Rasm

Rasm (رسم) is an Arabic term that signifies "sketch, pattern, mark, design, form". When speaking of the Qur'an, it stands for either the basic 18 letters used in early manuscripts, that is, without "i'jam" diacritics, or for one of the various ways of depicting the precise vocalization of the Qur'an. Examples of the latter use are Rasm Ad-Dani and Rasm Al-Kharraz, both used to render Riwayat Qalun from Nafi'. (See Qira'at.)

The former sense is characteristic of early Qur'anic and other Arabic texts, usually written in Kufic script, before the development of "harakat" (vowel pointing) and "i'jam" (consonant pointing). As such, the "rasm" are the only element of Arabic script which can be traced back to early Qur'anic manuscripts, and therefore are the most straightforward element of orthography when deciding whether a reading of the Qur'an is canonical.

There are eighteen "rasm:"

However, in medial position, these conflate to fifteen distinct forms, as the differences between ٮ-ں-ﯼ and ڡ-ٯ are lost.

Compare the beginning of the "qurʾān" with all diacritics and with the "rasm" only:

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ

ٮسم‌الـله‌الرحمں‌الرحٮم

or with spaces:

ٮسم الـله الر حمن الر حٮم

(note that spaces do not occur only between words)

The Kufic Samarkand Qur'an that was from 1869 to 1917 in St. Petersburg shows almost only the "rasm."

External links

* [http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Scribal/scribal.html Are There Scribal Errors In The Qur'ân?]
* [http://www.unesco.org/webworld/nominations/en/uzbekistan/reading.htm some pages from the famous St.Petersburg-Samerkand-Tashkent Koran] in Kufic click on the fourth to seventh images!
* [http://www.usna.edu/Users/humss/bwheeler/quran/maili.html a page in the earliest script] ma'il