The Birmingham University Library contains an early, nine-folio manuscript of the Qurʾan (MS Mingana Arab. (Isl.) 1572) written in so-called ‘Ḥijāzī’ script. These nine folios are from two different original manuscripts, the one represented by two out of these nine folios, and the other represented by the other seven.In this article we look in detail at both these fragments, especially at the textual and spelling variants exhibited and the verse-numbering system(s) employed, and compare these fragments with other early manuscripts, particularly MS Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, 328a, and MS London, British Library, Or. 2165. In addition to shedding light on the nature of the early Syrian reading—which our two fragments appear to exemplify—such comparisons suggest that the norms that were later to be considered standard—including the distinction between what was shādhdh, anomalous or non-canonical, and what was not—took some time to develop, and that for some time after the acceptance of an ‘ʿUthmanic’ text, there was still considerable, and acceptable, variation at the micro-level of how the skeletal text could, or should, be written (particularly in the spelling of long vowels and/or hamza) and how it could, or should, be pronounced (particularly with regard to variations in short vowels and/or homographic consonants).

中文翻译：

---

古兰经的两个“Ḥijāzī”片段及其变体，或者：沙瓦德什么时候成为沙德的？

伯明翰大学图书馆藏有古兰经的早期九开本手抄本（MS Mingana Arab。（伊斯尔）1572年），用“Ḥijāzī”脚本书写。这9个作品集来自两个不同的原始手稿，一个由这9个作品集中的2个代表，另一个由其他7个作品集代表。在本文中，我们详细研究了这两个片段，特别是所展示的文字和拼写变体以及所采用的诗歌编号系统，并将这些片段与其他早期手稿进行比较，尤其是MS Paris，National Bibliotheque nationale，328a和MS London，British Library，Or。2165。