he met Hāšim Muḥammad al-Ḫaṭṭāt al-Baġdādī.
He works precisely, not artistically, he follows the lead of the KFE by using stacked forms (earlier letters above later ones) only if and when the vowel signs can be places exactly above or below its seat, and each letter being always the same ‒ swash forms of rāʾ, zai, kāf, elon­gated nūn and end yāʾ being the exception.
He copied the qurʾānic text (not the taʿrīf) of the KFE of 1952 (i.e. the Moroccan text of al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī with the modi­fica­tions (esp. pause signs) by ʿAlī Muḥammad aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ) with even less stacked forms on 604 pages as made common by Haǧǧ Ḥāfiẓ ʿUṯmān Ḫalīfa QayišZāde an-Nūrī al-Bur­durī (d. 1894) (each ǧuz ‒ except the last because of the many sura title boxes ‒ on twenty pages, all verses ending in the bottom left corner includ­ing 2:282) ‒ this tem­plate is called ber kenar/one edge in Turkish and maḫtūm in Arabic.

الدار الشامية للمعارف بالإشتراك مع مكتبة دار الملاح, دمشق ١٣٩٩ ١٩٧٩,
ad-Dār aš-Šāmiyya lil-Maʻārif bi-al-ishtirāk maʻa Maktabah Dār al-Mallāḥ, Dimašq, 1399/1979
ad-Dār aš-Šamiyya li'l-maʿarif bi-Dimašq, Dimašq 2-1983

Although his manu­script got several seals of being with­out mis­takes (see above), it had five minor mis­takes; apart from them it is a faith­ful repro­duction of the KFE of 1952 with all its features (notab­ly pause signs).
I call all versions that have one to five of these mis­takes "ʿŪṯmān Ṭaha 0" (UT0) to mark the dif­ference to the Madina prints in which these mis­takes are corrected. As Muḥammad Hozien has pointed out, there are three dif­ferent styles printed by the KFC. I call them UT1, UT2 and UT3

But first UT0, the versions with scribal errors. On page 11 there is no error. I include it only because UT0 follows the KFE, but Madina (KFC) changes the writing: putting the hamza on a small alif a practice common in Tunisian manus­cripts and prints of Qālūn.

on the next page a fatha WAS missing, the editor added it above the mīm; it is dif­ferent from the ones written by UT himself:

on the next page we have هٰذان instead of هٰذٰن :

here a sukūn/ǧazm is missing on a final he

but this was not a mistake by UT, but one of the changes by the KFC in Madina (like in 2:72, and 88:22)

here at the end of the second but last line there is a lazim sign (م) that shoudn't be there

The Istanbul Çağrı publisher publishes many translations with UT0 next to the translation, till today with only one of the mistakes corrected.

on the bottom of the next page the missing sukūn was added:

Here the big alif is replace by a dagger, but one sees the larger than necessry space.

Shortened Vowels

In the qurʾān there are thousands of vowels pro­nounced short, although written as long.
The most common words are انا۠ /ʾana/ (zero above alif = mute unless pause directly after) and أُوْلَٰٓئِكَ /ulaika/ (circle above waw = always mute)
‒ according to the now common Arab Qurʾānic ortho­graphy intro­duced Giza1924.
‒ In IndoPak they have no vowel sign at all;
   in Turkey qaṣr is written beneath them
The most common rule is:
when the last sound of a word is a long vowel
and the first sound of the next word ‒ after a silent alif or direct ‒
is an unvowelled consonant (ḥarf sākin), this consonant trans­forms the syllable before to a closed one --> shortens the vowel.
‒ The ḥarf sākin can be a single letter or the first of geminized ones (a pair, double, taṣdīd).

And there are some words shortened because of rhyme,
e.g. in Surah Al-Ahzab (33) and Surah Al-Insan (76)

In these suras most verses end in /a/,
the few verses ending in ا get shortened:

[٠٣٣] الأحزاب

٠١٠إِذۡ جَآءُوكُم مِّن فَوۡقِكُمۡ وَمِنۡ أَسۡفَلَ مِنكُمۡ وَإِذۡ زَاغَتِ ٱلۡأَبۡصَٰرُ وَبَلَغَتِ ٱلۡقُلُوبُ ٱلۡحَنَاجِرَ وَتَظُنُّونَ بِٱللَّهِ ٱلظُّنُونَا۠

٠٦٦ يَوۡمَ تُقَلَّبُ وُجُوهُهُمۡ فِی ٱلنَّارِ يَقُولُونَ يَٰلَيۡتَنَآ أَطَعۡنَا ٱللَّهَ وَأَطَعۡنَا ٱلرَّسُولَا۠

٠٦٧وَقَالُوا۟ رَبَّنَآ إِنَّآ أَطَعۡنَا سَادَتَنَا وَكُبَرَآءَنَا فَأَضَلُّونَا ٱلسَّبِيلَا۠

and 76:15 وَيُطَافُ عَلَيۡهِم بِـَٔانِيَةٖ مِّن فِضَّةٖ وَأَكۡوَابٖ كَانَتۡ قَوَارِيرَا۠

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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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