The Cairo edition (, "the Amiri

Mus'haf ''Mushaf'' (, ; plural ) is an Arabic word for a codex or collection of sheets, but also refers to a written copy of the Quran. The chapters of the Quran, which Muslims believe was revealed during a 23-year period in Muhammad's lifetime, were wr ...

"), or the King Fu'ād Quran () or the Azhar Quran, is an edition of the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

printed by the

Amiri Press The Amiri Press or Amiriya Press () (''Al-Matba'a al-Amiriya'') (also known as the Bulaq Press () due to its original location in Bulaq) is a printing press, and one of the main agencies with which Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha moder ...

in the

Bulaq Boulaq ( from "guard, customs post"), is a district of Cairo, in Egypt. It neighbours Downtown Cairo, Azbakeya, and the River Nile. History The westward shift of the Nile, especially between 1050 and 1350, made land available on its eastern si ...

district of

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

on July 10, 1924. It is the first printed Quran to be accepted by a Muslim authority, this authority being

Al-Azhar Al-Azhar Mosque (), known in Egypt simply as al-Azhar, is a mosque in Cairo, Egypt in the historic Islamic core of the city. Commissioned as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in 970, it was the first mosque established in a city that ...

. The process of creating the Fu'ad Quran lasted 17 years, from 1907 to 1924, achieved with the support by

Fuad I of Egypt Fuad I ( ''Fu’ād al-Awwal''; 26 March 1868 – 28 April 1936) was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and the Sudan. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, he became Sultan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Hu ...

and the supervision of Azhari scholars. It was regarded as an "official" Quran and was replicated by a number of following editions.

History

A committee of leading professors from

Al-Azhar University The Al-Azhar University ( ; , , ) is a public university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university and is known as one of the most prestigious universities for Islamic ...

Stefan Wild, "basmallah" ''The Quran: an Encyclopedia'',

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

had started work on the project in 1907 but it was not until 10 July 1924 that the "Cairo Qur’an" was first published by

under the patronage of

,Brockett, Adrian Alan,
Studies in two transmissions of the Qur'an
'Peter G. Riddell
Early Malay Qur'anic exegical activity
p. 164. Taken from ''Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Responses''. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2001. as such, it is sometimes known as the "royal (''amīriyya'') edition." The goal of the government of the newly formed

Kingdom of Egypt The Kingdom of Egypt () was the legal form of the Egyptian state during the latter period of the Muhammad Ali dynasty's reign, from the United Kingdom's recognition of Egyptian independence in 1922 until the abolition of the monarchy of Eg ...

was not to delegitimize the other methods of recitation, but to eliminate that, which the colophon labels as imprecise typefaces, found in Qur’anic texts used in state schools. To do this they chose to preserve one of the fourteen

Qira'at In Islam, (pl. ; ) refers to the ways or fashions that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is recited. More technically, the term designates the different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with rec ...

“readings”, namely that of

Hafs Hafs (Abū Amr Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Abi Dawud al-Asadī al-Kūfī (, 706–796 AD; 90–180 Anno Hegirae)), according to Islamic tradition, was one of the primary transmitters of one of the seven canonical methods of Qur' ...

(d. 180/796), student of

‘Asim Abu Bakr ‘Aasim Ibn Abi al-Najud al-'Asadi (died 745 CE / 127 AH),Shady Hekmat NasserIbn Mujahid and the Canonization of the Seven Readings p. 57. Taken from ''The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qur'an: The Problem of Tawaatur and t ...

. Its publication has been called a "terrific success", and the edition has been described as one "now widely seen as the official publishing methods of the Qur’an", and is popular among both

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

and

Shia Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...

Muslims. Minor amendments were made later in 1924 and in 1936 - the "Faruq edition" in honour of then ruler, King Faruq. Reasons given for the overwhelming popularity of Hafs and Asim include the fact that it doesn’t have

Imāla (also ; ) is a phenomenon in Arabic comprising the fronting and raising of Old Arabic toward or , and the old short toward . and the factors conditioning its occurrence were described for the first time by Sibawayh. According to as-Sirafi a ...

, Ibdāl and so forth makes it easy to recite.

Ingrid Mattson Ingrid Mattson (born August 24, 1963) is a Canadian activist and scholar. A professor of Islamic studies, she is currently the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College at the University of Western Ontario ...

credits mass-produced printing press

mushaf ''Mushaf'' (, ; plural ) is an Arabic word for a codex or collection of sheets, but also refers to a written copy of the Quran. The chapters of the Quran, which Muslims believe was revealed during a 23-year period in Muhammad's lifetime, were wr ...

with increasing the availability of the written Quran but also diminishing the diversity of qira'at. Written text has become canonical and oral recitation has lost much of its previous equality. Muslim disagreement over whether to include the

Basmala The (; also known by its opening words ; , "In the name of God in Islam, God") is the titular name of the Islamic phrase “In the name of God in Islam, God, Rahman (name), the Most Gracious, Rahim, the Most Merciful” (, ). It is one of ...

within the Quranic text, reached consensus following the 1924 Edition, which included it as the first verse (''

āyah An āyah (, ; ) is a "verse" in the Qur'an, one of the statements of varying length that make up the chapters (''surah'') of the Qur'an and are marked by a number. In a purely linguistic context the word means "evidence", "sign" or "miracle ...

'') of

Quran chapter 1 Al-Fatiha () is the first chapter () of the Quran. It consists of seven verses (') which consist of a prayer for guidance and mercy. Al-Fatiha is recited in Muslim obligatory and voluntary prayers, known as ''salah''. The primary literal mea ...

but otherwise included it as an unnumbered line of text preceding the other relevant 112 chapters. The Cairo Quran adopted the

Kufan tradition Hafs (Abū Amr Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Abi Dawud al-Asadī al-Kūfī (, 706–796 AD; 90–180 Anno Hegirae)), according to Islamic tradition, was one of the primary transmitters of one of the seven canonical methods of Qur' ...

of separating and numbering verses, and thus standardized a different verse numbering to Flügel's 1834 edition. It adopted the order of chapters attributed to

Ibn Abbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās (; c. 619 – 687 CE), also known as Ibn ʿAbbās, was one of the cousins of the prophet Muhammad. He is considered to be the greatest mufassir of the Qur'an. He was the son of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of M ...

, which became widely accepted following 1924. A large number of pre-1924 Qurans were destroyed by disposing of them in the river

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

. Prominent committee members included Islamic scholar, Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Husayni al-Haddad, Egypt's senior Qur'an Reader (''

Shaykh al-Maqâri Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning " elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim scholar. Though this title generally refers to men, there are also a small number of ...

''). Noteworthy Western scholars/academics working in Egypt during the era include Bergsträsser and

Jeffery Jeffery may refer to: * Jeffery (name), including a list of people with the name * Jeffery (automobile), an early American automobile manufacturer * Thomas B. Jeffery Company * Jeffery Boulevard, a major north–south street on the South Side of Ch ...

. Methodological differences aside, speculation alludes to a spirit of cooperation. Bergsträsser was certainly impressed with the work.

References

{{Quranic manuscripts Bulaq Press publications Quran 1924 books