Stylogenyin the style of Madinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)

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Traditions & vernacular · 1985–present · Middle East & North Africa, Global / networked

Madinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)

Also known as Muṣḥaf al-Madīna al-nabawiyya (the edition's official name), Medina Quran, Uthman Taha mushaf, King Fahd Complex mushaf

One fixed page for the Qur'an across much of the Muslim world: Uthman Taha's fully vowelled Naskh in fifteen justified lines, written so that every page ends at the end of a verse (the late Ottoman âyet-berkenar layout), inside a floral frame, with sura titles in framed cartouches and verse numbers in small round medallions. Printed in Medina from 1985 by the millions and given to every pilgrim, it became the default image of the printed Qur'an, now repeated in translations, page fonts and apps.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

This is the text of the Qur'an as millions of Muslims read, recite and memorise it: never crop, mirror, distort, re-letter or recolour its verses, use the page as texture, background or a decorative 'Arabic' look, or put it on floors, footwear, clothing or throwaway packaging, and never fill a layout with pseudo-Qur'anic script. Use the Complex's own editions or licensed fonts (the KFGQPC fonts may not be reproduced or modified without its written approval), have any Qur'anic text checked by a qualified reader, credit Uthman Taha and the Complex, and never present a generated page as a real mushaf. In generated images never let a model write the verses: show the frame, an empty sura cartouche and blank verse medallions with the text block left blank or as plain ruled lines, or place a real page from the Complex's edition unaltered. Be aware too that it is a Saudi state edition whose translations, above all the earlier editions of the Hilali-Khan Noble Qur'an, have drawn fierce criticism for Salafi-oriented, polemical glosses; Bruckmayr calls the story of the Medina Qur'an as a tool of Salafi Islam a 'well-entrenched standard narrative' that conflates the Arabic edition with the translations built on it, so do not pin that label on the Arabic page. Many communities also prefer other readings or the Indo-Pak and Maghribi mushafs, so do not treat it as the only form of the Qur'an.

01

How it works

  • Fix the page, not just the text: write fifteen justified lines on every page except the first two (al-Fatiha alone, then the opening of al-Baqara), end every page at the end of a verse, and start most of the thirty juz' at the top of a page twenty pages apart, so that, within one layout, a given verse always falls in the same place on the same page and the reader can memorise and look it up by its position.
  • Write one clear, fully vowelled Naskh by a single master calligrapher, in the late Ottoman manner, and have a scholarly committee check every reading, spelling, vowel, verse division and pause mark before anything is printed.
  • Keep the text page itself plain: black script on pale paper, small round medallions with the verse number at each verse end, and a framed cartouche with the sura name at the head of each sura; mark the start of each juz', hizb and quarter-hizb with a small star (۞) in the line, and each prostration verse with a line over the words that call for prostration and a mihrab-shaped sign before its verse number, so the page carries a second, reference layer; put the colour into the floral page frame and change that colouring between sizes and formats rather than the layout.
  • Make every derived product repeat the same page: the Arabic page faced or followed by its translation, a commentary written to fit its margins, editions in other readings in the same format, page fonts and apps that keep the page breaks.
  • Give it one institutional identity: the same name on every copy, the opening pages stating it is an endowment of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and not for sale, printed in vast runs and handed to every pilgrim.

Medina, Saudi Arabia. King Fahd set up the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an (KFQC) by royal decree in 1403 AH and decreed the printing of the Qur'an on 19 Sha'ban 1403 (31 May 1983); the Complex was inaugurated in 1405 AH (1984–85), and printing of its first edition was approved on 1 Jumada al-Ula 1405 (22 January 1985), after a review committee had checked the text's readings, orthography, vowelling, verse divisions and pause marks. That first edition reproduced the 1977 mushaf of the Syrian calligrapher Uthman Taha (born 1934 in a village north of Aleppo; ijaza from Hamid al-Amidi, i.e. Hamid Aytaç, in 1973), which combined an Ottoman model with the orthography and style of the 1952 Cairo Qur'an. In 1988 Taha became the Complex's calligrapher and wrote its own editions (four by 2006), and his handwritten 1422/2001 Hafs edition is the basis of the digitally processed Medina Qur'an. By 2019 the Complex could print about 18 million copies a year and had produced about 317 million copies of the Medina Qur'an and the translations built on it.

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Dynamic asymmetry, Diagonal axis, Full bleed, Rotated & vertical setting, Experimental & distorted, Eclectic mixing, Flush left, ragged right, Naturalistic depiction, Straight photography, Visual tension, Paper & letterpress bite

Palette

  • #f6f1e2
  • #151413
  • #2a7f86
  • #24508c
  • #c0603c
  • #bf9a4a

Typefaces

  • Uthman Taha's Qur'anic Naskh, fully vowelled for the Hafs reading, written by hand for each master copy in the late Ottoman tradition of his teacher Hamid al-Amidi (Hamid Aytaç)

  • The digitally processed Medina Qur'an

    a font generated from Taha's handwritten 1422/2001 edition with vector graphics, refining the shape and position of the diacritics, nunation and pause signs, with counterparts for the other readings

  • KFGQPC Uthmanic Script HAFS, the Complex's Unicode font for the Qur'anic text, whose letters and combinations the Complex says Taha wrote; its licence forbids reproducing or modifying it without the Complex's written approval

  • QCF page fonts (QCF_P001 to QCF_P604), one font per page of the Madani layout, with one glyph for each word, so that a screen keeps the printed line and page breaks

  • Indo-Pak naskh (nasḫ indūbāk), with each line underlined, in the Complex's one edition after the Taj publisher of Lahore

Known for

  • Muṣḥaf al-Madīna al-nabawiyya, Hafs 'an 'Asim, King Fahd Complex, Medina: printing approved 1 Jumada al-Ula 1405 (22 January 1985); fifteen lines a page, the first two pages excepted

  • Precursor

    Uthman Taha's mushaf of 1977, combining an Ottoman model with the orthography and style of the 1952 Cairo Qur'an: the edition the Complex first printed, also published in Syria, Egypt, Istanbul and Tehran and dominant in the Egyptian market from 1985

  • Uthman Taha's handwritten Hafs edition of 1422/2001 in the âyet-berkenar layout, basis of the Complex's digitally processed Medina Qur'an, a font generated from it with vector graphics and offered for free use

  • The 1405 AH 'classic' Madani layout of 604 pages and its 1440 AH reprint, whose page breaks differ in places

    page 121 begins at al-Ma'ida 5:77 in one and 5:78 in the other

  • Tafsir al-Muyassar (first published 2008), the Complex's official commentary, written to fit the margins of the Medina Qur'an

  • The Complex's translations, among them The Noble Qur'an by al-Hilali and Muhsin Khan

    by late 2022 into 39 Asian, 16 European and 19 African languages, each page of Arabic text followed by its translation

  • Medina editions in other readings

    al-Duri (in three versions), Warsh and Qalun (two each: handwritten with irregular page and verse endings, and digitally processed in the âyet-berkenar layout), and Shu'ba, al-Susi and, in digital form only, al-Bazzi and Qunbul, all four in the âyet-berkenar layout; and the one KFQC edition not in Taha's hand, an Indo-Pak script Hafs edition after the Lahore publisher Taj, attributed to 'Abd al-Rahman Kilani

03

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleMadinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)1985–present · Middle East & North Africa, Global / networked

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

04

Sources

  1. Philipp Bruckmayr, 'Challenging the Cairo Edition: The King Fahd Quran Complex, its Medina Quran and its Translations', MIDÉO 39 (2024), pp. 211–257 (https://journals.openedition.org/mideo/9400)
  2. Wikipedia (Arabic), 'مصحف المدينة النبوية' (https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/مصحف_المدينة_النبوية): decree and approval dates, review committee, Khalil ibn Ahmad vowel system, fifteen lines a page, prostration verses by page
  3. Wikipedia, 'Uthman Taha' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uthman_Taha)
  4. Wikipedia, 'King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Fahd_Complex_for_the_Printing_of_the_Holy_Quran)
  5. KÜRE Encyclopedia, Muhammed Ali Peker, 'Âyet-Berkenar' (https://kureansiklopedi.com/en/detay/ayet-berkenar-f9662): the late Ottoman verse-ending, fifteen-line page of Kayışzâde Hâfız Osman
  6. Greentech (GTAF), 'Why do the starting ayahs on some pages differ?' (https://gtaf.org/support/why-do-the-starting-ayahs-on-some-pages-differ/): the 1405 AH and 1440 AH Madani layouts
  7. Quran.com API v4, verses by page with word page and line numbers for the Madani layout (QCF V1, 1405 AH; e.g. https://api.quran.com/api/v4/verses/by_page/121?words=true&word_fields=page_number,line_number&mushaf=2): checked for all 604 pages, no verse runs across a page break, pages carry at most fifteen lines, and 26 of the 30 juz' begin at the top of pages 22, 42 … 582
  8. Quran.app (Quran Android) page images of the Madani Hafs layout, pages 1, 3, 5, 22 and 176 (https://files.quran.app/hafs/madani/width_1024/page001.png, …/page003.png, …/page005.png, …/page022.png, …/page176.png): sura heading cartouche and round verse-number medallions; the star (۞) opening a quarter-hizb (2:26, page 5) and a juz' and hizb (2:142, page 22); the line over 'wa-lahu yasjudun' and the mihrab-shaped prostration sign at 7:206 (page 176); frame, margins and colour removed
  9. nuqayah, 'qpc-fonts', a collection of the King Fahd Complex's fonts with the QCF page fonts for pages 001–604 and KFGQPC Uthmanic Script HAFS (https://github.com/nuqayah/qpc-fonts)
  10. ScanCode LicenseDB, 'Uthmanic Script License' for KFGQPC Uthmanic Script HAFS (https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/kfgqpc-uthmanic-script-hafs.LICENSE)
  11. King Fahd Complex, fonts site, 'Font Introduction' (https://fonts.qurancomplex.gov.sa/wp02/en/?p=19), as quoted in search results; the site did not load from here
  12. King Fahd Complex, 'Reading according to Hafs' (https://qurancomplex.gov.sa/en/?p=2144), on the Hafs computer font: Uthman Taha wrote the single letters and all their combinations and the programmers coded them under his supervision, as quoted in search results; the site did not load from here
  13. Wikimedia Commons, photograph of Uthman Taha in his studio at the Complex with a sample of the Medina mushaf in a coloured floral frame, 22 June 2005, by Ayman Dhu al-Ghina, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:عثمان_طه_مع_نموذج_من_مصحف_المدينة.jpg)

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