Ebn Bavvāb

• Sin and Shin in Early Arabic

  Sin and Shin in Early Arabic

  Early Arabic had no diacritics.  Diacritics were gradually added to help with pronunciation of the Qur’an. Today, sin (س) is written without any dots and shin (ش) is written with three dots.  In this early qur’anic manuscript, however, sin (marked by red arrows) is written with a single dot beneath it, and shin (marked by white arrows) with a single dot above it.

• Verse Markers

  Verse Markers

  In later manuscripts of the Qur'an, a dot or a decorative marking is used to demarcate verses. As you can see from this early manuscript, such markings were not used in early copies of the Qur'an.