Page 157 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

ARABIC PALAEOGRAPHY AND ORTHOGRAPHY IN THE QUR'AN 137

The inscription (supposedly a combination of Nabataean and Arabic
charactersj" contains dots associated with the following Arabic letters:
n (0), b(y) and t (u).
3. A bilingual document on papyrus, dated 22 A.H.,29 preserved at
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna:

Figure 10.3:A dated bilingual document.from Egypt. Source: Austrian
National Library, Papyrus Collection, P. Vindob. G 39726.
Reprinted withtheir kindpermission.

Figure 10.4: Thejinalline reads: Month qf Jamiid al-Uld from
theyear22(A.H.) andwritten (by) IbnHudaida.

This document hails from the reign of Caliph 'Umar bin al-Khattab.
The following Arabic characters have dots: n (0), kit(t), dh (~), sh
(cJ~)' and Z (j).30

28 EV Winnett and WL. Reed, Ancient Recordsfiom North Arabia, University of Toronto
Press, 1970, p. 11.
29 M. Hamidullah, Six Originaux des Lettres Diplomatiques duProphete deL'Islam,pp. 44-
45; See also S. al-Munaggid, Etudes De Paleographie Arabe, pp. 102-3.
30 Hamidullah in Six Originaux des Leiires Diplomatiques du Prophete de L'!slam, p. 47,
reports that Grohmann [From the T110rld qf ArabicPapyri, Cairo, 1952, pp. 62, 113-4]
committed numerous mistakes in reading the five lines of the Arabic text. In line 4,
he read ~ 'J.-...>. whereas it is i~ c.r->- ; line 5, he read JJ\rI ($..L...",-, J..\;J.>. 0<\ and c.-
~I whereas it is JJ\rI ($..L...",-, '..\;J.>.0<\ and 0P1 L.o respectively.