editions and race

Most Germans find it strange that Americans are obsessed with race. Yes, some skin is darker, some hair frizzy, but after a beach holiday, a Greek's skin can be darker then that of her African-American neighbour. In 2000 for the first time Americans could be officialy multi­racial or "mixed" as the British say.
For Germans, the very idea of human races is absurd, why should character corelative with skin colour?
How can most "white" Americans forget that not long ago, Italians, Irish and Jews were obviously non-White, that only the numerical decline of English, Scandi­navian, Protestant Dutch and Germans brought them to admit that Serbs and Jews are white alright.
It's not because of the Nazis ‒ who by the way did not write a lot about die "weiße Rasse", but about nordische, westi­sche/mit­tel­meeri­sche, osti­sche/al­pine, dinari­sche, (ost)bal­tische, fäli­sche, sude­tische, vorder­asiatische, orienta­li­sche Rasse und deren Mi­schungen (cf. Hans F. K. Gün­ther: Kleine Rassen­kunde des deutschen Volkes) ‒ but because in German "Rasse" is not only "race" but "breed" --> in German, dogs and horses come in races, not humans; despite US and ZA laws against mis­cege­nation, there are no Kör- und Stut­bücher (lists of re­cognized males and females of a certain human race) re­gulat­ing the status of "true White", "true Jewish", or "true Sephardic").
The language we normally speak shapes the way we think:
For German speakers there is a clear dif­ference bet­ween "Auf­lagen" (runs of an iden­tical book) and "Aus­gaben" (fresh/changed editions) ‒ in English both can be called "editions", although the dif­feren­ce bet­ween "run", "reprint" "re­vised and expanded/ new edition" exists: there is a fog not exist­ing in German. From the 1940s on­ward, one can spot on the copy­right page/impressum a printer's key "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" or often "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2". In Germany mostly two rows of numbers like „26 27 28 29 · 97 96 95 94“ ‒ this is the 26th run in 1994, from the first row each time one numbers is/was scratched from the plate, for the second row the last year was taken away (un­less there was a second run in the same year).

at the bottom right "1": first edition, left "15": 2015

For me the two pages above are from two different Aus­gaben: not the same edition. When you look at the last page/im­pressum of different Amīriyya editions, you find: Gizā+Būlāq, Būlāq, Maṣr, al-Qahira ‒ to me this is not just "second run" and dif­ferent year, the text before the year is so different that it is not the SAME edition.

And in the second edition 1925/6 the word "its origin" (= its modell, seine Vorlage)

and ten signets were added.

Later the dedication page was changed

later yet, الن in 73:20 was changed to ان لن .
When you have in the 1952 aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ Amīriyya edition seven pages

that are missing in the small 1955 aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ Amīriyya edition, they ARE not the same edition, although by the same editor(s), the same publisher!
Yes, there are people who do not care to dis­tinguish between at least four different edi­tions bet­ween the first and 1951, nor between at least two different editions starting from 1952 ((I am willing not to count different year, different place of pub­lication, dif­ferent name of the same printer, different authorities vouch­saving the cor­rect­ness)), not even bet­ween the editions made by al-Ḥusaini al-Ḥaddād and those made by aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ and collea­gues, but they should not hold a con­ference on book editions.

IDEO held a con­ference on the 1924 edition but used some­thing like the 1952 title box. They just don't care, do not know, do not even want to know.
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Būlāq 1299/1881/2

As far as we know the first Egyptian muṣ­ḥaf was type set in 1299/1881/2 in der Govern­ment Press Būlāq
it did not have verse numbers but empty space to be filled out by scribes.

Turkey and Syria: Computer Set

Although Turkey has excellent maṣāḥif both based on old and on new manuscripts,
it has the ugliest muṣḥaf that sold well.
In the 1990s Turks not used to Arabic writing liked this:

Now they take a PC set one, like

(I hight­light­ed /fī/ and /fĭ/ and the hamza after a highly re­com­mend­ed pause.)

the last one is published by Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Directorate of Religious Affairs).

In Syria in the middle of the civil war the minstry of auqāf published a new standard mushaf:

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Turkey and Syria: Calligraphers

Both in Turkey, like Mehmet Özçay

by Muhammad (Mehmet) Abay

Hüseyin Kutlu:

and Hamit Aytaҫ

and in Syria there are great calligraphers, here al-Bārī

ʿUṯmān Ṭaha




Abū ʿUmar ʿUbaidah Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ al-Banki / ابو عمرعبيدة محمد صالح البنكي

Auf dem nächsen Bild außen Seiten aus dem Muṣḥaf al-Maktūm geschrieben von Ǧamāl al-Bustān aus Qunaitra, in der Mitte der für den Schiʿiten-Diwān von Hādī ad-Darāǧī -- außen fast in Schreibmaschinen-Stil, in der Mitte kalligraphischer als ʿUṯmān Ṭaha:

Efim A. Rezvan

I intended to para­phrase the good points and correct the bad ones in Efim A.Rezvan's "A History of Printed Edi­tions of the Qur’an" in The Oxford Handbook of QUR­’ANIC STU­DIES.
Unfortunate­ly the first part is about manu­scripts and other non-print matters.
The part about the St.Pe­ters­burg and Kazan Qurʾāns is fine ‒ but not new.
The section on prints after Kazan (pp 268-270) is all wrong, not worth a critique.

picture: https://mnaber.org/img/cache/thumbnail/pZEanzZW1ilzNgi4DQVqO0vo96q0wLpj1lIKFzY0

Best Sellers

The first best selling print was St.Petersburg-Kazan:

Next came "the Flügel" published 1834 in Leipzig by the publishing house Tauch­nitz, which pirated it in 1837 with an edition officially by Gustav Reds­lob, but basicly the Flügel without paying him: both were best­sellers but only among orienta­lists.
By that time, both in Iran and India print­ing maṣā­ḥif had began, but only after 1865 they were mass pro­duced, and afford­able.
Since they were even sold in the Ottoman empire, the ban against print­ing the scripture was lifted: So maṣāḥif written by Hafiz Osman and Muṣ­ṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġalī became best selling in Istanbul, Syria and Egypt.

here one of several MNQ from Tehran

The important editions by Muḫalla­lātī and al-Ḥusainī al-Ḥaddād (HH) did not sell well ‒ the KFE at least not to Egyptians; they prefered the 522 pages written by Muṣ­ṭafā Naẓīf Qadir­ġalī ‒ now often in the reform /Andalu­sian/ HH ortho­graphy, but at least until 1967 in new editions in the original Ottoman spelling.
on the left from a 1981 MNQ Cairo edition on 522 pages, on the right the original:

a MZQ from Bairut

The top seller in Egypt was a line by line copy of the MNQ 522pager written by Muḥammad Saʿd Ibrā­hīm al-Ḥaddād famous under the name of the publisher: aš-Šamarlī.

What is mostly ignored: Šamarlī pub­lished MNQ in the new ortho­graphy even in the 1960s:

The government press, al-Amīriyya, tried to compete: in 1976 they produced a type set version with 15 lines on 525 pages. For more than a decade they made at least four differ­ent sizes: from small in flexibel plastic to Mosque size.

on the left from the pocket version 1977, on the right the normal one

the large Qaṭarī reprint 1988

Although the KFE was almost only sold to oritentalists, in the seventies many publisher "remade" it on there light tables (lay­out tables): the cut films they had made of the 12 liner and re­arranged them: either just more lines on a page as was first done around 1933 in the "muṣḥaf al-malik" al-maṭbʿa al-miṣiriyya (Muḥammad Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Laṭīf) printed in offset I assume:

die rechte Seite bekam immer einen Kustoden. Gelegentlich wurde eine Schmuckzeile ein gefügt, damit eine Sure auf einer neuen Seite anfangen kann.

Der Verleger hat zu seinem neu umbrochenen und neu gerahmten auch einen Tafsīr veröffentlicht:

Marwān Sowār, Damascus:

Dār aš-Šurūq:

or more and longer lines:

some editions with tafsir keep the original pages

other rearange the text

None of these were best sellers, but combined they spread the new spelling in spite of the KFE being extremely unpopular.

Now in the Arab world and Malay­sia ʿUṯmān Ṭaha versions dominate.
In India and Bangla Desh reprints of Tāj Comp. Ltd versions can be found every­where, while in Pakistan there is fierce competion.
In South Africa Taj's 848 pages 13liner dominates, al­though the latest version of WII (Waterval Islamic Insti­tute) is set in a UT like font.
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