Visual Study of the Typeface of "Qur’an Zayn al-Ābedin", used in Qur’ans Printed with Movable Types (1827-1855 AD)

Less than a century after the invention of printing with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg (1455), the first Qur’an was published in Venice by Paganino Paganini and Alexander Paganini (1537-1538). Although the Qur’an did not have much success among the audience, it did set the stage for the printing of the Qur’an, as it has been published in Europe over three centuries. Iran was the first country among the Muslim countries that in the middle of the nineteenth century, succeeded in publishing the Qur’an in the printing house of Mirzā Zayn al-Ābedin Tabrizi (1242). So far, ten Qur’ans have been identified among 64 Iranian printed books published with movable type in Tehran between 1827 and 1855. The first Qur’an was published in March-April 1827 in the printing house of Mirzā Zayn al-Ābedin. In the following years, four Qur’ans were published in July 1829, February 1831, February 1832, all three in the printing house of Mirzā Zayn al-Ābedin and Sarkāri Esfandiar Khān and in 1842, with the support of Motamed al-Dawla. In the latest version, the name of Mirzā Zayn al-Ābedin is not mentioned, but he is probably the printer. In addition, in November 1839, a Qur’an was published in his printing house under the supervision of the late Āghā Seyyed Mohammad Tehrāni and Āghā Rostam-Ali [Tehrāni al-Asl wa al-Maskan]. A Qur’an was identified in February 1846 in the printing house of Ali Mohammad Tehrāni and one in May 1855 in the printing house of Āghā Abd al-Karim. In addition to the mentioned Qur’ans, a Qur’an without date and printed information has been identified in the library of Āstan Quds Razavi. Also, a Qur’an was published in 1848, probably in Tehran, which, depending on the layout and font type, can be attributed to Āghā Abd al-Karim's printing house under the supervision of Bahrāmbik. In exception of the two Qur’ans dated 1839 and [1845], one typeface has been used to print the other eight Qur’ans.
The aim of this study is to visually analyze a collection of lead letters of the Qur'an in order to answer the question of: what are the characteristics of this typeface in terms of form? This research is descriptive in terms of method and applied in terms of purpose, and the collected information is evaluated and analyzed qualitatively and with logical reasoning through comparison. To collect data, library resources (articles, books, digital archives and typewritten books) were used by observation method. Due to a better and a more comprehensive access, the typography was extracted based on the 1842 edition and after extracting the letters, it was adapted to other Qur’ans. The research findings are based on the analysis of the visual structure of the extracted typography, as well as the research data, in order to identify the visual features of the typography. In the analysis of the mentioned typeface, only the form of the letters has been studied and the placement of the letters in relation to each other and in relation to the seat line or the composition of the pages has not been considered. Furthermore, an attention has been paid to their similarities. To analyze the forms, letter families are defined based on the similarity of the forms with each other. Most letters have four modes: initial, middle, final, and final, which may have one form or several forms in each of these modes, which are considered in the analysis of all cases.
The findings of this study indicate that in designing the letter form in the typography of "Zayn al-Ābedin Qur’an", some rules governing the typography design and emerging lead printing technology have been considered in order to preserve the capabilities and originality of the form in calligraphy. The designers of this typeface have used various methods to achieve this goal, including the following: Using similar letter forms to create new letters, creating formal diversity in letter accompaniment using interface subforms, using limited number of ligatures despite the variety of forms.