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Marijn van Putten @PhDniX
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In "Qur'ans of the Umayyads", François Déroche makes multiple references to the idea that the use of "Scriptio Continua" is typical for early Qurans and especially typical of Qurans in the old Hijazi style. Let's challenge that myth
brill.com/view/title/239…
Scriptio continua is the lack of the concept of a 'space'. The space between letters is just as big, regardless of whether the two letters belong to the same word or do not.
Déroche repeatedly says the Arabic script was 'adapted' to scriptia continua.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_…
"Adapted" seems to imply that Arabic previously had the ability to express spaces, but that these were dropped in favour of scriptio continua; perhaps to be more like the Romans. There is nothing that suggests this is the case. Arabic had scriptio continua from the start.
Arabic has the nice feature though that, if letters do belong together in a word, and do not contain a و، د، ذ، ز، ر، ا will actually be written completely connected in its continuous script. Letter blocks usually align with words; Arabic is well-suited for scriptio continua.
Even in its earliest forms (i.e. (transitional) Nabataeo-Arabic), the scriptio continua is clearly visible. Such as in the Nammara inscription (328 CE) and En Avdat inscription (around 88-126CE).
islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/…
islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/…
Inspiration from scripts like Greek and Latin, that often used this practice is not impossible, but difficult to prove. Even Imperial Aramaic script (ancestor of the Nabataean script) could be written in scriptio continua; so no need to assume that it was Graeco-Roman inspiration
So can we use scriptio continua as a way to determine whether a Quranic document is Hijazi/very ancient?

It is true, all Hijazi Qurans are written in scriptio continua, e.g. BL Or. 2165 and BnF Arabe 328a.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Fu…
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
But this is also true for every Kufic Quran ever. It is also true for Déroche's newly identified style "O I" (the style of the early Umayyad Qurans), such as BnF Arabe 330c. This is something Déroche also recognises.

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
Kufic A, likewise, always has scriptio continua. See for example BnF Arabe 330d.

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
Kufic B1a? Scriptio Continua. (BnF Arabe 328d)

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
Kufic B1b, idem (BnF Arabe 327).
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
Kufic B2 is no different (BnF Arabe 329b).
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
You get the idea. Kufic C (BnF Arabe 334a), D (BnF Arabe 325b) and E (BnF Arabe 326i) all follow the same pattern.

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
So clearly, Kufic just always has scriptio continua; And since Kufic continues well into the 11th century, it's not exactly a good feature to define "early" by. But what about New Style Qurans? Also: Scriptio Continua. (BnF Arabe 342b).
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
Well, what about Maghrebi Qurans? Scriptio Continua.
Leiden Universiteitbibliotheek Or. 228.
…online.com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2048//browse/memo-1… (no open acces; sorry).
Well then, surely, the Ottoman Qurans in the all-familiar Naskh script will have spaces? Actually, they don't. Here's two Qurans, one from 1594 and 1790.

Throughout the entire written history, the Arabic script didn't have spaces.

gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv…
I say written, because at "printed" is when the turning point starts to happen; as has been pointed out expertly and often by @ThomasMiloNL, printed Qurans suddenly start to have word spacing. Looking at the Cairo Edition there is no doubt where one word starts and the other ends
And this is true for most Arabic fonts today. While Scriptio Continua, which is attributed to "western" influence, can't convincingly be attributed to that; the concept of "word spacing" may be!

The assumption that Arabic script "should" work like that is anachronistic.
The scriptio continua of the Mushaf Muscat (mushafmuscat.om) is hence a return to form of what handwritten Naskhi Qurans look like, before the technical limitations, and assumptions of printers introduced spaces into the Quran.
To conclude, let's stop saying like Scriptio Continua is somehow a special feature of early Qurans. This is only the case if you put it next to a modern print edition of the Quran. There is over a millenium of Scription Continue in the Islamic period, and it started before that.
Derp; I did not clip the right part of the first paragraph image. Sorry!
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Today in Arabists say the darnedest things: Fischer claims addressee agreement of the far deixis is no longer productive in pre-classical Arabic. It evidently still is, see Q12:37. Joseph addresses two men with whom he is imprisoned, he is asked to explain their dreams.
He tells them: "I will inform you (dual) of what the interpretation before your food arrives; That (= ḏāli-kumā "that-you:dual) is part of what my lord has taught me."

There is no doubt the form ḏālikumā is chosen OVER ḏālika because the speaker is addressing 2 people.
The Quran in fact attests all 5 possible types of agreement for the masculine singular:
ḏāli-ka 2ms (passim)
(ka-)ḏāli-ki: 2fs (Q19:21) to Maryam, cf. ka-ḏālika (Q19:9) to Zakariyyā.
ḏāli-kum 2mp (passim e.g. Q2:49)
ḏāli-kunna 2fp (Q12:32) to the women of the city
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A subtle but striking point that shows that the modern Arabic dialects cannot derive from Classical Arabic is a phonetic development Classical Arabic undergoes that is absent in most (if not all) modern dialects an assimilation of *a to respectively *i/u in CaCCī/uC nouns.
It's easy to find examples of this kind:
CA sikkīr 'drunken' Egyptian sakkīr
CA ṣiddīq 'truthful' Eg. ṣaddīʾ
CA ḫinzīr 'wild boar', Eg. ḫanzīr
CA ʿifrīt 'demon', Eg. ʿafrīt
CA ṣundūq 'box', Eg. sandūʾ
CA ʿuṣfūr 'sparrow', Eg. ʿaṣfūr
CA gumhūr 'crowd' Eg. gamhūr
Sometimes, even when modern dialects lack good parallels (or if they loaned from CA) it can be found that CA has innovated with this sound law.
CA tilmīḏ 'student' < Aramaic talmīḏ
CA dustūr 'register' < Persian dastūr
CA ǧibrīl 'gabriel' < Hebrew gaḇrīʾēl
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I was asked both before and during the conference whether I would be posting my #IQSA18 talks on Twitter; With such enthusiasm why would I do anything but comply? Here is a thread.
The title of my talk speaks of a 'Quranic Archetype'; What I mean by this is that I think that all Qurans we have go back to a single written source -- a single book from which all Qurans were copied (with the notable exception the Sanaa Palimpsest).
So how do we go about showing that there was a single Archetype?
niʿmat aḷḷāh 'the grace of God' can be spelled in two different ways in Quranic orthography نعمت الله and نعمه الله.

There is no difference in meaning or context, just two ways of writing the same thing.
Read 30 tweets

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#14Juillet
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docs.google.com/document/d/1BA…
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