7:137 ‒ the main change from al-Ḥaddād to aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ

I don't get tired of repeating: al-Ḥaddād copied many thinks from a Faz print.
allah without written /ā/ is most striking.

كلمة in 7:137 is remark­able too. ad-Ḍabbāʿ writes ت; the Libyian muṣḥaf has ت, but all Warš copies and the two Tunisian Qālūn maṣā­ḥif have ـة. I don't see a com­pelling reason for the 1952 change. ad-Dānī does not mention the Kufan muṣḥaf, the one ʿĀṣim follows.

You might say: "These are just 17 manuscripts, probably there are 17 others with tāʾ." I looked at the manuscripts, in which Marijn van Putten found niʿmah and niʿmat, raḥmah and raḥmat in iḍāfah/status constructus, and I found only one form.
Compare this to 52:29

Only two later mss. have ـة and one of them adds the ‌ـت spelling for good measure. Okay, ad-Dānī says: "-t", and Ibn Naǧāḥ: "-h"

So it should be "-h" =

aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ's reason is this:

(السَّادِسُ) مَعْصِيتِ الرَّسُولِ فِي الْمَوْضِعَيْنِ مِنَ الْمُجَادِلَةِ، وَغَيْرِ الْمُكَرَّرِ سَبْعَةٌ، وَهِيَ " كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ الْحُسْنَى " فِي الْأَعْرَافِ وَ " بَقِيَّتُ اللَّهِ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ " فِي هُودٍ وَ قُرَّتُ عَيْنٍ " فِي الْقَصَصِ وَ " فِطْرَتَ اللَّهِ " فِي الرُّومِ وَ " شَجَرَتُ الزَّقُّومِ " فِي الدُّخَانِ وَ " جَنَّتُ نَعِيمٍ " فِي الْوَاقِعَةِ وَ " ابْنَتَ عِمْرَانَ " فِي التَّحْرِيمِ. فَوَقَفَ عَلَى هَذِهِ الْمَوَاضِعِ بِالْهَاءِ خِلَافًا لِلرَّسْمِ ابْنُ كَثِيرٍ وَأَبُو عَمْرٍو وَالْكِسَائِيُّ وَيَعْقُوبُ، هَذَا هُوَ الَّذِي قَرَأْنَا بِهِ وَنَأْخُذُ بِهِ، وَهُوَ مُقْتَضَى نُصُوصِهِمْ، وَنُصُوصِ أَئِمَّتِنَا الْمُحَقِّقِينَ عَنْهُمْ وَقِيَاسُ مَا ثَبَتَ نَصًّا عَنْهُمْ وَإِنْ كَانَ أَكْثَرُ الْمُؤَلِّفِينَ لَمْ يَتَعَرَّضُوا لِذَلِكَ فَيَقْتَضِي عَدَمُ ذِكْرِهِمْ لَهُ وَالْكَثِيرُ مِنْ هَذَا الْبَابِ أَنْ تَكُونَ الْجَمَاعَةُ كُلُّهُمْ فِيهِ عَلَى الرَّسْمِ فَلَا يَكُونُ فِيهِ خِلَافُ الْوَقْفِ عَلَيْهِ بِالتَّاءِ. فَإِنَّ مَنْ حَفِظَ حُجَّةٌ عَلَى مَنْ لَمْ يَحْفَظْ وَغَايَةُ مَنْ لَمْ يَذْكُرْ ذَلِكَ السُّكُوتُ، وَلَا حُجَّةَ فِيهِ، وَفِي الْكَافِي الْوَقْفُ فِي ذَلِكَ بِالْهَاءِ لِأَبِي عَمْرٍو وَالْكِسَائِيِّ، وَفِي الْهِدَايَةِ لِلْكِسَائِيِّ وَحْدَهُ، وَفِي الْكَنْزِ لِابْنِ كَثِيرٍ وَأَبِي عَمْرٍو وَالْكِسَائِيِّ، فَلَمْ يَذْكُرْ يَعْقُوبَ.

وَالْقِسْمُ الَّذِي قُرِئَ بِالْإِفْرَادِ وَبِالْجَمْعِ ثَمَانِيَةُ أَحْرُفٍ، وَهِيَ " كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ " فِي الْأَنْعَامِ " وَتَمَّتْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ صِدْقًا "، وَفِي يُونُسَ " وَكَذَلِكَ حَقَّتْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ "، وَ " إِنَّ الَّذِينَ حَقَّتْ عَلَيْهِمْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ "، وَفِي غَافِرٍ " وَكَذَلِكَ حَقَّتْ كَلِمَتُ رَبِّكَ "، وَ " آيَاتٌ لِلسَّائِلِينَ " فِي يُوسُفَ وَ " فِي غَيَابَتِ الْجُبِّ " فِي الْمَوْضِعَيْنِ مِنْ يُوسُفَ وَ " آيَاتٌ مِنْ رَبِّهِ " فِي الْعَنْكَبُوتِ وَفِي الْفُرْقَانِ " آمِنُونَ "، وَفِي سَبَأٍ وَ " عَلَى بَيِّنَتٍ مِنْهُ " فِي فَاطِرٍ " وَمَا تَخْرُجُ مِنْ ثَمَرَاتٍ " فِي فُصِّلَتْ وَ " جِمَالَتٌ " فِي الْمُرْسَلَاتِ. فَمَنْ

(Sixth): maʿṣiyat ar‑rasūl (“disobedience to the Messenger”) in the two places in al‑Mujādilah (58:8, 58:20).
And the non‑repeated items are seven, namely:
- “kalimatu rabbika al‑ḥusnā” in al‑Aʿrāf ,
- “baqiyyatu llāhi khayrun lakum” in Hūd ,
- “qurratu ʿayn” in al‑Qaṣaṣ ,
- “fiṭratu llāh” in al‑Rūm ,
- “shajarat az‑zaqqūm” in ad‑Dukhān ,
- “jannatu naʿīm” in al‑Wāqiʿah ,
- “ibnat ʿImrān” in at‑Taḥrīm .

At these places, the stop (waqf) is made with hāʾ , contrary to the rasm , by Ibn Kathīr, Abū ʿAmr, al‑Kisāʾī, and Yaʿqūb.
This is what we have read and what we adopt, and it is required by their transmitted texts, and by the texts of our verifying imams from them, and by analogy with what is explicitly established from them — even though most authors did not address this, and their silence implies nothing.

And much of this chapter is of the type where the entire group follows the rasm , so there is no disagreement regarding stopping on it with tā.
For the one who has preserved (the transmission) is a proof against the one who has not , and the utmost that can be said about those who did not mention it is that they remained silent — and silence is no proof.

In al‑Kāfī , the stop with hāʾ is reported for Abū ʿAmr and al‑Kisāʾī.
In al‑Hidāyah , it is reported for al‑Kisāʾī alone.
In al‑Kanz , it is reported for Ibn Kathīr, Abū ʿAmr, and al‑Kisāʾī, and Yaʿqūb is not mentioned.


about words read both in singular and plural
The category that is read both in the singular and in the plural consists of eight words, namely:
“kalimatu rabbika” in al‑An‘ām: “And the word of your Lord was fulfilled in truth.”
And in Yūnus: “And thus the word of your Lord was fulfilled,” and: “Indeed, those upon whom the word of your Lord has been fulfilled.”
And in Ghāfir: “And thus the word of your Lord was fulfilled.”
And “āyātun li‑s‑sā’ilīn” in Yūsuf.
And “fī ghayābat al‑jubb” in the two places in Yūsuf.
And “āyātun min rabbihī” in al‑‘Ankabūt.
And “āminūn” in al‑Furqān and in Saba’.
And “ʿalā bayyinatin minhu” in Fāṭir.
And “wa‑mā takhruju min thamarātin” in Fuṣṣilat.
And “jimālatun” in al‑Mursalāt.


In view of the old manuscripts I say: al-Ḥaddād is right, and aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ is wrong.
And I am not astonished seeing that in all Warš maṣāḥif only the one with his seal of approval (left middle, with the verse number) writes /waliyyiya/ (7:196) with a nor­mal tooth (with the normal stroke instead with a straight stroke after­wards) for the gem­minated yāʾ: only the Algerian print super­vised by the chief reciter of Egypt does not "know" that it does not belong to the rasm.

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mistake made, mistake copied

In 1924 the King Fuʾād Edition mis­placed both hamza signs and mu­tat­ing small alifs (daggers) after the yāʾ-tooth – something that was not done in the West or in the East.
But now "everybody" copies the mistake, even Merkaz Ṭabʿ-o Našr and MSI without acknowledging their borrow­ings from Medina.:

BTW, in the data stream of (most, all ?) institutions both hamza sign and mu­tat­ing small alif sit on the tooth (there is no kašī­da/ tat­wīl in the files), but the King Fahd Complex inserts space in their special Ḥafṣ KFGQPC font. The image on the left shows the same text in two dif­ferent fonts: Ḥafṣ and Warš, the former moves the hamza-sign to the left.

Some rules are so obvious and internalized that they only catch your eye when broken. In writing, the rule dictates that a tooth/nabrah can never stand bare: a tooth without a dot (or dots), with­out a dagger alif, or without a hamzah sign (the miniature ʿayn head) just doesn't exist.
Just because the KFE and UT misplace the mutating alif after the y-tooth, the Markaz TabʿoNašr does it too. Although not a strong argument against I show both old manuscripts and "the Šamarlī" and the MSI not partaking in the crime.

Qaṭarī Warš

In Algeria there are state near editions of Warš (like 2026 the one for the Parisian Mosque "Coran du Cen­ten­aire" calligraphed by Mohammed Ben Saïd Chérifi), others by members of a bro­ther­hood, especial­ly by/for the Tiǧanīya and the Šaḏi­līya. In Qaṭar the latter one was reprinted.

Surat YāSīn

yet another mistake in KFE1924

The maker of the 1924 Cairo edition evidently did not understand the function of the mutating small alif: it is not a vowel sign but turns yāʾ or wāw into alif — in other words, a letter that looks like a yāʾ is an alif (alif bi‑šakl al‑yāʾ). In early Warš prints the mutat­ing alif is correct­ly placed above the yāʾ; the Cairo edition, by con­trast, places the sign some­times correct­ly some­times not.
top: Warš prints; second: KFE; third UT0; fourth: Muṣḥaf al-Muʿal­lim, Tunis; 5^th Taj
It should sit above yāʾ, not after it. In Moroc­co this is always the case, in KFE it is some­times like it should be, some­times not.
Mikāl is dif­ferent from the others, be­cause Warš and Qālun (Tunis) have /mi­kāʾil/. While here there is a hover­ing sign and a tooth/نبرة/let­ter, in the other cases there is just one letter. What KFE and UT are doing is just wrong: they often have use­less tooth/نبرة !
This is the same scribal incon­sis­ten­cy, likely due to care­less­ness, that Otto Pretzl had already noticed.
I have added a last row in IPak. Here the dagger is neither a small alif, nor a mutat­ing sign, but a ā-vowel sign; it belongs to the con­sonant; the tooth/nabra is mute.
So, it is not only Abū ʿUmar ʿUbaidah Muḥam­mad Saliḥ al-Banki who does not care, KFE and UT are not perfect either.

Here the last words from KHO, MNQ and Arya­mehr. Yes, Otto­mans write the yāʾ with its dots even when it stands for /ā/, yes, Persians put the marks somewhere (in the right order, but whereever).
not convined yet?
Below is more to see: Algerian Warš: the mutat­ing small alif ON the tooth, KFC/UT Warš comme si, comme ça, UT-Ḥafṣ just bad:

/ṣalāt/ is not the problem, nor is /abnē/ UT-Warš – with them I just show that with wau and with end-yāʾ even UT places the mutating alif proper­ly: /mikaʾil/ has the /ī/ after the tooth – why?;
the rest shows that KFC/UT (and KFE before) write with­out thinking first; they have no idea were the mu­tat­ing small alif should be placed.

Here you see that the KFA was not con­sis­tent: the first row (all from al-baqara) shows properly placed mu­ta­ting alifs. In the second row the dagger have been placed on the left. On the yellowish back­ground you see that ʿUṯmān Ṭaha ori­ginal­ly copied the KFE faith­fully, on the white back­ground, you see that the King Fahd Com­plex in­structed him to place all mu­ta­ting alifs wrongly, see: /fa‑sawwāhunna/.
top rows (on brown: Mu­ḫal­la­lā­tī 1890) and last rows (La­hore 1935) show the Asian system: the dagger is a vowel sign!
Two more pictures from the end of the same sura. First you see the same pattern. UT0 is a true copy of the KFE, but later UT moved the dagger to the left: In the other hand, in 2:282 already the young UT moved the dagger to the left: BTW, the rasm expert Nº, a professor in Madina, someone who looks not so much at the very old Hiǧāzī mss. (as van Putten and I do), but at the same Kūfī mss. ad-Dānī (and the scholars after him) refer(s) to, wrote me that the mutating dagger should be placed on the nabra.

















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2:72

I have shown that the King Fahd Complex has changed the text of the KFE.
As I can't find a single word of explanation from Madina, I will show the different ways of writing /fādāraʾtum/:
both Ḥafez Osmān the Elder (right, top) and the Moroccans (on the left I show the oldest Fès-print 1296/1879; context first, below just the word) write an alif: for Asians it is hamza (the sukūn above says: I am not mute, do pronounce my consonantal value /ʾ/!); for the Africans it carries hamza represented by a red point.
On the right the second (Muṣṭafà Naẓīf Qadarġalī) and the third (al-Muḫallalātī) have hovering hamza sign (without seat, but not on the base line)
The KFE (middle next to its exact copy by UT) puts the hamza sign on the baseline. Hence ʿUṯmān Ṭaha does the same (fourth on the right).
Unlike the Indians (left of KFE) who have a seatless hamza sign like the KFE, both Tunis (first Hanibal, then BenʿAlī) and Tripoli (left, last) have in their Qālūn maṣāḥif a hamza sign on an dagger-alif,
exactly what the KFC did when changing UT0 into UT1.

At the bottom I show other quotes from Qālūn maṣāḥif: while Qaḏḏāfī (third line) often has an alif (following ad-Dānī), the Tunisians (following Ibn Naǧāḥ) have hamza on a dagger.

Do any of the authorities recommand to put the hamza on a dagger?

No, its is an innovation made by KFC.

a counterfactual history ...

... of Qurʾānic printing.
The revisted KFEII (1952: 827 typeset pages, 12 lines) pro­vided the text (Q52) for three fully ber­Kenar maṣā­ḥif that is, each page begins with a new verse and ends with a verse, with no verse carried across a page break.

One realization was the 1383/1963 Cairo muṣ­ḥaf, a 486‑page edition set in 16 lines, com­plete­ly re‑flowed and strict­ly base­line‑oriented (Cairo: Ǧaʿfar Muḥam­mad Muṣ­ṭafà 1383/1963).

A second written by Šukrī Ḥaršu aš-Ṣīšānī for Ibn Katheer in Damascus: 17 lines on 486 pages (as well). The "winner" was the 1399/1979 Damascus muṣḥaf, the 604‑page handwritten edition by ʿUṯmān Ṭaha in an extremely linear calligraphic style.

Had the 1963 Cairo edition received broader attention — and had the Madi­na/KFC project adopted its dis­ciplined, fully berKenar page archi­tec­ture — it could realisti­cally have become the "stan­dard" UT is today.
In this counterfactual history, the development of Qurʾānic print­ing would have followed the 1963 model: a modern, base­line‑ori­ented ber­Kenar lay­out derived from the 1952 KFAII type, rather than the hand­written 604‑page form that ultima­tely prevailed.





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Lucknow 1890

The first images of a muṣḥaf by Naval Kishore came from Oxford: black and white, wrong order and low resolution. It made be happy.
Now I found a muṣḥaf by him from 1890 in Heidelberg with the opposite problem: too high resolution, as you can see here:




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