Arabic Palaeography

This paper provides updated digital images of four Qurʾān fragments from Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum (OIM) that appeared in Nabia Abbott’s Rise of the North Arabic Script, and calls attention to features of their paleography and vocalization which are not apparent from her original black-and-white plates. In doing so, it demonstrates that these four fragments all belong to the same copy of the Qurʾān, which is also the same Qurʾān as nineteen leaves in Paris’ Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) and two leaves in Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art (MIA). All twenty-five folios of this Qurʾān contain a unique vocalization system that represents /a/ and /u/ with miniature red forms of alif and wāw. This system of “letter-form” vocalization signs is unattested in other Qurʾān manuscripts and corresponds with a type of vocalization which medieval sources describe as shakl al-shiʿr: “the marking of poetry.” The subsequent discussion analyzes the features of this shakl al-shiʿr system and contextualizes it within the history of both this Qurʾān manuscript and Arabic writing as a whole.

Article is open access with full manuscript images available on the JNES site here: https://doi.org/10.1086/712876

Despite the importance of the financial administrators of Egypt (ʾaṣḥābi al-ḫarāǧ) and their basic role in the administration system in the early Islamic period, historical sources don't provide sufficient information about them. On the other hand, hundreds of papyri from al–Ušmūnain province survive, these papyri, especially the tax receipts, contain many names and some information about the financial directors of Egypt during the 2nd -3rd AH/ 8th-9th AD centuries. Some of the financial directors are not mentioned in other historical sources, but al–Ušmūnain Arabic papyri provide some new information about known directors and introduce new ones.

This paper studies the letter shape of the final jīm, ḥāʾ, and khāʾ in seven early Quranic manuscripts. Examination of the shape of these letters in these manuscripts reveals a graphemic distinction between the jīm, which lacks the typical curved tail, and the ḥāʾ and the khāʾ, which do have this tail. This distinction is lost in later Quranic manuscripts. I argue that the distinction between jīm and ḥāʾ/khāʾ is a continuation from the Arabic script’s origins in the Nabataean Aramaic script, which had distinct letter shapes for these signs. Contrary to what has been previously thought, the evidence adduced in this article shows that the merger happened in the Islamic period rather than in the pre-Islamic period.

This paper is the text of a conference I gave in Dublin in 2010. My first paper dedicated to the find of the Qubbat al-khazna was published, with my late colleague prof. Paolo Radiciotti (02.10.1961-02.04.2012), as early as 2008 (see "Nea Rhome" 5). I was pleased to see how inspiring our 2008 article has been: some colleagues used it extensively in 2011.

In the year 1900, inside the Qubbat al-khazna (the Umayyad Great Mosque courtyard), an important discovery was made: there were found documents related to the very same mosque, certificates of pilgrimage to Mecca, Qur’anic fragments, Arabic and Turkish literary texts, parchment fragments in Latin language and script, as well as Latin fragments in Greek script, fragments in old French, Hebrew (also Samaritan texts), Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, Aramaic, as well as in Greek – attested both in Greek language and script and in Arabic language and Greek script. The entire ensemble of manuscripts dates back to the period spanning from the Late Antiquity to Modern times."

Until recently, Arabic text representation was the exclusive domain of professional calligraphers and typographers. Today it revolves around elusive computer codes and ugly fonts. Yet, scholars are expected to be able to handle literary text, archaic text as well as contemporary Qur'anic text with so-called word processors. The industry attempts to cater for such requirements, but it must do so practically without participation or professional input of academic specialists. Consequently the potential of philological computing, in fields like database research, networking and publishing, remains largely untapped.

For the creation of a complete model for handling Arabic script with information technology, exhaustive understanding of its structure is imperative. Creating such such a model involves linguistically sound computer-aided transcription for efficient data entry on the one hand and historically correct script images as professional output on the other. This is the kind of exercise where one cannot afford to take anything for granted regarding Arabic text representation.

This approach forces one to explore the opportunities of Unicode-based information technology for Arabic philology. While addressing key issues of Arabic computing, this paper takes the requirements of Qur'anic studies as the central theme: computer-aided transcription to input a clean data structure related to graphemes and archigraphemes as well as correctly shaped typography that incorporates precise rules for allographic assimilation.

The paper is based on the results of research into two faces of Arabic text: computer-aided Latin transcription and computer-synthesized Arabic script.

The technology under scrutiny creates the conditions for contrastive analysis of digital Arabic text and computer-synthesized calligraphy. This reveals unexpected relations between calligraphy, spelling and possibly even text history.

"The study of early Qur’ānic manuscripts emerged in academia as early as the late 18th century. François Déroche identifies the origins of this quest with the Danish theologian and orientalist Jacob Georg Christian Adler (1756-1834). Adler, who was fascinated by Kūfic inscriptions, spent time studying early Qur’ānic fragments kept at the Det Kongelige Bibliotek (The Royal Library) in Copenhagen, Denmark.Today ‒ thanks to Alba Fedeli ‒ it has become possible to draw the history of Qur’ānic manuscript studies from 1856 to 1999. Nevertheless, in her concise chronology, Fedeli does not mention the works of Tayyar Altıkulaç, who is best known for his contributions in reproducing several ancient manuscripts of the Qur’ān ‒ mostly attributed to ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān and ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ‒ in facsimile editions, in collaboration with the Research Centre For Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) in Istanbul. This article is intended to expand Fedeli’s chronology by placing Altıkulaç and his al-muṣḥaf al-sharīf volumes, dedicated to codices attributed to the caliphs ʿUthmān and ʿAlī, into the framework of Qur’ānic manuscript studies."

This paper seeks to analyse the claims of Jay Smith during his debate with Dr. Shabir Ally entitled, “The Qur’an or the Bible: Which is the Word of God?” Orthodox Islamic beliefs state that the Qur’an has been revealed in seven modes known as ahruf al Qur’an. These seven modes according to the majority of Muslim scholars refers to the Messenger receiving the Qur’an in variant forms from God.

These forms, modes or ahruf all refer to the seven categories of variant revelation. These categories are listed as being variations of numbers, genders, diacritical (vowel) markings, verbs, syntax, transposition and of pronouncement. Jay Smith has incorrectly attempted to use the modes of the Qur’an as evidential of its corruption or errancy, so as to demonstrate that both scriptures are errant.

This paper seeks to analyse Jay Smith’s statements with the sources he appealed to, with the intention of demonstrating his misrepresentation, misunderstanding and ignorance of the relevant scholastic works referenced which fundamentally oppose his eisegetical conclusions.

The aim of this paper is to reassess a silver-in- laid bronze tray decorated with Christian figures that has traditionally been seen as an item of ‘Ayyubid’ metalwork from the first half of the 13th-century. In the light of new material evidence provided by the interpretation of a small engraved inscription, a new time frame can be proposed. Moreover, as this brings forward the completion of the tray to the second half of the 13th-century, it allows us to reconsider how both the geographical and the cultural context of its production might be linked to the Mosul school of metalwork in the Ilkhanid period.

Le lexicon est une publication pédagogique proposant une vue d’ensemble des dispositifs élaborés dans différentes traditions linguistiques et culturelles (domaines latin, roman,grec, hébreu et arabe) pour la mise en page et la « mise en texte » des manuscrits.

This article (re-)considers a unique Qurʾān manuscript in ciphered characters (Ar. al-taʿmiya), reminiscent of the ring letters of the Graeco- Egyptian tradition (Brillenbuchstaben). The case of this Qurʾān manuscript offers an opportunity to decode (Ar. istikhrāj al-muʿammà) a cryptographed text, to date and localize a very special Quranic codex, and to investigate the history of the collections it passed through, as well as the religious and cultural context of its production. Lastly, it examines the relations between Islam and magic—with which cryptography is often associated.

Dans cet article on analyse les graphies utilisées par les copistes andalous qui se consacrèrent à la production de manuscrits coraniques entre le Ve/XIe et le VIe/XIIe siècle. On examine aussi la transformation qui se produisit pendant cette époque dans la forme, l’aspect, et la conception du muṣḥaf en péninsule Ibérique. On démontrera que la notion de « graphies coraniques » en Occident islamique est tellement fluide qu’elle devient insaisissable pour la période qui va de l’introduction des graphies cursives dans les manuscrits du Coran à l’apogée de la domination almoravide. On tentera aussi d’expliciter comment tous les traits calligraphiques de ces styles dérivent des écritures livresques de la même époque. Enfin, on traitera de l’activité de quelques copistes andalous de cette période, de leurs modèles esthétiques et statut social, et du contexte culturel qui émerge des aspects matériaux des manuscrits qu’ils produisirent.

Le Kitāb Sībawayh X 56 sup. de la Bibliothèque Ambrosienne, écrit probablement en Tunisie dans la première moitié du Ve/XIe siècle, présente des traits paléographiques comparables à ceux que l'on trouve dans plusieurs manuscrits de fiqh malikite copiés à la même période non seulement à Qayrawān, mais aussi en Espagne et, peut-être, au Maroc. Ces textes semblent témoigner d'un ample réseau d'influences stylistiques et de modèles partagés qui unissait l'Ifrīqiya au Maghreb extrême avant la diffusion à travers l'Occident arabe des écritures arrondies d'origine andalouse. Nonobstant ce réseau, et bien que l'influence du maghribī arrondi sur les graphies de ces manuscrits soit parfois évidente, il faut attendre l'an 502/1108 pour voir ce nouveau style utilisé au Maroc, et au moins un autre siècle pour le rencontrer en Ifrīqiya.

The lecture aims at illustrating two block-printed amulets found in the Qubbat al-khazna in the Great Mosque of Damascus and currently preserved in Istanbul, at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts. These two specimens enlarge both the corpus of known block-printed amulets and the map of the regions in which the production of this peculiar type of written evidence is attested.

The history of the find will be recalled in order to put the block-printed exemplars in a wider material and linguistic context. Moreover, the technique employed for their production will be discussed and other new specimens, of various provenances, will also be presented.

The paper discusses a fragment of a specific type of Arabic
amulets produced as woodcuts. Comparing the fragment
with an intact exemplar presently owned by the Aga Khan
Museum in Toronto, it is possible to observe that both might
bear the same text. The paper also discusses the technology
of woodcut amulets and their relations to the Far East.

A previously unstudied Arabic nautical autograph manuscript has been recently brought to light in Lisbon. An early nineteenth-century bundle including at least three distinct works in almost one hundred leaves, it contains stellar route bearings and coastal descriptions, extensive astronomical, geographical, and traverse tables, in addition to a number of Islamic ethical sections and Sufi prayers. While the textual tradition remains inconclusive, authorship rests partly with an ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, from Ṣūr. The main physical and textual features are given here to lay the ground for further study.

More than 60 years ago, it was still possible to speak about Latin and Greek palaeographies
as the only fields in which palaeographical studies had reached scientific dignity.
Nowadays, it is important and urgent to review, reconsider and possibly enlarge the
boundaries of palaeography. The existence of palaeographical studies devoted to linguistic
contexts different from the Greek and Latin ones is more and more a reality that
cannot be ignored. The progressive recognition, and integration, of non-Classical manuscript
cultures can only strengthen palaeography as a field of research. Broadening
the field of palaeographical research will also contribute to create a new generation of
scholars more conscious of the object and the method of palaeography: some recent
publications dedicated to Arabic calligraphy show, for example, a basic misunderstanding
between the field of palaeography and calligraphy.

During the so-called 'Islamic Golden Age', cities like Alexandria, Cairo, Mecca, Damascus, and Jerusalem were home to significant Maghribi communities whose members made important contributions to the local intellectual debates and the transmission of knowledge. This continuous presence becomes all the more visible from the 12th century onwards, thanks to the survival of numerous manuscripts copied in the Mashriq by Maghribi scholars who proudly clung to the writing style and practices of their homeland. This article presents some of these manuscripts and discusses the contexts in which they circulated. As shown by material and textual evidence, the use of Maghribi scripts represented a key factor in the promulgation of the Andalusi identity throughout the Islamic world, and the communities of Maghribi expatriates in the eastern Mediterranean were perceived as a cohesive group also because of the distinctive appearance of the manuscripts they produced.

This contribution aims to reconsider some early Qurʾānic parchment scrolls once stored in Damascus Qubbat al-khazna and currently preserved in Istanbul – at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts. Their peculiar book form, apart from vague hypothesis, never received a convincing explanation. However, the production of Greek-Byzantine liturgical scrolls in Damascus up to the tenth century offers a meaningful precedent that sheds light on the provenance and the origin of these scrolls. Codicological techniques, bilingual – Greek- Arabic – witnesses and oral performances are some of the elements that link the Christian and Islamic scrolls production in the Syrian area.

Keywords. Scrolls, Qurʾāns, Greek-Byzantine scrolls, Syria, Qubbat al-khazna

Francisco FRANCO-SÁNCHEZ: «Análisis de las dos líneas de transmisión del tratado de Tudmīr (94 H./713 e.C.)». Anaquel de Estudios Árabes. N. 27, 2016. ISSN: 1130-3964, pp. 63-79  |
Resumen: Los dos textos principales de las líneas de transmisión del tratado de Tudmīr (94 H/713 e.C.), incluidos por al-‘Uḏrī y al-Ḍabbī en sus respectivas obras, son editados y traducidos en base a la relectura de los manuscritos que los contienen; de ello se extraen una serie de conclusiones sobre su proceso de copia. Luego son comparados los dos textos entre sí y se enumeran una serie de diferencias textuales. Como conclusión se propone la hipótesis de que el texto de al-‘Uḏrī es el más antiguo, resultado de la copia que al-‘Uḏrī habría realizado del propio original del s. VIII (o de una copia de éste). Por otro lado, la transmisión de al-Ḍabbī sería más reciente, y sería consecuencia de poner por escrito un relato oral del texto  |  Abstract: The two main texts of the transmission lines of the treaty of Tudmīr (94 H/713 e.C. ), included by al-‘Uḏrī and al-Ḍabbī in their respective works, are edited and translated on the basis of an new reading of the manuscripts that contain them, and after that, we reach some conclusions about its process of copy. There are compared the two texts, and are listed its textual differences. As conclusion, we propose that Al- ‘Uḏrī’s text is the oldest, because its author has copied them from the original document of the 8th. c. (or a copy transfer of this). The transmission of al-Ḍabbī is more recent and it was based in an oral transmission of the text.  | 
http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/rev_ANQE.2016.v27.47993
Download: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/53691

Il Seminario "La Paleografia tra Oriente e Occidente/Palaeography between East and West" giunge, nel 2014, alla sua quarta edizione. L’intento è quello di offrire una opportunità di dialogo interdisciplinare nell’ambito degli studi paleografici e codicologici. Interventi dedicati a manoscritti in lingue classiche (greco e latino) si alterneranno a contributi relativi a manoscritti orientali (arabo-islamici, georgiani, copti). Il Seminario è destinato a studenti di Paleografia e Codicologia, senza distinzione di area linguistica.

https://www.eurobuch.com/buch/isbn/3201019712.html - The manuscript known as the Golden Qur'an,20° Cod. arab. 1112 in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (BSB), is an extraordinary work. It is the only known Qur'an that is entirely written on paper, which is completely gilded on both sides. Much suggests a date in the medieval period, but neither a colophon nor any inscription indicate the time and place of its production or its later use. In the present work, we date Cod. arab. 1112 to the period from the end of the twelfth to the first decades of the thirteenth century, and thus offer the first monograph on a Qur' an created at the end of Seljuk rule (1040-1194) or in the period of the Atabeg princes, before the Mongoi conquest (i.e. the fall of Baghdad in 1258). We focus on a descriptive analysis and comparative discussion of the codex, its script and illumination, and of the binding dated here to the sixteenth century. The work provides a broader foundation for the dating and attribution of the Golden Qur'an, looks also into the so far unknown history of the manuscript after its production, and discusses the function of golden paper in a Qur'an.

A reliable edition of medical fragments in Hebrew and/or Arabic script from the Cairo Geniza, especially those dealing with pharmacology, can only be accomplished if the editors are trained in medieval Judeo-Arabic, Arabic philology, and paleography and have a thorough knowledge of all the secondary sources and studies. Allowing too many faulty readings otherwise, editions of these fragments cannot be considered credible.

Cet article propose l’édition, la traduction et le commentaire de deux documents sur papyrus émis par le tribunal de Fusṭāṭ dans la seconde moitié du VIIIe siècle. Ces documents, émis par deux cadis bien connus de l’historiographie égyptienne, permettent d’appréhender le fonctionnement pratique de procédures judiciaires comme la convocation des plaideurs et l’enregistrement de mandataires auprès du tribunal. Ils montrent par ailleurs l’important rôle de conciliateur qui pouvait incomber au cadi.

Palaeography is a discipline that requires many and different competences, and that contributes to various domains of knowledge such as history, history of the texts, philology. Classical Palaeography is already based on written documents of the Greek-Byzantine and Latin cultures, that use different alphabets for different languages. Despite the resistance of Italian palaeographers, it is time to start thinking about a “Mediterranean Palaeography”, if not about a “World Palaeography” – reflecting the new horizons of the “World Philology” recently pointed out by Sheldon Pollock. Palaeography can indeed concur to a wider and deeper sense of the history and to a better knowledge of the written culture(s).  In the future of palaeographical studies there will be no more boundaries dictated by alphabets or languages. Moreover according to the concept of total Palaeography elaborated by Jean Mallon (1904-1982) the field of palaeographical studies becomes wider, since it is not limited to the books and documents production but can embrace all kind of written witnesses produced by a given culture. The frontiers between disciplines – Codicology, Epigraphy, Numismatics, Sphragistic – fade, especially in the context of the Arabic studies. The Arabic written materials are so multifarious to comprehend objects and artifacts traditionally belonging to different fields.

With special thanks to my palaeographer colleagues who are an endless source of inspiration!

In Italy where this talk could hardly have taken place. Indeed, the Association of Italian Palaeographers has recently rejected a motion to enlarge its field to the Mediterranean area and cultures, even though the history of the Mediterranean region in the Middle Ages is nowadays a concept widely accepted by the scientific community. Historical research shows always more the fluidity of the boundaries between East and West. Palaeography is a discipline that requires many and different competences and that contributes to various domains such as history, history of the texts, and philology. Classical Palaeography is already based on written documents of the Greek-Byzantine and Latin cultures, that use different alphabets for different languages. Like the frontiers of a “World Philology” indicated by Sheldon Pollock, it is also time to start thinking about a “Mediterranean Palaeography”, if not about a “World Palaeography”. Palaeography can indeed concur to a wider and deeper sense of the history of the Mediterranean region in which the boundaries will be no more dictated by the alphabets.

Computed Tomography of an Early Islamic Silver Scroll found in Jerash/Jordan by the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project (Universities of Aarhus and Münster)<br>The computed tomography was conducted by the company Vohtec in Garching in February 2015. Vohtec used the Phoenix GE v|tome|x M equipped with a 300 kV microfocus X-ray tube and a 2k imaging detector. The scan was done at an X-ray voltage of 270 kV and a current of 87 μA. The imaging set up produced a magnification of approx. 8,5x with a voxel size of approx. 23 μm. The 3D volume was created on the basis of 1,600 2D X-ray images recorded during the scan as the object was rotated 360° around its main axis.<br>In addition to the publications mentioned below, the data was recently processed by: Baum, Daniel; Herter, Felix; Lepper, Verena M. (2020): Jerash Silver Scroll: Virtually Unfolded Volume. figshare. Dataset. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.12145236