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Ulum_al_Qur'an
An Introduction
to the Sciences of the Qur'an
Ahmad von Denffer
Introduction
CHAPTER 1: The Qur'an and Revelation
CHAPTER 2 : Transmission of the Qur'anic Revelation
CHAPTER 3 : The Qur'an in Manuscript and Print
CHAPTER 4: Form, Language and Style
CHAPTER 5 : Understanding the Text
CHAPTER 6 : Interpreting the Tex
CHAPTER
3 : The Qur'an in Manuscript and Print
THE QUR'ANIC
SCRIPT
Writing, although not very widespread in
pre-Islamic time, was well-known among the Arabs. The script
used in the seventh century, i. e . during the lifetime of
the Prophet Muhammad, consisted of very basic symbols, which
expressed only the consonantal structure of a word, and even
that with much ambiguity.
While today letters such as ba, ta, tha,
ya, are easily distinguished by points, this was not so in
the early days and all these letters used to be written
simply as a straight line.
From this very basic system of writing
there developed over the ages, various types of script, such
as Kufi, Maghribi, Naskh, etc., which spread all over
the world.
The later invention of printing with
standardised types has contributed to formalising the
writing.
However, as far as the actual script of
the Qur'an is concerned, there were two important steps
which brought about the forms in which we have the Qur'anic
text as it is today. These were the introduction of:
- Vowelling marks (tashkil).
- Diacritical marks (i'jam).
Tashkil
Tashkil is the name for the signs
indicating the vowels in Arabic scripts. They were
apparently unknown in pre-lslamic times. These signs help to
determine the correct pronunciation of the word and to avoid
mistakes.
Example: Byt Baitun
When more and more Muslims of non-Arab
origin and also many ignorant Arabs' [Yaqut
reports in his book irshad that al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf himself
once read ahabba in 9: 24 wrongly as ahabbu, see GdQ. 111,
124, note 6.] studied
the Qur'an, faulty pronunciation and wrong readings began to
increase. It is related that at the time of Du'all (d.
69H/638) someone in Basra read the following aya from the
Qur'an in a faulty way, which changed the meaning
completely: :
That God and His apostle dissolve
obligations with the pagans
(9:
3).
That God dissolves obligations with the
pagans and the apostle
(9: 3).
The mistake occurred through wrongly
reading rasulihi in place of rasuluhu, which could not be
distinguished from the written text, because there were no
signs or accents indicating the correct pronunciation.
Unless someone had memorized the correct version he could
out of ignorance easily commit such a mistake. [See
also fihrist, 1, pp. 87-8.]
The signs or accents to
prevent such problems were introduced not long before the
i'jam and then got the shape they have to this day: [Hughes,T.P.:
A Dictionary of Islam London,1895 p.687.]
For an example of the old style see plate
5.
It has been suggested that the origin of
fatha is alif, the origin of kasra is ya (without dots as in
early books), and the origin of damma is waw. Hamza was
previously written as 2 dots. [Abbott,
N.: The Rise of the North-Arabic Script and its Koranic
Development, Chicago, 1939, p. 39]
I'jam
(to provide a letter with a diacritical point)
The Arabic letters, as we know them
today, are made up of lines and points. The latter are
called i'jam. The ancient Arabic script did not have them,
but consisted of strokes only.
The addition of diacritical points to the
plain writing of strokes helped to distinguish the various
letters which could be easily mixed up.
Example: XXX XXX
Without dots this word cannot be easily
recognized. With i'jam, the letters of this word can easily
be distinguished.
Although the i'jam (diacritical points)
were already known in pre-Islamic times, they were rarely
used. The very early copies of the Qur'anic manuscripts (and
Arabic writing in general) did not have these signs. They
were apparently introduced into the Qur'anic script during
the time of the fifth Umayyad Caliph, 'Abd al-Malik bin
Marwan (66-86H/685-705) and the governorship of Al-Hajjaj in
Iraq, when more and more Muslims began to read and study the
Qur'an, some of whom did not know much of the Qur'an, and
others were of non-Arab origin. It is said of the well-known
tabi'l Al-Du'all that he was the first to introduce these
points into the Qur'anic text.
EARLY MANUSCRIPTS
Writing Material
Early manuscripts of the Qur'an were
typically written on animal skin. We know that in the
lifetime of the Prophet, parts of the revelation were
written on all kinds of materials, such as bone, animal
skin, palm risps, etc. The ink was prepared from soot.
Script
All old Qur'anic script is completely
without any diacritical points or vowel signs as explained
above. Also there are no headings or separations between the
sSras nor any other kind of division, nor even any formal
indication of the end of a verse. Scholars distinguish
between two types of early writing:
- Kufi, which is fairly heavy and not very dense.
- Hijazi, which is lighter, more dense and slightly
inclined towards the right.
Some believe that the Hijazi is older
than the Kufi, while others say that both were in use at the
same time, but that Hijazi was the less formal style. [This
is the view of N. Abbott: 'We
can no longer draw a chronological demarcation line between
what are commonly termed the Kufi and the Naskhi scripts,
nor can we consider the latter as a development of the
former. This ... now demands a more general recognition. Our
materials show that there were two tendencies at work
simultaneously, both of them natural ones'
(Abbott, op. cit., p.16)]
Some
Peculiarities of the Ancient Writing
Numerous copies of the Qur'an were made
after the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the
Rightly-Guided Caliphs, and the writers of these manuscripts
strictly observed the autography of the 'Uthmanic Qur'an.
There are, compared to the usual Arabic spelling, some
peculiarities. Here are a few of them, only concerning the
letters alif, yti, WtiW, by way of examples: [For
more examples see
Kamal, op. cit., pp.47-9; a
list of these peculiarities has been provided by
M. Hamidullah: 'Orthographical Peculiarities in the text of
the Qur'an, in: Islamic Order, 3 (4), 1981, pp.72-86.]
- The letter alif is often written on top of a letter
instead of afterit,
- The letter ya (or alif) of the word is omitted,
- Some words have the letter waw in place of alif,
OLD MANUSCRIPTS
OF THE QUR'AN
Most of the early original Qur'an
manuscripts, complete or in sizeable fragments, that are
still available to us now, are not earlier than the second
century after the Hijra. The earliest copy, which was
exhibited in the British Museum during the 1976 World of
Islam Festival, dated from the late second century.
[Lings, M. and Y. H. Safadi: The Qur'an, London, 1976, No.
1A. See also plate 6]
However, there are also a number of odd fragments of
Qur'anic papyri available, which date from the first
century. [Grohmann,
A.: Die Entstehung des Koran und die altesten Koran-Handschriften',
in: Bustan, 1961, pp. 33-8.]There
is a copy of the Qur'an in the Egyptian National Library on
parchment made from gazelle skin, which has been dated 68
Hijra (688 A.D.), i.e. 58 years after the Prophet's death.
What happened to
'Uthman's Copies?
It is not known exactly how many copies
of the Qur'an were made at the time of 'Uthman, but Suyuti [Makhdum,
1.: Tarikh al-mushaf al-'Uthmani fi Tashqand, Tashkent
1391/1971 p. 17] says:
'The well-known ones are five'. This probably excludes the
copy that 'Uthman kept for himself. The cities of Makka,
Damascus, Kufa, Basra and Madina each received a copy. ' [GdQ,
111. 6, Note 1.]There
are a number of references in the older Arabic literature on
this topic which together with latest information available
may be summarised as follows:
The Damascus
Manuscript
Al-Kindi (d. around 236/850) wrote in the
early third century that three out of four of the copies
prepared for 'Uthman were destroyed in fire and war, while
the copy sent to Damascus was still kept at his time at
Malatja. [GdQ.
111, 6. Note 1.]
Ibn Batuta (779/1377) says he has seen
copies or sheets from the copies of the Qur'an prepared
under 'Uthman in Granada, Marakesh, Basra and other cities. [Salih,
op. cit., p.87.]
Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1372) relates that he
has seen a copy of the Qur'an attributed to 'Uthman, which
was brought to Damascus in the year 518 Hijra from Tiberias
(Palestine). He said it was 'very large, in beautiful clear
strong writing with strong ink, in parchment, I think, made
of camel skin'. [Salih,
op. cit., p.88.]
Some believe that the copy later on went
to Leningrad and from there to England. After that nothing
is known about it. Others hold that this mushaf remained in
the mosque of Damascus, where it was last seen before the
fire in the year 1310/1892.' [Salih,
op. cit., p.89; Muir, in 'The Mameluke Dynasties' also
writes that this manuscript was burnt in Damascus in 1893;
see Abbott, op. cit., p.51.]
The Egyptian
Manuscript
There is a copy of an old Qur'an kept in
the mosque of al-Hussain in Cairo. Its script is of the old
style, although Ki6, and it is quite possible that it was
copied from the Mushaf of 'Uthman. [Kamal,
op. cit., p.56.]
The Madina
Manuscript
Ibn Jubair (d. 614/1217) saw the
manuscript in the mosque of Madina in the year 580/1184.
Some say it remained in Madlna until the Turks took it from
there in 1334/1915. It has been reported that this copy was
removed by the Turkish authorities to Istanbul, from where
it came to Berlin during World War I. The Treaty of
Versailles, which concluded World War I, contains the
following clause:
'Article 246: Within six months from
the coming into force of the present Treaty, Germany will
restore to His Majesty, King of Hedjaz, the original Koran
of Caliph Othman, which was removed from Medina by the
Turkish authorities and is stated to have been presented
to the ex-Emperor William II." [ Israel,
Fred L. (ed.): Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, New
York, Chelsea House Pub., Vol. ll, p.l418.]
The manuscript then reached Istanbul, but
not Madina. [The
same information about this copy was published in a Cairo
magazine in 1938 (Makhdum,
op. cit., p.l9). Surprisingly
the standard book
Geschichre des Qorans, the
third part of which was published in Germany in 1938, i.e.
well after the Treaty of Versailles, although discussing the
'Uthmanic Qur'an and old manuscripts in detail, makes no
reference whatsoever to this event. Also, the writer of the
History of the Mushaf of ' Uthman in Tashkent, indicates
that he does not know what to make of this reference.]
The 'Imam'
Manuscript
This is the name used for the copy which
'Uthman kept himself, and it is said he was killed while
reading it. [Ibn
Said: al-Tabaqatal-kubra, Cairo, n.d., Vol. 111, (1). pp.
51-2.]
According to some the Umayyads took it to
Andalusia, from where it came to Fas (Morocco) and according
to Ibn Batuta it was there in the eighth century after the
Hijra, and there were traces of blood on it. From Morocco,
it might have found its way to Samarkand.
The Samarkand
Manuscript
[Makhdum, op. cit., p.22ff.]
This is the copy now kept in Tashkent
(Uzbekistan). It may be the Imam manuscript or one of the
other copies made at the time of 'Uthman.
It came to Samarkand in 890 Hijra (1485)
and remained there till 1868. Then it was taken to St.
Petersburg by the Russians in 1869. It remained there till
1917. A Russian orientalist gave a detailed description of
it, saying that many pages were damaged and some were
missing. A facsimile, some 50 copies, of this mushaf was
produced by S. Pisareff in 1905. A copy was sent to the
Ottoman Sultan 'Abdul Hamid, to the Shah of Iran, to the
Amir of Bukhara, to Afghanistan, to Fas and some important
Muslim personalities. One copy is now in the Columbia
University Library (U.S.A.). [The
Muslim World, Vol . 30 ( 1940), pp.357-8.]
The manuscript was afterwards returned to
its former place and reached Tashkent in 1924, where it has
remained since. Apparently the Soviet authorities have made
further copies, which are presented from time to time to
visiting Muslim heads of state and other important
personalities. In 1980, photocopies of such a facsimile were
produced in the United States, with a two-page foreword by
M. Hamidullah.
The writer of the History of the Mushaf
of 'Uthmtln in Tashkent gives a number of reasons for the
authenticity of the manuscript. They are, excluding the
various historical reports which suggest this, as follows:
- The fact that the mushaf is written in a script used
in the first half of the first century Hijra.
- The fact that it is written on parchment from a
gazelle, while later Qur'ans are written on paper-like
sheets.
- The fact that it does not have any diacritical marks
which were introduced around the eighth decade of the
first century; hence the manuscript must have been
written before that.
- The fact that it does not have the vowelling symbols
introduced by Du'ali, who died in 68 Hijra; hence it is
earlier than this.
In other words: two of the copies of the
Qur'an which were originally prepared in the time of Caliph
'Uthman, are still available to us today and their text and
arrangement can be compared, by anyone who cares to, with
any other copy of the Qur'an, be it in print or handwriting,
from any place or period of time. They will be found
identical.
The 'Ali
Manuscript
Some sources indicate that a copy of the
Qur'an written by the fourth Caliph 'Ali is kept in Najaf,
Iraq, in the Dar al-Kutub al-'Alawiya. It is written in Kufi
script, and on it is written: "Ali bin Abi Talib wrote
it in the year 40 of the Hijra'. [Attar,
D.: Mujaz 'ulum al-qur'an, Beirut 1399/1979, p. 116]
THE QUR'AN IN
PRINT
From the sixteenth century, when the
printing press with movable type was first used in Europe
and later in all parts of the world, the pattern of writing
and of printing the Qur'an was further standardised.
There were already printed copies of the
Qur'an before this, in the so-called block-print form, and
some specimens from as early as the tenth century, both of
the actual wooden blocks and the printed sheets, have come
down to us. [Grohmann,
op. cit.. p.38; Exhibition in the British Library, London.]
The first extant Qur'an for which movable
type was used was printed in Hamburg (Germany) in 1694. The
text is fully vocalised. [Al-Coranus,
lex islamitica Muhammedis, Officina Schultzio-Schilleriania.
Hamburg, 1694; Exhibition No. 22.]
Probably the first Qur'an printed by Muslims is the
so-called 'Mulay Usman edition' of 1787, published in St.
Petersburg, Russia, followed by others in Kazan (1828),
Persia (1833) and Istanbul (1877). [Blachere,
R.: Introduction au Coran, Paris, 1947, p. 133.]
In 1858, the German orientalist Fluegel
produced together with a useful concordance the so-called 'Fluegel
edition' of the Qur'an, printed in Arabic, which has since
been used by generations of orientalists. [Fluegel,
Gustav: Corani texn Arabicus. Leipzig, 1834.]
The Fluegel edition has however a very basic defect: its
system of verse numbering is not in accordance with general
usage in the Muslim world. [See
e.g. 74: 31, where he makes four verses out of one.]
The Egyptian
Edition
The Qur'anic text in printed form now
used widely in the Muslim world and developing into a
'standard version', is the so-called 'Egyptian' edition,
also known as the King Fu'ad edition, since it was
introduced in Egypt under King Fu'ad. This edition is based
on the reading of Hafs, as reported by 'Asim, and was first
printed in Cairo in 1925/1344H. Numerous copies have since
been printed.
The Sa'd Nursi
Copy
Finally, the Qur'an printed by the
followers of Sa'id Nursi from Turkey should be mentioned as
an example of combining a hand-written beautifully
illuminated text with modern offset printing technology. The
text was hand written by the Turkish calligrapher Hamid al-'Amidi.
It was first printed in Istanbul in 1947, but since 1976 has
been produced in large numbers and various sizes at the
printing press run by the followers of Sa'id Nursi in West
Berlin (Germany).
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