Indexed OCR Text

al-Quraish, but all the turuq of Hafs require that basmalah be read between the
two surahs.63 These were later fixed and a new mushaf was published in Egypt,
known as the Sharmalī mushaf. May Allah shower His special mercy on all the
scholars around the Muslim world who participated in the great task of bringing
the Qur'an into print. Āmīn.
Conclusions
After considering all the information shared in this article, I humbly suggest the
following conclusions:
. The Madinah printed mushaf follows the classical books of dabt in every
aspect of its diacritical marks.
. The major books of dabt that are cited were written by 'Allāmah al-Dānī,
Imam Abū Dawud ibn Najāh and Imam al-Kharraz. The main commentary
that is referenced for the matn of Imam al-Kharraz is al-Țiraz fi Sharh Dabt al-
Kharrāz by Shaykh Muhammad al-Tanasī (d. 899 AH).
. There is a clear similarity between the dabt of the Iranian, Turkish, and
Indian handwritten manuscripts. Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī's mushaf is also similar
to these earlier handwritten masahif. However, the Egyptian handwritten
mushaf from the last quarter of the 8th century hijrī is very similar to
contemporary Arab printed masahif. It is a reasonable conclusion that in
addition to the conventions of dabt of North Africa and Spain (maghāribah)
and the Eastern Arab lands (mashariqah), there was a third convention that
was based generally on the system of diacritics of Imam Khalil al-Farahīdī
but also had some of its own conventions.
. It is possible that the convention of dabt that non-Arab Muslims were using
is described in books other than the few that were mentioned above. It is
also possible that the reason we are unaware of these works is because they
are not in Arabic. As these masahif were produced in non-Arabic speaking
lands, these guides of dabt may have been written in their local and
administrative languages of Persian and Turkish. It is a fact that scholars did
63 "Abd al-Fattah al-Qādī, Tārīkh al-Mushaf al-Sharif (Cairo: Al-Azhar, 2014-2015), 54-55.
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produce works of Islamic knowledge in both these languages.64 I,
unfortunately, cannot read Turkish or Persian, and therefore despite
wanting to, was unable to find such a text.
. The diversity that exists today in the application of the principles of the
science of dabt mimics that of earlier Islamic societies and their handwritten
mașāķīf. I believe that it would be a great loss to our ummah if we were to
insist on abandoning this diversity to apply the classical rules of dabt that
are mentioned in books but were not applied in any uniform way in the
handwritten Qur'anic manuscripts of the Muslims that came before us.
. Every science has a framework into which its details fit. The framework of
the science of dabt is that diacritics be used to ensure that the Qur'an can be
recited correctly by the average Muslim, and that there is enough regional
standardization (think of the eastern and western conventions) that the
people of an area may read the Qur'an correctly through the masahif that
are published or written in that area.
. Because of the flexibility that is part of the framework of the science of dabt,
new conventions of dabt may be added even today to meet the changing
needs of Muslims in a particular region. A modern example of this is the
tajwīd color coded masahif.
Today, we live in a world that is becoming increasingly smaller due to the
internet, and increasingly rigid as we insist on a level of standardization and
mass production that is only possible through modern technology. It is this
modern world view that insists that regional diversity should be abandoned to
standardize something according to an imagined classical reality. I implore the
reader to resist this modern mindset, and instead embrace the permissible
diversity that has always existed in the dabt of the masahif of our ummah.
Alhamdulillah, this article was completed on the 8th of Ramadan, 1445 AH. May
Allah grant all the scholars of dabt Jannat al-firdaus, and may Allah accept this
64 Ahmed El Shamsy, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture
Transformed an Intellectual Tradition (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020), 21.
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small effort from me and make it a means of joining the hearts of believers on
this topic. May Allah make us of those who seek to understand the differences of
our brothers and sisters in faith, and whose love for their brothers and sisters
surpasses their personal comfort and bias. I ask Allah to forgive me for the
mistakes I have made in my research and understanding of this issue, to accept
it from me despite its obvious deficiencies, and to make it a means of Him being
pleased with me on the day I meet Him. Āmīn.
الَّهُمَّ صَلِ على سَيِّنَامُحمّد وعلى آله وصَحِهِ وسلّم
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