early Malay world, Singapore II

In Cairo + Surabya I refer to Ali Akbars blog on the first printed muṣḥaf in Nusan­tara. Among his pictures are the opening pages

In recent posts he shows Singapore prints from 1868 and 1969 with hand colored opening pages.

He shows and quotes the Kolo­phones

Qad tammat hāḏihi [sic] al-Qur’ān al-‘azīm fī 1 min šahri Šawwāl hiǧūrat an-Nabī salla Allāhu ‘alaihi wa sallam sanat 1284 ‘alā yadi al-faqīr ad-da‘īf ilā maulāhu al-ġaniyy Haǧǧ Muḥammad bin al-mar­hūm Sulaimān Sumbāwī ma‘a sāhib al-Qur’ān aš-Šaiḫ Muhammad ‘Alī bin Muṣṭafā ... Ǧawa Pur­ba­lingga qaryat makan c-h-y-a-n ṭubi‘a fī Bandar Singapura qudum Masǧid Sulṭān ‘Alī bin Maulānā as-Sul­ṭān Ḥusain Iskandar ġafara Allāhu lahum al-ḫatā’ wa-an-nišān wa li-wālidaihim wa-li-ǧamī‘i al-muslimīn. Āmīn yā Rabb al-‘ālamīn, la‘alla ... al-Qur’ān fa-yazīdukum man qara’ahā, tammat, wallāhu a‘lam bi's-sawāb.

Qad hasala al-firāġ min tahrīri hāḏā al-Qur’ān al-Maǧīd bi-fadlillāhi al-Qādir bi-yadi aqalli al-kuttāb Muḥammad Ḥanafi bin as-Sulaimān as-Sumbāwī fī awā’il aš-wahr min Ša‘bān fī yaum al-Iṯnain al-mubārak fī hilāl s-l-s sanat 1286 sitt wa-samānīn wa-mi’atain ba‘da 'l-alif min hiǧrat al-mu­qaddasa an-nabawiyya liš-Šaiḫ Muḥammad ‘Alī bin al-Marhūm al-Muṣṭafā min bilād Purba­linqa (f-r-b-l-n-q-a) fī qaryat as-Sirr an-Nūr wa natba‘ [?] fī maṭba‘at al-Amān fī bilād as-Sinqāpūr fī'z-zamān ad-daulat as-Sulṭān ‘Alī bin al-Marhūm as-Sultān Husain Iskandar Šāh ġafarallāhu lī wa lakum wa li-sāhibi at-tab‘i al-iḫwān al-maṯāni' min al-mus­limīn wal-mu’minīn aǧma’īn. Āmīn.
And here is another Ali Akbar, discovered in the State Library of Victoria

As the first and last leaves are missing, we can not be sure, when it was printed. A.A. thinks it was Muḥammad Saliḥ bin Surdin ar-Rambanī (from Central Java), in 1970-71.

LXXI ‒ Marijn van Putten

On the basis of some of the oldest manuscripts Marijn van Putten publishes a muṣḥaf that comes as close as possible to the ʿUṯmānic rasm ‒ not to be confused with the «ʿUṯmānic rasm», that is 300 years younger: de­viced by ad-Dānī.
I compare it with the common Maġri­bian/Anda­lusian/Egyp­tian rasm (in an edi­tion from Brunai) and the Indian one (in edition with 848 pages with 13 lines written by Ḫalīq (al-)Asadī):

Now, that you have seen what "good" edi­tions have made out of the old text, here the same from two "bad" edi­tions: Otto­man from 300 years ago (next to the old text), and Tur­kish from this cen­tury:

I prefer the "Indian" editions, but even Turkish (and Persian) editions are fine.

a map of Zamalek, Gizeh, Bulaq

My first post on the 1924/5 King Fuʾād Edition included a map of Cairo 1920, on which I had marked the Amīriyya Press and the Land Registry (Egyptian Survey Authority) with arrows in the Nile, as well as Midan Tahrir and the place where the govern­ment printing press is located since 1972. Also the Ministry of Edu­ca­tion and the Nāṣi­rīya Peda­go­gi­cal College, where three of the editors worked. The area bet­ween Bab al-Luq (in the south-east) and Taufiqia (north of the main railway station) is called Isma­ilia: the area bet­ween the Nile and al-Qāhira (proper) was built up (copying Baron Haus­mann's Paris) under Ismail Pascha (1863‒1879 Wali/Go­ver­nor; in 1867 the Sublime Port recogni­zed the title of "Khedive" for him and his suc­cessors); today simply: Down­town.
Everything to the right of the Nile plus the islands is Cairo, everything to the left (Imbaba, Doqqi, Giza) not only does not belong to the city of Cairo, but is in another province.

The two Arabic texts are the 1924 and 1952 printer's notes, both from the copies in the Prus­sian State Library, which owns copies from five editions.
Important: the typesetting workshop and the offset work­shop were well connected by car, tram and boat. The assembled pages did not have a long way to go. Nevertheless: typesetting the text in Būlāq, making a rough proof (Bürstenabzug), making adjustments on the proof (like placing kasra withIN the tails of end-ḥāʾ/ǧīm/ḫāʾ and end-ʿain/ġain, sometimes reducing the space before kāf and after rāʾ/zain and waw); transporting the adjusted proofs to Giza, making plates, printing; transporting the bodies of the book to Būlāq where it was bound and embossed, took more time than planned: Although printed "1342" in the book (see top insert on the map) it was 1343 by the time the books were ready. So the first edition was embossed:

riʾāʾa ‒ sometimes like this; sometimes like that

Already Otto Pretzl had noticed that in Gizeh1924 riʾāʾa was not written the same at the three places it occurs ‒ without the authorities pre­scrib­ing that.
Iranians and UT2-KFC have the first hamza always after the tooth.
Muṣḥaf al-Azhar aš-Šarīf (Cairo 1978‒1986?) has it always on the tooth:

The others have it sometimes on, sometimes after the tooth.
In 2:264 it is normally on the tooth, except UT2-KFC and Iran.
In 4:38 it is normally after the tooth, except Taj-KFC ‒ probably changed in the next edition (1440h. it is still on the tooth).
In 8:47 all have it after the tooth except Muṣḥaf al-Azhar aš-Šarīf.

aš-šaiḫ al-maqāriʾ

Just as the KFE of 1924 was prepared by the šaiḫ al-maqāriʾ, the New KFE of 1952 was pre­pared by the chief reader of Egypt. But because it was a genera­tion later, it is not al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī (d. 22.1. 1939) anymore, but ʿAlī Muḥammad aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ(1304/1886-1380/1960).
Unlike before 1924, when al-Ḥaddād was the only ʿālim who signed the explanations after the qurʾānic text (which means that there wasn't really a committee: the other three stood just for the involve­ment of the Ministry of Educa­tion; they didn't know enough of the Qurʾān to help al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī), aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ was assisted by ʿulamā'; it was not an Azhār-committee, but one of Azhari­tes, created by the Govern­ment Press adviced by the šaiḫ al-Azhar.
They ordered only three changes in the rasm, one gra­phical nicety,
114 changes in the sura title boxes, forty or so changes at the end of suras with un­voyelled con­sonants (mostly tanwin) and the beginning of the next (with is now the basmala ‒ unlike 1924 when the first word of the next sura was assumed to follow directly the last one of the pre­ceding sura),
and about 800 changed pauses.

1952 (left) like 1924 (right):

... and it was never reprinted. And hardly any Egyptian bought it.

It sold so badly that five year later Gotthelf Berg­sträßer still could buy copies of the first print both for him­self and for the Bavarian National Library.
Strange that the experts write again and again of THE King Fuʾād Edition,
al­though there are many, differ­ent ones ‒ differ­ent not only in size and bind­ing, but in content.
The first one ‒ lets called it KFE I was printed in Giza because only the Egyp­tian Survey could make offset prints ‒ they had expe­rience in the tech­nique because they pro­duced colour maps.
The second one ‒ KFE Ib ‒ was produced in Būlāq, since the Govern­ment Press had aquired offset presses.

Like KFE I ...

... kfe Ib was stamped after bind­ing because the year of pub­lica­tion giv­ing in the book could not be met, so a stamp indi­cat­ing the next year was put on the bound copy.

There are changes on two pages ‒ both times: right the Giza print, left the first Būlāq print:

At least as important as seals/stamps instead of signa­tures is an added word.

Because there were no gaps between sorts as was typical in Būlāq prints, readers had assumed hand­written pages. The word "model" made clear that al-Ḥusai­nī al-Ḥaddād al-Mālikī had "only" written a copy for the type setters.
In the third edition ‒ kfe Ic ‒ one more page was changed: the first page afer the qurʾānic text:

In the fourth edition ‒ kfe Id ‒ one more page was changed, the only change IN the qurʾānic text before 1952 (in the first line a (silent) nūn was added):

Sorry, here the Gizeh print is on the left.
Note, that the the second edition, printed in Bulaq is smaller, but largely due to smaller margins.
After 1952, for many years there will be two editions:
‒ a bigger one with seven pages on differences between the edition of 1924/5 and the present one (starting 1952) and with all these changes (almost a thousand) being implemented
‒ a smaller one without this information ‒ and with only a small part of the changes made (on the plate of kfe Ib) .

Note that the fourth edition is not printed in Gīza (as the fist), not in Būlāq (as the second), but "in Miṣr" ‒ later yet it will be "in al-Qāhira".
Let's resume:
all KFEs were Amīriyya editions,
the first one was printed 1924 in Giza
from 1925 to 1972 they were printed in Būlāq
but a 1961 print was made in Darb al-Gamāmīz
whether by a private printer or a second factory of the press, I do not know,
from 1972 to 1975 print was in Imbāba.
All KFEs have 827 pages of qurʾānic text with 12 lines
+ 24 (or 22) pagi­nated back­matter pages + four unpagi­nated pages for the tables of content.
(until 1952: 24 pages, after the revolu­tion: with­out the leaf mention­ing King Fuʾād)
None of the KFEs has a title page;
they are all hard­cover and octavo size (20x28 cm the big one, 17x22 cm the small one ‒ the difference is more in the margin than in the text itself)

All KFE-like editions by commer­cial Egyptian presses and forgein editions (except the Frommann edition) do have title pages, most of them have one con­tinuous pagination.
There was one miniature reprint of KFE I and at least two pri­vate editions + the 1955 Peking reprint; of KFE II there were many re-editions, many re­arranged with 14 or 15 (often longer) lines ‒ in many sizes, on thinner paper and with different covers ‒ from Bairut to Tasch­kent.
In Egypt all the time, editions with 522, 525 (later 604) pages of qurʾānic text were more popular.
For the 15 lines, 525 page, type set Amīriyya print (Muṣḥaf al-Azhar aš-Šarīf) follow the link.
The changes of the second, third and fourth edition did not survive the big change of 1952, which had about 900 changes, but reverted in things just mentioned ("dedication", aṣl, extra nūn in allan) to the first print.
Many private and foreign reprints (and later ʿUṯmān Ṭaha) keep the silent nūn.

The Sanaʿāʾ Palimpsest

When I started to blog, I said that the times are exciting because of
old Arabic inscriptions being de­ciphered,
the Sanaʿāʾ fragments, esp. the S.P.,
and because we understand that manu­scripts belonging to different col­lections
once were one muṣḥaf.
One of the first who had access to the high-resolution and to the ultra-violett images of the S.P. made by Sergio Noja Noseda and Christian Robin was Asma Hilali. She was (one of) the first who published about them not on the basis of the UNESCO CD and the Bothmer/Puin black and white images.
She made two mistakes:
She only looked with her eyes, not with her brain.
But where the scriptio superior covers the scrip­tio inferior
one has to connected the visible parts assuming possible letter­forms,
one has to speculate in order to fill gaps ‒ knowing the quranic voca­bulary one has to try to put in as many letters as are fitting.
Because Asma Hilali lacks phan­tasy or abhors specula­tion she reads less than a third of what has been written.

And she mistakes a library signature, a collec­tion con­volute for a meaning­ful document.
As an introduction into the study of Islamic manu­scripts one should read Islamic-Awarness.org.
Please read 3. Ḥijāzī & Kufic Manu­scripts Of The Qur'ān From 1st Century Of Hijra Present In Various Collec­tions; in the first column you see up to seven "Designations" for parts of the same document.
for the Codex Ṣanʿāʾ I
Only if you look at the document as as a whole, you have a chance to make sense of the parts.
Not only did Asma Hilali only study 36 folios of the 81 folios of the surving fragments of the document, she did not sort out the four fragments that do not belong to it that are classified as parts of DAM 01-27.1
That Asma Hilali made these two essential mistakes, is not that bad.
At least she was quick.
But that she refused to learn, declined to revise her findings in light of what others had found out, is a sign of stupidity.
I know: Everybody is polite, just says that she is (overtly) cautious.
I say: She is blind, cowish, mad.
Everybody (Elisabeth, Mohsen, Behnam, Alba, Eléonore, and in the second row Marijn, Nicolai, Fran­ҫois) agree that both levels are part of a muṣḥaf. The quire structure is proof enough, the pages con­tinue where the page before had ended. Asma Ḥilali is alone in postu­lating "scribal exercises".
That dif­fe­rent scribes wrote different pages, is no a valid argu­ment against all being part of one muṣḥaf, because Fr. Deroche had found out, that that was common in the frist two cen­turies.
A positive reviewer, J.A. Gilcher, wrote about The Sanaa Palimp­sest The Trans­mission of the Qur'an in the First Cen­turies AH Oxford University Press 2017:

As Work in Progress, mistakes, corrections, fragmented readings, its intended use written in a frag­mentary fashion consisting of multiple sessions of teaching or dic­tation circle intended for experimental use in workshop-like circles, always destined to be destroyed, didactic tech­niques of a circle of teaching sessions, for Hilali, the fact that the parch­ment was eventually used as a palimp­sest for later text is proof of its purpose from the beginning to be recycled in the future

Given the fact, that her base asumption is wrong, I see no point in going through the 4000 letters were her reading (or absence of reading) differs from that of others. I am sure that in over 98% she is wrong.
It would be nice to see the Documenta Coranica tome by Hadiya Gurt­mann once annouced by Cor­pus Corani­cum, to see how wrong she is. I can only speculate why Michael Marx waits with the pub­lication.
Here is an image of the back­side of the second folio of DAM 1.27.1

And here Hadiya Gurtmann's recon­struc­tion of the lower text (image taken from Fr. Deroche's Le Coran, une histoire plurielle : essai sur la formation du texte coranique, Paris, 2019 ‒ he got it from Michael Marx; Hadiya Gurtmann had worked at Corpus Corani­cum)

I say that A.H. is mad too, because she refuses to learn in the field of Koran prints, too.
In "her" conference the Egyptian librarians all the time spoke of "muṣḥaf al-malik Fuʾād", "muṣ­ḥaf al-Amīriyya", "muṣ­ḥaf al-ḥukūma", she alone refered to "muṣḥaf al-Qāhira" and "ṭabʿa al-Qāhira", al­though the first term is used for manu­scripts and the 1924 copy was printed in Giza, which belongs not even to the gover­norate of Cairo, not printed in al-Qāhira, not even in Cairo.

Above are Cairo editions shown during the conference.
In this blog I have shown many more ‒ especially Cairo editions of riwāya Warš because I find it remark­able that most experts take it for granted that a muṣḥaf contains Ḥafṣ, basta!

And this is the page at the end of the object of the conference
informing everybody willing to take note
that it was printed in Giza. And that's not all.
Not only that it is NOT a Cairo print,
it is not even a 1924 edition.
In 1924 the quranic text was printed,
but after that the backmatter had to be set, made into plates, and printed.
Then the book had to be bound.
By the time it was published, the year was 1925.
Therefore the first edition was embossed:

طبعة الحكومية المصرّية
        -- . --
    ١٣٤٣ هجرّية
                سـنة

Muṣṭafā / ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī

1858 Aḥmad from al-Bāb, north-east of Aleppo, came to Cairo and together with others opened a publishing house. Having no children he invited his cousins to join him and they took over the enterprise becoming Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī
I have been in two offices, one behind the Azhar

und eines am -- nach dem Verlag benannten -- Midan al-Halabi

al-Muḫallalātī

Many think that the 1924 print was the first with the ʿUṯmānic rasm.
That's not correct.
Already for a long time India had producecd maṣāḥif with the defective rasm.
So had Morocco.
And in 1308/1890 in Egypt a muṣḥaf with the ʿUṯmānic rasm according to ad-Dānī was printed.

Tom Milo ‒ mushafmuscat.om ‒ mushaf oman

God news about Tom Milos mushafmuscat.om
Thomas Milo analysed the best examples of high Ottoman calli­graphy = court calli­graphy, syn­thesized its Grammar (term coined by him) ‒ ignoring all other (lesser) Ottoman calli­graphers.
He and his team succeded in aping human writing: first the stroke, then the dots, at last the addi­tional signs. Like the writers of old, the signs of each category have to be in the right order, but they don't have to be exactely above resp. below the charac­ter that they modify.
In Kein Standard I critisized a word in 4:4, where Milo placed a madda above a con­sonant, al­though according to G24 (followed strictly by ʿUṯmān Ṭaha) madda can only sit above a vowel ‒ šadda "lengthening" con­sonants.
Today I looked at 4:4 again and low and behold, the wrongly placed (blue) madda was moved to its proper place:

Thomas Milo had to be flexible all the time. In his view dots belong to letters in­cluding its con­nection to the next resp. its tail signaling: End Letter. But the Omanis thought that the dots belong to the "heart" of the letter, the tooth resp. the defining part.
Milo wanted staked letter­groups, Omanis prefered base­line letters with a clear right-to-left order. Milo agreed to half way solutions.
His elektronic Muṣḥaf is marvellous!
But Oman never had it printed. A printed, a bound codex does not exist.
Instead a Muṣḥaf ʿOmān was calli­graphed by Qadusi and printed ‒ by the way not as strictly simpli­fied as ʿUṯmān Ṭaha, hardly less Ottoman than Milo's electronic muṣḥaf.