tajwīd maṣāḥif

The letters of the qurʾān do not exactely tell you how to pronounce the text.
Some vowels have to be lengthened, others naselized,
some consonants are emphati­cal or esp. clearly pro­nounced.
Quite a lot of written letters are not pro­nounced.
Some of these oral phenonema are reflected in the "normal" text.
According to Q52 a waṣl-sign above an alif and a circle above any letter say: Do not pronounce!
This is expressed in Indo-Pak by absence of any sign.

– Unfortunately today some Indians set the silent-circle, thus deluting their own clear system.

(Waterfaal Islamic Institute wants to make it better, using NO sign for the Q52 circle, putting a circle for the Q52 ovale, but some­times they put the wrong sign ‒ alas.)

There are many different prints that use colour to distinguish how to pro­nounce:

The image above is from Dar al-Maʿrifa in Bairut, formally Damascus. In Verse 16 not all silent letters are grey (they think the waṣl says it, so they leave the alif black, al­thought it is mute (by the same logic letters below a circle would have to be black):

In verse 8 DaM (Dar al-Maʾrifa), Nous-mêmes (Nm) from Tunis, and Hasenat from Turkey colour the nūn from /man/ before /yaqūl/ because it is assimi­lated (and Nm puts a šadda above the yāʾ to which the nūn is assimilated).
On the other hand, DaM and Nm do not grey out the alif of [al-nās] marked as silent by Hasenat and Merkaz Ṭabo­Našr, which does not bother about assimila­tion. (Nm does not even grey the lām assimilated to nūn!)

the two above are from Nous-mêmes/Hanibal and from Tehran.
Here four times [min/man] from Indonesia, Bairut/Damascus (Muʾassasat al-Īmān) and twice from Lahore, Pakistani Punjab (Qudratullah and Hammad) plus the 13liner from Taj coloured by Madrasah.co.uk

in these examples all silent letters are coloured as silent:

The two pages above are from Turkey (Hasenat) and from Indo­nesia (Mushaf Indo­nesia Standar Warna).
In the first line on the next image (Nm) do not mark the diffe­ren­ce bet­ween /fī/ and /fĭ/ assuming that their (Arab) readers make it auto­matically right.
Muʾassasat al-Īmān (in Bairut), Indonesians and Iranians do make the difference.
(Note that the Indonesians do not use colour for silent letters trusting the Indian system: absence of any sign = mute.) (Note that the Iranians in the last line do not mark the assimilation of mīm to mīm.)

above the pages from Lahore, and the page written for the 13liner of Taj Com Ltd. coloured for Madrasah.co.uk.

And for good measure from yet another Lahore company: Pak:

and from the Islamic Academy in Texas (text written by Mahmud Ahmad ʿAbdal-Ḥaqq)

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yeh barī (big yāʾ) with two dots below ‒­ Unicode

From the beginning Uni­code had the char(acter)s necessary for writ­ing the KFE.
The signs for Persian and Indian maṣāḥif came later.
While now signs for Maġribian prints are encoded, the signs particulary to Turkey are not in the pipeline yet.
Bombay and Indonesia have a sign that the others don't use;
Small yeh barī (big yāʾ) with two dots below ‒ first word of al-furqān 49.
But the encoding of a char is a first step only. Font manu­factors have to include it in their fonts. Since this parti­cular char exists only in iso­lation, con­necting forms do not have to be designed, but vowel signs have to be posi­tioned. For the time being it is not fully im­plemented.

the six in the left column are just an addition: five times Warš, once Qālūn
first line Indo-Pak, second line KFE, Uṭmān Ṭaha from the KFC, third line Turk/Osm (MNQ, Diyanet), fourth line Iran (Arya­Mehr),
than comes an image from Bom­bay with two dots below yeh barī, and Muḫalla­lāti 1890 (just to demon­strate that the KFE was not unique)
one more from Bombay, and from a modern Indonesian taǧīd muṣḥaf.





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India 1883 (and 2000)

The British Libray holds Arabic books printed in Kerala (or around) by Muslims. The place of publication is يلشير (Tilshīr), possibly Thalassery.

from a modern print by Ch Muhammed And Son in Tirurangadi, Malappuram, Kerala

all features are independent of each other

One of the ten most im­por­tant dis­cove­ries in this blog:
When producing a muṣḥaf all features are inde­pendent of each other.
true, most maṣāḥif written in Maġ­ribī style have the text accord­ing to Warš,
but in Tunis e.g. there were Ḥafs copies written in Maġ­ribī style.
True, the first ber­Kenar co­pies with 15 lines on 604 pages were in (Ottoman) naskh,
but today there are copies with that page layout in other styles.
The Iranian Center for Printing and Dis­tribut­ing the Qurʾān has deviced a new system of voyelling without sukūn in which vowel letters with­out ḥarkāt stand for long vowels; they are not leng­thening the cor­res­ponding vowel sign (hence in that system the con­sonant before a vowel letter has no vowel sign ‒ vowel signs standing only for short vowels) ‒ and a new rasm.
In this post I show that this "neo-Iranian" (or Ṭab-o Našr-)rasm can occur with any writing style.
The Center has pub­lished a list of 17 words that they write as they see fit (of course respecting the sound) not following old manu­scripts or estab­lished maṣāḥif.
While in the first two colums from the left the words are both in the new Iranian vowelling and in the new Iranian rasm, the third column is written in the "Lahorī" style just as the next two columns.
The last column is from the first Iranian print (type set Tehran 1827), and the one with light yellow back­ground is Uṭmān Taha/Q52.

The other discoveries are:
there is no single standard
there is not THE Cairo edition, but hundreds
there are Eastern vs. Western ways of writ­ing of long vowels, of lead­ing alif, of pro­nounced nūn sākin   being among the dif­ferences
the main features of the KFE were
‒ adoption of the Moroc­con rasm
‒ adoption of many Moroccon features (like marking mute letters, noting assimi­lation, having three kinds of tanwīn)
‒ droping of Eastern features (like nun quṭnī, having three kinds of madd sign, making for shortened vowels)
‒ easy readabiliy (clear base line, clear right-to-left), vowel sign exactely above/below base letter
that the KFE did not FIX the text: both within Amiriyya prints, reprints and the great child in Medina there are changes
If anything is not clear, leave a comment!
The Centre for the Printing and Distribution of the Qur'an, which reports to the leader/rahbar, has intro­duced three improvements:
First, three lower­case vowel signs at the places where there used to be red vowel signs (VS) in manuscripts: for words that begin with alif-waṣl, but before which the reader pauses, i.e. which are to be read with Hamza, the initial alif is given a small VS.
Then a completely new spelling of long vowels: While in Africa it is VS + ḥarf al-madd (stretching letter),
according to neoIran, the vowel letter is read as such, there is no VS (because there is no /a/, /i/, /u/ to ne read, only /ā/, /ī/, /ū/.
If there is no sign and no vowel letter follows, the con­sonant is vowel­less = there is no sukūn sign. Letters that are not read at all   are in a different colour:
(In the centre of the excerpt: /fĭl-ardi/ with a short i the kasra is to be read, not the yāʾ)

This simplified vocalisa­tion is based on the con­vent­ions of Persian writing.

Furthermore, the مكز طبع و نشر has established a new rasm. Ṭab-o Našr is con­cerned with legibili­ty and uniformi­ty, i.e. fewer missing, super­fluous or unusual letters, fewer expressions that are some­times written one way and some­times another.
They prefer to rely on recognis­ed editions (including Warš and Qālūn editions) or a rasm authority.
If necessary, however, they also simplify with­out good support. They state that they write 17 words in 36 places ‘simply’ with­out a model.
The 17 words are quite different:
easier to understand (6:41,16:95) اِنّ ما instead of إِنَّمَا ,
the opposite (2:240,5:58): فيما instead of فِى مَا – because of parallel passages;
for the same reason (30:28, 63:10): مِمّا instead of مِن مَّا ;
Avoiding a silent Alifs اَبناۤءُ instead of أَبۡنَٰٓؤُا۟۟ (5:18),
اَنباۤءُ instead of أَنۢبَٰٓؤُا۟ (26:6),
يُنَبَّاُ instead of يُنَبَّؤُا (75:13),
Avoiding a silent yāʾ for /ā/ تَراني instead of تَرَىٰنِى (7:143),
اَرانيۤ instead of اَرَىٰنِىۤ (12:36),
اؚجتَباهُ instead of ٱجۡتَبَىٰهُ (16:121, 22:78);
statt ءَاَتَىٰنِى (19:30) ءاتانِي – like Solṭānī/Hirīsī, Nairizī und Arsan­ǧā­nī, but not Faḍāʾilī;
اَرانيۤ instead of اَرَىٰنِىۤ (12:36);
Avoiding some "dagger alifs" خَطايٰكم instead of خَطَٰيَٰكُمۡ (2:58, 20:73),
لَساحِرٌ instead of لَسَٰحِرٌ (7:109, 26:34),
قُرءانًا instead of قُرۡءَٰنًا (12:2),
نادانا instead of نَادَىٰنَا (37:75),
اِحسانًا instead of إِحۡسَٰنًا (46:15),
جِمالَتٌ instead of جِمَٰلَتٌۭ (77:33).
كِذّابًا instead of كِذَّٰنًۭا (78:35).
Of the 17 words, eight follow nOsm/CT.
In a random sample of 10% of the Qur'anic text, I dis­covered four more plene spellings 15:22 biḫāzinīna, 40:16 bāri­zūna, 40:18 kāẓimīna, 40:29 ẓāhirī­na, which occur in old Persian or Ottoman maṣā­hif, but not in the editions or authori­ties cited by the Centre (al-Ārkātī, ad-Dānī, Ibn Naǧāḥ). In other words, they write as they like it. I suspect that ‘mis­takes’, archa­isms in Arabic re­inforce the ‘sacred char­acter’ of the script. But since Arabic is ‘the sacred language’ for Persians any­way, they don't need the mis­takes to per­ceive it as un­pro­fane = out of the ordinary.
In the first twenty verses of al-Baqara they write against Q24 al-kitābu (2: 2), razaqnāhum (3), tujādiʿūn (9), aḍ-ḍalālaha (16), ẓulumātin (17), ẓulumātun, ʾaṣābiʿahum (19) and bil-kāfirīna (20) like Q52, ʾabṣārihim, ġišāwatub (7), ṭuġyānihim (15), tiǧāratuhum (16), aṣ-ṣwāʿiqi (19), ʾabṣāra­hum and wa-abṣāri­him (20) such as iPak and Lib in Solṭānī and Osm also šayāṭīni­him (2:14) with alif.
Secondly, they usually omit every­thing that is omitted when writ­ing Persian, i.e. hamza signs on or under the initial alif (fatḥa, ḍamma, kasra include hamza), - but when writ­ing /ʾā/, nIran Q24 follows: isolated hamza+alif not alif+long-fatḥa - fatḥa before alif, kasra before yāʾ, ḍamma before wau (long vowel letters do not denote the elongation of the vowel as in Arabic, but the long vowel itself); how­ever, if a short vowel sign precedes the vowel letter, this applies: the vowel letter is silent; further­more, sukūn signs are miss­ing (if there is no vowel sign, the con­sonant is vowel­less), as well as indi­ca­tions of as­simi­la­tion that go beyond that in Standard Arabic.
Turks and Persians are the only ones who do not note assimi­lation – in the word and across word boundaries. (for example, from vowel­less nūn to rāʾ: mir rabbihi in 2:5 On the other hand, in 75:27 there is the non-assimilation sign: مَنۜ راقٍ). or in the word 77:20 /naḫluqkum/ instead of /naḫlukkum/), also the different tanwīn forms - nIran follows Solṭānī and Osm against IPak, Mag and Q24.

A small-nūn + kasra is placed when the nūn of the preceding tanwīn is read with i (e.g. 23:38). In these editions, the once red vowel signs on alif waṣl, which is to be spoken after an obligatory pause with hamza and initial sound, become small-fatḥa (e.g. 2:15), small-ḍamma (38:42) or small-kasra (58:16,19). As in the Indonesian adaptations of UT1, in the modern Iranian editions - both those in the style of ʿUṯmān Ṭāhā and those in the style of Naizīrī - the Fatḥas are straight across allāh. In addition, there are countless editions of ʿUṯmān Taha reworked to different degrees according to Soltani or nIran. If you count the spellings on TV, smartphones and the web (e.g. makarem.ir/quran), you end up with over a hundred different orthographies.
Es wird ein kleines-nūn + kasra ge­setzt, wenn das nūn des voraus­gehenden tanwīn mit i gelesen wird (z.B. 23:38). Aus den einst roten Vokal­zeichen auf alif waṣl, das nach obliga­ter Pause mit Hamza und Anlaut zu sprechen ist, wird in diesen Aus­gaben Klein-fatḥa (z.B. 2:15), Klein-ḍamma (38:42) oder Klein-kasra (58:16,19). Wie auch in den in­do­ne­si­schen Adap­ta­tionen von UT1 sind in den moder­nen ira­ni­schen Aus­gaben – sowohl jene im Duktus ʿUṯmān Ṭāhās wie die im Stile Naizī­rīs – die Fatḥas über allāh gerade. Daneben findet man zig Aus­gaben von ʿUṯ­mān Ta­ha zu unter­schied­lichen Graden nach Soltani oder nach nIran um­ge­arbeitet. Zählt man die Schrei­bungen im Fern­sehn, auf dem Smart­phone und dem Web (etwa makarem.ir/quran) mit, kommt man auf über hundert ver­schie­dene Ortho­gra­phien.
Turks, Arabs and Indians have fixed standards; Indians have had them for two hundred years, Arabs since around 1980, Turks since 1950 - or a little later.
Indonesians, Persians and Tunisians are looking for improvements. Tunisia is part of the Maghreb, and most of what is written here follows Qālūn ʿan Nāfiʿ. However, from the end of the 16th century until the end of the 19th century, the Ottomans maintained a garrison in Tunis.
Türken, Araber und Inder haben feste Standards; die Inder schon zwei­hundert Jahre, die Araber seit etwa 1980, die Türken seit 1950 – oder etwas später.
Qurans were written on site for their officers. At least two of them are facsimiles: one on sixty pages - Qurʾān Karīm, scribe: Zubair ibn ʿAbdallah al-Ḥanafī. Tunis: ad-Dār at-Tūnisīya lin-Našr n.d. - and one in which opposite pages repeatedly show the same words. Muṣḥaf Šarīf written by Zuhair Bāš Mamlūk 1305/1885, Tunis: ʿAbd al-Karīm Bin ʿAbdallah 1403/1983 (printed in Verona). Both record the reading Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim in Maghrebi scribal conventions.
Two words from 2:8 according to five different standards, all Ḥafṣ. The top (Q52) and bottom (nIran) look similar but are fundamentally different, the bottom two (nOsm and nIran) are the same although they look different. Both are due to the fact that nIran completely dispenses with sukūn characters: the nūn in the bottom one is therefore with sukūn and the qāf with ū (both as in nOsm directly above). In the uppermost, the nūn has kéin sukūn and according to the rules of Q24 this means: not to speak as nūn; the word sounds: ‘mai’. The same situation (incomplete assimilation) is expressed by IPak (third from bottom) and Standar Indonesia (2nd-4th line) with sukūn above the nūn (i.e.: not mute) and šadda above the yāʾ (i.e.: doubling mai yaqūl). nOsm and nIran never note (half and full) assimilation.


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India 1876

إنه لقرآن كريم في كتاب مكنون Innahu la-Qurʾān Karīm fī kitāb maknūn Bareilly, 2nd Edition 1876