Coloured dots and the question of regional origins in early Qur'ans: Part II

This is the second part of an article begun in the previous issue (17:1) of the Journal of Qur'anic Studies. Part I began with a study of remarks about regional patterns of vocalisation offered by the Andalusian scholar of the Qur'an, al-Dānī (371–444/982–1053); these were then confronted with extant manuscripts of the third to fourth/ninth to tenth centuries that can be ascribed to the region between Syria, Iraq, and Iran. This analysis largely confirmed al-Dānī’s observations, thereby suggesting the existence of a dominant norm for vocalisation in the area he calls the Mashriq. The same approach will now be applied to Qur'ans from the Islamic West, the Maghrib, before drawing some conclusions about the use of vocalisation as a marker of regional origins.