ABSTRACT
For textual research it is not wise to take the phonetic face of the Egyptian Fuʾād Muṣḥaf as a basis, because there a meticulous system of signs has been strewn over the skeleton text proper, which, more often than not, can totally level the underlying variants of the “rasm” (i.e. the skeleton text). Viewed from the accepted Standard Text of 1924 (and later until the Saudi Muṣḥafs from Medina) the variants are mainly ascribed to a lack of precision in script or a lack of orthographical competence on the part of the scribes. Thus deviations from the orthography of Classical Arabic (CA) are usually seen to be “defective” writings, which can be “healed” by the application of a swarm of Masoretic vocalization signs. Two examples may suffice to illustrate the distance between the letters of the rasm and the word with a full vocalization and its transcription, i.e. how this skeleton script is expected to be pronounced:
الى in the Standard Text (StT) Sūra 33:4; 58:2 and 65:2 is to be read ٱلَِّٰۤٔى, phonetically as /l:a::ʔi:/. Although the skeleton script consists of three letters only a narrow one-to-one transliteration of the Standard Text would need three full “letters” on the line plus seven vocalization signs: ̓˩lˢa ̍ ˜ʹ iy. 1
بروا in the Standard Text 60:4 is to be read بُرَءَ ؤُٰۤا۟ , phonetically as /buraʔaːːʔu/; its rasm consists of four letters on the line, only; however, a one-to-one transliteration would need nine additional vocalization signs, in Arabic as well as in transcription: buraʹa ̍˜ẃux˩!
