Source: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/
There has been a polemic going on that the Qur'an does not have manuscripts from the first century of hijra. However, this is not true. Many fragments of early Qur'anic manuscripts were shown by Orientalists notably Nabia Abbott in her work The Rise of the North Arabic script and its Kur'anic development, with a full description of the Kur'an manuscripts in the Oriental Institute (1939, University of Chicago Press). There she discusses some of the Quranic manuscripts, dated from second half of the first century hijra onwards, at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. The aim of this page is to highlight some of the early Qur'anic manuscripts to refute the claim that the Qur'an lacks manuscripts from the first century of hijra.
The dig at the Great Mosque in Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen, had found a large number of manuscripts of the Qur'an dating from first century of hijra. The date of building the Great Mosque in Ṣanʿāʾ goes back to 6th year of hijra when the Prophet Muhammad entrusted one of his companions to build a mosque. The mosque was extended and enlarged by Islamic rulers from time to time. In 1385 H/1965 CE heavy rains fell on Ṣanʿāʾ. The Great Mosque was affected and the ceiling in the north west corner was damaged. During the survey, the workers discovered a large vault full of parchment and paper manuscripts of both the Qur'an and non-Qur'anic material.
The UNESCO, an arm of the United Nations, had compiled a CD containing some of the dated Ṣanʿāʾ manuscripts as a part of "Memory of the World" programme. In this CD there are many Qur'anic manuscripts written in the hijazi script which are dated from 1st century of hijra, one of them belonging to early 1st century. Many more manuscripts have been dated from the period 1st / 2nd century of hijra. We will be showing only a few examples below.
A few more examples of the 1st and 1st / 2nd century hijra Qur'anic manuscripts can be found in the book Maṣāḥif Ṣanʿāʾ (1985, Dār al-Athar al-Islāmiyyah). This book is a catalogue of an exhibition at the Kuwait National Museum, with articles by Hussa Sabah Salim al-Sabah, G. R. Puin, M. Jenkins, U. Dreibholz in both Arabic and English. It is expected that the Ṣanʿāʾ manuscripts will throw a great deal of light on the early Islamic history of calligraphy and illumination and even the various ahruf (they were seven) in which the Qur'an was revealed.
A few words of caution concerning the dating of the Qur'anic manuscripts need to be mentioned. It is to be remembered that assigning a date to an undated early Qur'anic manuscript is rarely simple especially in the absence of wakf marking. There is a tendency to assume that those in large scripts and without vowels are of the earliest date. This assumption, true to some extent, is nevertheless misleading in two respects. It ignores that fact that small as well as large maṣāḥif of the Qur'an were among the earliest written and that both types continued to be written thereafter. Though the assumption that manuscripts with the vowels must be considered later than those without is true in some cases, it is not always so, for some very early manuscripts of the Qur'an, originally written without vowels, may well have been voweled later. Furthermore, the first vowel system came into use shortly after the first maṣāḥif were written. There are also examples of later maṣāḥif which were unvoweled even after 3 centuries after hijra!
As a matter of caution, we stress the fact that we are only showing a single leaf of the manuscripts in the cases below. A manuscript may contain additional sūrahs. The reader is advised to go through the references for additional information.
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1. The Qur'anic Script & Palaeography
2. Examples Of The Qur'anic Manuscripts
Below are the examples of the 1st century hijra manuscripts written in the ḥijāzī and the Kufic scripts.
FIRST / SECOND CENTURY HIJRA
SECOND / THIRD CENTURY HIJRA
SOME UNIQUE MANUSCRIPTS
EXTERNAL LINKS TO THE QUR'ANIC MANUSCRIPTS
3. The Qira'at In The Qur'anic Manuscripts
Early Qur'anic manuscripts, unlike the modern printed editions, rarely contain information of the Qira'at in which they were written. Deciphering the Qira'at in the Qur'anic manuscripts is a recent endeavour and a very tedious task. Scholars like Nabia Abbott had only mentioned about Qira'at in the manuscripts in a very cursory way. Recently, in-depth studies have been undertaken to decipher the Qira'at in the Qur'anic manuscripts by Dr. Yasin Dutton of University of Edinburgh. He has been looking into various Qur'anic manuscripts to understand the purpose of using various coloured dots in the writing of the Qur'an and studying the consonantal structure (where dotting is nearly absent as in early Qur'ans written in ḥijāzī or ma'il script) to find out the Qira'at in which the Qur'an manuscript was written. Here are a few examples of the manuscripts in which the Qira'at has been identified.
There has been a polemic going on that the Qur'an does not have manuscripts from the first century of hijra. However, this is not true. Many fragments of early Qur'anic manuscripts were shown by Orientalists notably Nabia Abbott in her work The Rise of the North Arabic script and its Kur'anic development, with a full description of the Kur'an manuscripts in the Oriental Institute (1939, University of Chicago Press). There she discusses some of the Quranic manuscripts, dated from second half of the first century hijra onwards, at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. The aim of this page is to highlight some of the early Qur'anic manuscripts to refute the claim that the Qur'an lacks manuscripts from the first century of hijra.
The dig at the Great Mosque in Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen, had found a large number of manuscripts of the Qur'an dating from first century of hijra. The date of building the Great Mosque in Ṣanʿāʾ goes back to 6th year of hijra when the Prophet Muhammad entrusted one of his companions to build a mosque. The mosque was extended and enlarged by Islamic rulers from time to time. In 1385 H/1965 CE heavy rains fell on Ṣanʿāʾ. The Great Mosque was affected and the ceiling in the north west corner was damaged. During the survey, the workers discovered a large vault full of parchment and paper manuscripts of both the Qur'an and non-Qur'anic material.
The UNESCO, an arm of the United Nations, had compiled a CD containing some of the dated Ṣanʿāʾ manuscripts as a part of "Memory of the World" programme. In this CD there are many Qur'anic manuscripts written in the hijazi script which are dated from 1st century of hijra, one of them belonging to early 1st century. Many more manuscripts have been dated from the period 1st / 2nd century of hijra. We will be showing only a few examples below.
A few more examples of the 1st and 1st / 2nd century hijra Qur'anic manuscripts can be found in the book Maṣāḥif Ṣanʿāʾ (1985, Dār al-Athar al-Islāmiyyah). This book is a catalogue of an exhibition at the Kuwait National Museum, with articles by Hussa Sabah Salim al-Sabah, G. R. Puin, M. Jenkins, U. Dreibholz in both Arabic and English. It is expected that the Ṣanʿāʾ manuscripts will throw a great deal of light on the early Islamic history of calligraphy and illumination and even the various ahruf (they were seven) in which the Qur'an was revealed.
A few words of caution concerning the dating of the Qur'anic manuscripts need to be mentioned. It is to be remembered that assigning a date to an undated early Qur'anic manuscript is rarely simple especially in the absence of wakf marking. There is a tendency to assume that those in large scripts and without vowels are of the earliest date. This assumption, true to some extent, is nevertheless misleading in two respects. It ignores that fact that small as well as large maṣāḥif of the Qur'an were among the earliest written and that both types continued to be written thereafter. Though the assumption that manuscripts with the vowels must be considered later than those without is true in some cases, it is not always so, for some very early manuscripts of the Qur'an, originally written without vowels, may well have been voweled later. Furthermore, the first vowel system came into use shortly after the first maṣāḥif were written. There are also examples of later maṣāḥif which were unvoweled even after 3 centuries after hijra!
As a matter of caution, we stress the fact that we are only showing a single leaf of the manuscripts in the cases below. A manuscript may contain additional sūrahs. The reader is advised to go through the references for additional information.
Looking for something similar? Try
1. The Qur'anic Script & Palaeography
On The Origins Of The Kufic Script
The Christian missionaries have claimed that the Kufic script originated not earlier than 150 years after hijra. They have argued that it is also the view of both Martin Lings and Yasin Safadi. This article is a devastating refutation of their claims.
It is usually assumed that the dotting of the Arabic script began with the advent of dotting of Qur'anic manuscripts. However, recent observation on a 70 year old Arabic papyri has shown conclusively that dotting was available as early as 22 AH, perhaps even earlier.
A path-breaking discourse or is it yet another headline grabbing exercise? You decide!
The study of ancient manuscripts of the Qur'an is steadily gathering pace. In decades past, a few scholars have compiled lists of Qur'anic manuscripts attributable to the 1st century hijra. Although helpful, these lists contain only the barest details, usually only the name of the manuscript concerned or sometimes even less. With this in mind, we have constructed this document that contains additional details providing further insights into these valuable manuscripts, accompanied by full bibliographic references. A discussion of how scholars date early Qur'anic manuscripts and an assessment of the value of these manuscripts is also provided along with some detailed mathematical calculations. Should one ponder over this list, they will come to the appreciation scholars involved in this field of study suffer from an embarrassment of riches. Quite simply, there is no other work from the Late Antiquity that comes close to the Qur'an in terms of the number of their earliest manuscripts including textual content.
Radiocarbon dating of ancient Qur'anic manuscripts in the literature is very rare. Can radiocarbon dating provide more accurate results than traditional palaeographic techniques and associated methods? A discussion of the scientific principles underpinning this radiometric dating technique, together with some practical examples from actual Qur'anic manuscripts, highlights the strengths and weaknesses of this procedure as compared to more traditional palaeographic based methods.
The corpus of dated texts containing the Qur'an from 1-100 AH / 622-719 CE proving the early codification of the Qur'an in Arabic.
2. Examples Of The Qur'anic Manuscripts
No discussion about the Qur'anic manuscripts begins without the mention of the ʿUthmānic manuscripts of the Qur'an. Narrations differ as to how many copies were directly ordered and sent out by the Caliph ʿUthmān, but they range from four to seven. It seems certain from various Muslim historical sources that several were lost, through fire amongst other things. There are some copies that are attributed to ʿUthmān. However, it is to be added that there is a disagreement between the scholars whether they are truly ʿUthmānic. Some Western scholars have rejected the Qur'anic manuscripts attributed to ʿUthmān as "pious forgeries" without showing any scientific evidence (i.e., study of the parchment, script, ink etc.). This itself is unscientific to an extreme. We will discuss some important manuscripts attributed to ʿUthmān below.
A folio from a Qur'anic manuscript in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, commonly attributed to caliph ʿUthmān, has recently been subject to radiocarbon tests at Oxford, United Kingdom. Although the dates generated by this radiometric technique at either confidence level do not rule out the possibility that this manuscript was produced in ʿUthmān's time, palaeographic studies suggest an 8th century (2nd century hijra) date.
This manuscript was written in kufic script and contains 408 folios. The extant folios contain more than 99% of the text of the Qur'an. Only two folios are missing. The manuscript shows the script, illumination and marking of vowels that are from the Umayyad times (i.e., late 1st century / early 2nd century of hijra).
A manuscript written in the kufic script on gazelle skin, and contains 439 folios. Interestingly, on the last folio of the manuscript is written in kufic script “Katabahu ʿUthmān bin ʿAffān fī sanat thalathyn” (“ʿUthmān bin ʿAffān wrote in the year 30”). However, the script and ornamentation negates this possibility.
A manuscript written in the late the ḥijāzī script, containing about 40% of the text of the Qur'an, with full texts of 22 surahs and fragments of another 22.
This monumental Qur'anic manuscript on parchment showing a well-formed kufic script, written in dark-brown ink with sparse diacritical marks and no ornamentation. Total number of folios are 1087. Size: 57 cm x 68 cms. The height of the muṣḥaf is 40 cm and weighs 80 kgs. The extant folios contain more than 99% of the text of the Qur'an.
A monumental Qur'anic manuscript on parchment showing a well-formed kufic script. Total number of folios are 306. The script is slightly sloping backwards with tall ascenders and is strongly reminiscent of the type of well executed kufic script exhibited during the Umayyad period. There is no vocalisation and a very limited amount of consonantal pointing (i.e., diacritical marks) – on some folios there are no diacritical marks at all. Multi-coloured (e.g., red, green, black, brown) diagonally arranged dashes are usually used to indicate verse-endings. Groups of five verses are marked with medallions and square cartouches containing quatrefoil emblems are used to indicate groups of ten verses. There are some arcaded bands that separate sūrahs without mentioning the name of the sūrah, some containing triangular-shaped crenellations.
FIRST CENTURY HIJRA
Codex Ṣanʿāʾ DAM 01-27.1 – A Qur'ānic Manuscript From Mid-1st Century Of Hijra.
Perhaps the most significant manuscript of the Qur'an palimpsest so far discovered at Ṣanʿāʾ, this codex is datable to the middle of the first century of hijra and consists of 40 folios. The leaves from codex Ṣanʿāʾ DAM 01-27.1 have appeared under the hammer at auction houses like Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonham's; the most recent one at Christie's in 2008 fetching a remarkable sum of £2,200,000, around fifteen times the estimated asking price. This codex exemplifies the principal tendencies of the early ḥijāzī script and is of tremendous importance regarding the textual transmission of the Qur'an, Arabic palaeography, codicology and other related disciplines. A detailed description of the folios, including the textual content of scriptio inferior and scriptio inferior, is provided.
Written in the ḥijāzī script. The codex consists of 29 folios. There are few diacritical marks but no vocalization. The verses divisions indicate the beginning of the usage of simple ornamentation which is nothing but adjacent strokes. An interesting feature of this early ḥijāzī manuscript is the presence of sūrah al-Fātiḥah which is followed immediately by sūrah al-Baqarah. The presence of sūrah al-Fātiḥah is rare in the Qur'ans from first century hijra, the only other known example being the “Great Umayyad Qur'ān”, DAM 20-33.1, also from Ṣanʿāʾ.
Written in the ḥijāzī script. This codex was probably written by at least two different copyists as the scripts differ in various folios. There are few diacritical marks but no vocalization. The sūrahs are separated by simple ornaments. The are 9 published folios of this codex but it is believed that others also exist. Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
This is one of the most important manuscripts written in the ḥijāzī script from 1st century hijra. It has 58 folios; 56 of them at the the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and one each at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vat. Ar. 1605) and the Nasser David Khalili Collection (Acc. no. KFQ 60). This manuscript has 58 folios which contains about 26% of the total text of the Qur'an. The discussion on the folio at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana is available here.
Hailed as by the earlier keepers of it as "probably the earliest Qur'an ever brought to Europe", the British Library says that it is the "oldest Qur'an manuscript" in their possession. This manuscript is written in the ḥijāzī (or ma'il) script. It is usually dated around the mid-second century of hijra. However, a recent study by Yasin Dutton has shown that this manuscript is remarkably similar to the first century Qur'anic manuscript MS. Arabe 328a in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Based on the similarity between MS. Arabe 328a and MS. Or. 2165, he suggests redating this manuscript to the time just before the Umayyad Caliph Walid (r. 86-96 AH), i.e., within the period 30-85 AH with the latter end of this time scale being safer. This manuscript has 121 folios which contains about 53% of the total text of the Qur'an.
This monumental and the earliest kufic Qur'anic manuscript, perhaps one of the most well-studied and is dated to the last decade of the 1st century of hijra, around 710 - 715 CE, in the reign of the Umayyad Caliph al-Walīd. This manuscript is unique in the sense that it open with a group of full page images. These images are the only known Qur'an illustrations and are absolutely unique among extant Qur'an manuscripts. Apparently 25(?) folios from this codex survive. Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
This manuscript was dated by Déroche using art-historical methods to the time after 72 AH / 691-692 CE or more probably during the last quater of the 1st (early 8th) century AH. It is written in kufic or perhaps late ḥijāzī script. The letters are spread over the entire page due to an extensive use of elongation of horizontal connections or to a regular spacing of the letters or groups of letters irrespective of being part of the word or not. The sūrah headings are illuminated. The illumination of this Qur'an relies on motifs which find their parallels with the mosaics at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The codex has 33+ folios and is located at the Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi (Turkish and Islamic Art Museum), Istanbul, Turkey.
Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis was the first scholar to publish this unique palimpsest that has scriptio superior which is a Christian material (Arabic Christian homilies) and the scriptio inferior consisting of the Qur'anic verses. Mingana presented a full transcription of the Qur'anic text of the scriptio inferior of the manuscript, with the parallel text from the present day Qur'an. But his claim of "variants" in the Qur'anic text has come under suspicion partly because of his own history of being involved in suspected forgeries. Recent study by Fedeli on this manuscript has confirmed that the "inevitable and easy conclusion" is that all of Mingana's transcription can be suspected to be wrong. A recent surge of interest in this manuscript is due to the fact that the scriptio inferior was written in the ḥijāzī script.
This manuscript belongs to what is commonly known as the ‘Mingana Collection’. Manuscript on parchment. It is written in the ḥijāzī script. The codex has 9 folios. The pages have been wrongly folded, so that the text is disordered. The consonants are differentiated by dashes. The muṣḥaf is partly vocalised with red dots by a later(?) hand. Red punctuation dots and zigzag lines with ink dots separating sūrahs (fol. 1r) and barbed red design (fol. 3r). Six or three oval dots usually punctuate the verses. Every tenth verse is marked by a hollow circle surrounded by dots.
This manuscript bears a striking resemblence to the British Musuem Ms. Or. 2165. Just like the latter, the former is not vocalised. The consonants are frequently differentiated by dashes. Six oval dots ranked in three pairs punctuate the verses. Every tenth verse is marked by a red hollow circle surrounded by dots. Even the size of the folio is same as those found in Ms. Or. 2165. Thus, it can be said with reasonable certainty that both Ms. Or. 2165 and LNS 19 CAab belong to the same codex. There is one folio in this collection. Located at Dār al-Athar al-Islāmiyyah, Kuwait.
Written in the ḥijāzī script. The codex has 8 folios. Manuscript on parchment. The muṣḥaf is not vocalised. The consonants are differentiated by dashes. Six oval dots ranked in three pairs usually punctuate the verses. Every tenth verse is marked by a hollow circle surrounded by dots. Folios located at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Germany, and Dār al-Kutub al-Misriyya, Cairo.
Manuscript on parchment. Written in the ḥijāzī script. The muṣḥaf is not vocalised. The consonants are frequently differentiated by dashes. Seven set of dashes with the first two ranked in a pair mark the end of verses. There are 26 lines to page. Only one folio exists.
This private-owned fragment of the Qur'an was recently published by Yasin Dutton. On the basis of palaeography and radiocarbon analysis, he dated it to the second half of the 1st century of hijra / late 7th or early 8th century CE.
Eight folios (one fragmentary), 20-27 lines to the page written in brown ḥijāzī script, diacritical marks, where present, consists of oval dots or angled dashes, no vowel points, clusters of brown ink dots to indicate verse divisions, circular devices consisting of green and red dots every ten verses, one long, narrow rectangular panel of green and red decoration with a circular marginal device consisting of coloured dots on final folio, probably to indicate the sūrah heading of sūrah al-Nisa, leaves sewn together with original stitching. It contains sūrah āl-‘Imrān, verses 34-184.
It is written in the ḥijāzī script in brown ink on vellum. No vocalization, verses indicated occasionally by four dots; a few dots and angled dashes indicating diacritical marks and consonants.
Written in the ḥijāzī script. Yellowish, thin parchment with strong damage. Located at the Austrian National Library, Vienna
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the ḥijāzī script. Two folios extant.
A manuscript from the Beit al-Qur'an, Manama, Bahrain, written in the Kufic script.
Manuscript from the Collection George Michaélidès, Cairo (Egypt) written in the Kufic(?) script.
Manuscript from the Tariq Rajab Museum, Kuwait. Written in the ma‘il script [External Link].
FIRST / SECOND CENTURY HIJRA
This manuscript was written in either the late ḥijāzī or kufic script and contains 105 folios. The extant folios contain about 27% of the text of the Qur'an. A rare form of punctuation is also displayed in this manuscript corroborating its eighth century CE dating.
This codex, found in the Great Mosque in Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen, has 60 folios. There is a clear definition of the text area and of the distance between the lines which has given a uniform appearance, a feature which is generally uncommon in the ḥijāzī manuscripts. Diacritical marks are frequent. It has Qur'an 2:1–71:14 (fragmented, not sequential text).
Written in the late ḥijāzī script. The codex consists of 16 folios. Few diacritical marks but no vocalization. The vertical format is a common feature of most Qur'ans written in the ḥijāzī style. This example is an exception, where the horizontal format contradicts somewhat vertical features of the script.
Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
Manuscript from the Beit al-Qur'an, Manama (Bahrain), written in the Kufic script.
SECOND CENTURY HIJRA
It is written in the late ḥijāzī script. There are about 32 lines per page. Few diacritical marks but no vocalization. The indication of the end of every tenth verses has been added later. The total number of folios in this codex are not known but 9 of them have been published so far. Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
Written in the late ḥijāzī script. About 12 lines per page. It has few diacritical marks but the vocalization is probably contemporary. The style bears many features common to both ḥijāzī and early Kufic, or perhaps show a transition from the former to the latter. The total number of folios in this codex are not known but 7 of them have been published so far. Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
This beautiful codex is one of the two Qur'ans found in Ṣanʿāʾ which resemble the monumental codex from Syria, the “Great Umayyad Qur'ān” (Codex Ṣanʿāʾ – DAM 20-33.1). Their similarity in size, proportion, number of lines, script and illumination suggest that the “Great Umayyad Qur'an” may have served as a model. The fragments from this codex reflect the Syrian codex in quality rather than features. The letters are spaciously distributed and once connected individual letters tend to blend with their neighbours. The total number of folios in this codex are not known but 10 of them have been published so far. Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
Written in the ḥijāzī script. The interesting part of this manuscript is the use of different colour of inks. Four varieties of ink have been used for the copy of the text. In addition of the most common used brown ink, the scribe also employed a red, an orange and a green one. These inks are not connected with the beginning or the end of sūrahs. The usage of inks does not follow any rule or sequence. However, an interesting patterning of the coloured inks is applied to the last three lines of a sūrah and the first three lines of the next one. For example, the end of sūrah al-Nisā is written in green and contrasts wiith the first and third lines of sūrah al-Mā'idah which are written in red, the second one being also in green. Only 22 folios of this codex survive. It is written in the reading of Ibn ʿĀmir. Located at the Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi (Turkish and Islamic Art Museum), Istanbul, Turkey.
This famous manuscript, also known as the Samarqand manuscript, housed in Tashkent, is commonly attributed to Caliph ‘Uthman. A folio from a Qur'anic manuscript in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, has recently been subject to radiocarbon tests at Oxford, United Kingdom. Although the dates generated by this radiometric technique at either confidence level do not rule out the possibility that this manuscript was produced in ‘Uthman's time, palaeographic studies suggest an 8th century (2nd century hijra) date.
A manuscript written in the late ḥijāzī script, containing about 40% of the text of the Qur'an, with full texts of 22 surahs and fragments of another 22.
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the Kufic script.
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the Kufic script.
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the Kufic script.
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the Makkan script.
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the Makkan script.
Manuscript from the Austrian National Library, Vienna. Written in the mashq script.
An example of one of the earliest dated Qur'anic manuscripts at the Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya (Egyptian National Library), Cairo (Egypt).
A manuscript from the King Faisal Centre For Research and Islamic Studies, Saudi Arabia, written in Kufic script [External Link].
SECOND / THIRD CENTURY HIJRA
Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
Located at Dār al-Makhtūtāt, Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen.
SOME UNIQUE MANUSCRIPTS
EXTERNAL LINKS TO THE QUR'ANIC MANUSCRIPTS
It contains a healthy collection of Qur'anic manuscripts dated from 1st century of hijra onwards till 14th century of hijra in various scripts such as ma'il, kufic, thuluth, bihari, diwani, andalusi, maghribi and nastaliq.
It has some good collection of Qur'anic manuscripts dating from as early as 2nd century of hijra.
3. The Qira'at In The Qur'anic Manuscripts
Early Qur'anic manuscripts, unlike the modern printed editions, rarely contain information of the Qira'at in which they were written. Deciphering the Qira'at in the Qur'anic manuscripts is a recent endeavour and a very tedious task. Scholars like Nabia Abbott had only mentioned about Qira'at in the manuscripts in a very cursory way. Recently, in-depth studies have been undertaken to decipher the Qira'at in the Qur'anic manuscripts by Dr. Yasin Dutton of University of Edinburgh. He has been looking into various Qur'anic manuscripts to understand the purpose of using various coloured dots in the writing of the Qur'an and studying the consonantal structure (where dotting is nearly absent as in early Qur'ans written in ḥijāzī or ma'il script) to find out the Qira'at in which the Qur'an manuscript was written. Here are a few examples of the manuscripts in which the Qira'at has been identified.
We will also mention Dr. Dutton's publications and provide a brief overview. This section is primarily for those who have access to journals in their libraries.
This study is based on 1st century Qur'anic manuscript "Arabe 328a" in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, written in ḥijazi (or ma'il) script. This manuscript has enough material to be able to ascertain the reading it represents. This manuscript is almost devoid of dotting and hence the consonantal structure is used to determine the Qira'at and it was found to be that of Ibn ‘Amir (d. 118 / 736) - one of the reading later to be declared indisputably mutawatir by Ibn Mujahid (d. 324 / 926). This study is first of its kind on early Qur'anic manuscripts.
The study by Dr. Dutton has shown that this manuscript is remarkably similar to first century manuscript Arabe 328a in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and was written in the Qira'at of Ibn ‘Amir. Based on the similarity between MS. Arabe 328a and MS. Or. 2165, he suggests redating this manuscript to the time just before Umayyad Caliph Walid (r. 86-96 AH), i.e., within the period 30-85 AH with the latter end of this time scale being the safer.
Y. Dutton, "Red Dots, Green Dots, Yellow Dots & Blue: Some Reflections On The Vocalisation Of Early Qur'anic Manuscripts - Part II", Journal Of Qur'anic Studies, 2000, Volume II (no. I), pp. 1-24.
This two-part detailed study is done on the Qur'anic manuscripts from Bodleian Library (Oxford) that date from 3rd / 4th century of hijra. The broad conclusions of this study are:
- Variants, including shadhdh variants, are not only marked, but in a sense, highlighted by the use of different coloured dots.
- The presence of shadhdh variants alongside Seven, Ten or Fourteen Qira'a suggests that the shadhdh variants were treated as seriously as the main readings by those responsible for vocalization.
- The vocalized manuscript enables us to have some idea of the reading, or readings, represented. Where there are only single or limited folios available this is not usually possible, but where there is either a distinctive feature, or enough of a sufficiently well-vocalized manuscript, it is often possible to fix the reading with some precision.
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