Thread by @PhDniX

The لا lām-ʾalif is an interesting letter of the Arabic alphabet, due to its shape, it is not always clear which part is the lām and which one is the ʾalif. In this series of: "orthography in medieval manuscripts that nobody ever talks about", let's talk about the lām-ʾalif flip!

If we go all the way back to pre-Islamic times, in transitional Nabataeo-Arabic, the ʾalif was not yet the straight line that it is today, but rather had a kind of 6-like shape. While the lām was already somewhat similar. The lām-ʾalif already looked similar too...

Keeping the original 6-like shape in mind, it stands to reason that it is the RIGHT leg of the lām-ʾalif that is the ʾalif, and the LEFT leg that is the lām:

(illustration taken from onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…)

But those that read modern print Arabic today will know that the order of which is the lām, and which is the ʾalif has been reversed, this is clear by seeing on which of the two legs the hamzah sign appears, e.g. in al-ʾarḍ. That flip happens somewhere in the Islamic period!

al-ʾaʿmaš with hamzah squarely on the right leg (Ibn Ḫālawayh, kitāb al-badīʿ, dated 370 AH)
lā rayba with fatḥah on left leg, sukūn on right leg (Ibn al-Bawwāb Quran 381 AH), compare also al-ṣalāt and al-ʾarḍ.

But this flip isn't a purely modern typographic idiosyncracy...

wa-la-ʾanta. (kitāb al-ḫalq 441-444 AH) has clearly not yet flipped the assignment.

But al-ʾalifu in a copy of Zamaḫšarī's al-mufaṣṣal (629 AH) the flip is complete!

When and where this flip happens, has to my knowledge never been studied properly.

Palaeographically, learning the answer would be extremely useful. It would give us a chance to more precisely date manuscripts in the Naskh style, which is otherwise quite "timeless". It is difficult to see the difference between a 13th and a 19th century Naskh manuscript.

So did the whole of the Arabic manuscript culture undergo this flip? No! This development simply never took place in the Maghreb, and Maghrebi manuscripts continues the non-flipped practice basically up until the modern period.

Here some examples of a manuscript from 1059 AH

Those who are familiar with print qurans of readings popular in the Maghreb (Warš and Qālūn from Nāfiʿ) will recognise this original unflipped practice, as they are still used today, in these Qurans.

As I was looking for examples of this, I actually found in a Maghrebi copy (562 AH) of Sībawayh's kitāb cases of both the flipped and non-flipped spelling, so it is not as absolute as I thought. It seems very worthwhile to examine regional and temporal trends for this practice.

Perhaps needless to say, but nevertheless worth pointing out: early Kufic qurans with vocalisation still treat the right leg as the ʾalif as well, which is visible because the red dots are placed on that leg to mark the hamzah, so that really is clearly the original orientation.

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