Mamluk manuscripts frequently show developed orthographic devices to represent the specific details of tajwid, qira’ah and (occasionally) rasm. Generally these manuscripts and their orthographic devices need to be analyzed by what we know of these sciences, as they lack explicit explanation as to what these signs mean. Rarely though, manuscripts include an appendix that explicitly explains the orthographic devices used, the readings that are intended to be represented and the sources that have been used. This paper examines three such Mamluk mushafs (dated 734/1334, 830/1427 879/1474-75) and that contain extensive scribal appendices. These give invaluable insight into the scribal practices of the mamluk period and the position of the various canonical reading traditions at the time. It will be shown that Abu Amr’s reading clearly had become the dominant reading tradition in this period, and that it is around this time that the schematized distinction between his two canonical transmitters, al-Dūrī and al-Sūsī came to be crystallized into the form that they are recited today.