Rasm (رسم) is an Arabic term that signifies "sketch, pattern, mark, design, form". When speaking of the Qur'an, it stands basic text made of the 18 letters used in early manuscripts, without i'jam diacritics.

The rasm is the oldest part of the Arabic script; it has eighteen elements:

However, in both initial medial position, these conflate to fifteen distinct forms, as the differences between ٮ ,ں, and ﯼ; and between ڡ and ٯ are lost.

Compare the beginning of the qurʾān with all diacritics and with the rasm only:

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ

ٮسم‌الـله‌الرحمں‌الرحٮم

or with spaces:

ٮسم الـله الر حمں الر حٮم

(note that spaces do not occur only between words)

Sura 7 (Ala'araf), verses 86 & 87, of the Samarkand Qur'an, written in unadorned rasm.

The Kufic Samarkand Qur'an that was from 1869 to 1917 in St. Petersburg shows almost only the rasm.

[edit] External links

• Are There Scribal Errors In The Qur'an?
• Some pages from the famous St.Petersburg-Samerkand-Tashkent Koran. The fourth to seventh images are written in the Kufic script
• A page in the earliest script, known as ma'il

[edit] See also

• Qira'at