Although it is often written that the King Fuʾād Edition fixed
a somehow unclear text, and established the reading of Ḥafṣ
according to ʿĀsim as predominant, both assertions are rubbish.
How could Islam exist with a chaotic base text? And for about 400 years Ḥafṣ
was by far the most important reading. The three gun-powder empires ‒
Safavid, Timurid/Moghul and Ottoman ‒ had made it their imperial reading,
because it is the easiest for non-Arabs <= the closes to fuṣḥā.
A second reason could be that Timurids and Ottoman adopted the Kūfī maḏhab al-Ḥanafiyya.
And like Moroccans follow the Madinese maḍhab al-Mālikiyya and read according to the Madinese Warš, so most Ḥanifīs read according to Ḥafṣ.
All KFEs have an empty, unpaginated, but counted title page, 826 pages of qurʾanic text
‒ al-fātiḥa being on page 2, an-nās on page 827 ‒ plus 23 pages, 22 being paginated (the last being ت)
In the KFE II of 1952 the first 845 pages are roughly identical to KFE I,
the only difference being almost thousand changes in the qurʾānic text and that pages ج and ف are paginated ‒ they used to be counted, but no letter was printed.
No KFE has a prayer/duʿāʾ.
In the last royal edition, KFE II 0, the next page is the impressum of 1924
followed by seven pages
In the large KFE II a editions (starting in 1953), three pages are gone:
the dedication to King Fuʾād, its empty backside, and the empty page after س
.
The page after س ,the خاتيمة on page ف
is moved to after ض ,something that hurts anyone who understands abjad.
Before the four pages Table of Suras (without the sura #) an empty page is inserted.
I call "King Fuʾād Edition" all Egyptian Government editions with the last sura on page 827.
Egyptian Government Editions on 522 pages (by the Minstry of Interior) or 525 pages (by the Amīriyya Press) are not KFEs.
Editions by Egyptian commercial publishers (with a title page) are not KFEs.
(Those with the set text of a KFE rearranged with more than 12 line per page (whether original lines or longer one) are definetly not KFEs.)
"Reprints" by publishers in Bairut, Damascus, ʿĀmmān are not KFEs
and can not be trusted: the مصلحة المساحة
is not in
القاهرة
but in Giza.
"Reprints" by foreign countries like China (of KFE I ‒ without the dedication to the King) ‒
and the Kazach (1960)
and Qaṭar (1985) one of KFE II ,
are not KFEs, but sometimes more reliable when it comes to the qur'anic text ‒ just 73:20 is a problem..
Nor is the the Frommann-Holzboog/ITS (Stuttgart 1983) edition a KFE although it has 826 pages of qur'anic text and no title page. Its afterword is set in Stuttgart ‒ the type is not appealing.
The small kfe II b have nine pages less then the large one of 1952:
the dedication page and its backside, plus the seven pages on changes to the editions before 1952.
There is a downloadable pdf of the small 1954 print.
There one can see, why the seven pages on the almost thousand changes are missing.
While للطاغين in 78:22 is changed to للطٰغين
, in 38:55 it is changed in the large editions, but not in the small ones.
The change in 7:137 is properly (type set) done
in the large editions (KFE II 0/a),
while it is done by hand in the small editions after 1952 (kfe II b).
By hand are the mīms in the small editions.
on the left the 1924 KFE I, in the middle the large KFE IIa 1952, on the right the small kfe II b after 1952 edition.
While the title box have less information in the 1952 edition, they are the old ones in the small edition.
on top the KFE I, in the middle the Qatari "reprint" of the large 1952 edition, because there is no pdf of either KFE II 0 nor KFE II a online,
below a title box of a small one (kfe II b).
And page 826 of KFE I, KFE II a, and kfe II b (the small plates are not refreshed):
Of the almost thousand changes descriped on the "Seven Pages" only a handful are implemented in the small editions, e.g. the hamza in qāʾim is not moved down:
The chaos in the Amiriyya editions forces the observer to have a close look at private adaptations.
While the base for Marwān Sawār (Damascus 1983 - 13 lines per page) is a large one with all changes made by aḍ-Ḍabbāʿ (above 13:33 and below)
Ibrāhīm Muʿallim (al-Qāhira Dār Šurūq 1975) sometimes has the old orthography or it is changed by hand,
Sometimes, when done by private hand, it is not worse:
on the left from the large KFE II a, on the right Dar Šurūq:
cf. in German
Saturday, 9 November 2024
Friday, 1 November 2024
KFEs
There are two editions of the King Fuʾād Edition with different qurʾānic text.
There are some differences in the pages after the qurʾānic text, dedication, basic information (taʿrīf), and confirmation (ḫātima), in the successive editions 1925 to 1951.
There are two different sizes (due to different presses).
The small editions after 1952 are basicaly reprints of the edition of 1926 with a few adaptations to Q52.
this was the 1924 text; here comes the corrected one:
Different text means different rasm, different spelling. The oral text of Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim has been fixed for many centuries. There are two basic spelling conventions: Western (Maghrib, Andalusia, Africa) and Eastern (India, Persia, Ottoman, Indonesia) ‒ not to be confused with the difference between Warš (predominent in the West) and Ḥafṣ (predominent in the East, in the Muslim world in general) The two basic rasm+spelling I call: Maġ and IPak ‒ basic is the spelling of long vowels, assimilation, silent letters ‒ the two spellings of KFEs I call G24 and Q52 ‒ these spelling inclued all features like pause signs, signs for secondary pronouncitation (like /ṣād/ as [sīn]) Unfortunately not all KFEs after 1952 follow Q52. While all KFEs before 1952 follow G24, and all large KFE II follow Q52, the small kfe II b are mostly G24 with some important switches to Q52 (like tanMwīM instead of taNwīN after suras 4, 5, 6, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 41, 48, 54, 65, 67, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 84, 85, 86, 90, 100, 101, 104, 105, 106, and 110 because now reciting the basmala is assumed not the first verse of the next sura as 1924) + sura numbers in the Table of Suras (see below)Although since 1952 in large editons, the main text (pp.2‒827) is different to the text of 1951 and before (G24), many experts are not aware of this, because it is the same type, the same page layout (12 lines on 826 pages, with medallions for ǧuz, ḥizb, saǧada and saktha on the margin); there are almost thousand differences: mostly pauses and changes in the title boxes, only one clear mistake (7:137 /kalima/ was with a knotted tāʾ; since 1952 it has an open one)

In 1924 only the Survey of Egypt in Giza could print in offset. After the first edition was bound, embossed and published in Būlāq, the Amīriyya bought a small offset printing press with which they printed maṣāḥif in 15 x 20 cm. In the 1940s, the National Library got a big press, on which the Amīriyya had the large editions printed 1952 and afterwards.There is a stupid mistake in the large print of 1952 (which I call KFE II). The editors reprinted all the material of 1924: the dedication to the king, the information about the ʿUṯmānic maḥāṣif al-amṣār, the numbering of verses, the distinguishing of Mekka and Madinan suras etc, the pause signs, the signatures of the four men mentioned, the impressum, information about the setting and printing of the text. While reprinting the first parts is fine, the original impressum should not have been repeated (or be it in small, informing the reader that that was stated in 1924) [as it is, some libraries took the 1924 impressum for the impressum of their copy], In the large prints after 1952 (which I call KFE IIa) the 1924 impressum has gone. Signatures guaranteeing the correctness of the above ‒ are mere fiction (how can anyone vouche for faultlessness of a text from 1924 or 1952 in 1919?); ‒ the page is paginated ف but is at the wrong place, after ض . Instead of being after the informations of 1924 it is after the text about the changes made in 1952, even after the impressum of 1952: which lets people who did not know a thing about making a muṣḥaf (the professors at the pedagogical college) or were dead (Šaiḫ al-Ḥusaini and Ḥifnī Bey) guarantee for an edition they had no idea about. Which let to a second mistake, one that makes the Amīriyya look stupid: In the last royal edition they had paginated the ḫātima as ف ‒ after page س and an empty ع ‒, but after page ض page ف makes one wonder whether they can not count or just do not know the abjad. This mistake could not happen in the small edition because here the editors pass the changes 1924-1952 in silence (because the do not implement the changes in pauses mentioned in the "Seven Pages"). Let me repeat: There are two major editions: KFE I and KFE II with almost thousand small differences. There are KFE I a, b , c, d one after the other, because ‒ there is a correction: added اصله two pages with signets instead of just the names dedication mentioning the heir to the throne a change in the qur'anic text: لن لن for الن There are two KFE IIs: II a (big) and II b (small) both from 1953 on plus the original (big) KFEII'52 ‒ only KFE'52 has the 1924 dedication to King Fuʾād, the big ones have no sura-numbers in the table of suras, only names, but seven pages on changes to the 1924 edition, plus a wrongly placed ḫātima: after the text about the 1952 edition, instead of where it originally stood); the small ones lack any information on the new edition, but have both names and numbers of suras in the table. (only small kfe II [after 1952] after the numbers of sura in the ToS)
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