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 Text
CHAPTER
3 : The Qur'an in Manuscript and Print
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.
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.
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)]
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.
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:
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.]
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.]
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.]
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.
[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.
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]
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 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.
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).
|