RAMADAN 2014: Quran revision; OLD MANUSCRIPTS OF THE QURAN Most of the early original Quran manuscripts, complete or in sizeable fragments, that are still available to us now, are not earlier than the second century after the Hijra. The earliest copy, which was exhibited in the British Museum during the 1976 World of Islam Festival, dated from the late second century. However, there are also a number of odd fragments of Quranic papyri available, which date from the first century. There is a copy of the Quran in the Egyptian National Library on parchment made from gazelle skin, which has been dated 68 Hijra (688 A.D.), i.e. 58 years after the Prophets death. What happened to Uthmans Copies? It is not known exactly how many copies of the Quran were made at the time of Uthman, but Suyuti says: The well-known ones are five. This probably excludes the copy that Uthman kept for himself. The cities of Mecca, Damascus, Kufa, Basra and Madinah each received a copy. There are a number of references in the older Arabic literature on this topic which together with latest information available may be summarized as follows: The Damascus Manuscript Al-Kindi (d. around 236/850) wrote in the early third century that three out of four of the copies prepared for Uthman were destroyed in fire and war, while the copy sent to Damascus was still kept at his time at Malatja. Ibn Battuta (779/1377) says he has seen copies or sheets from the copies of the Quran prepared under Uthman in Granada, Marakesh, Basra and other cities. Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1372) relates that he has seen a copy of the Quran attributed to Uthman, which was brought to Damascus in the year 518 Hijra from Tiberias (Palestine). He said it was very large, in beautiful clear strong writing with strong ink, in parchment, may be considered, made of camel skin. Some believe that the copy later on went to Leningrad and from there to England. After that nothing is known about it. Others hold that this mushaf remained in the mosque of Damascus, where it was last seen before the fire in the year 1310/1892. The Egyptian Manuscript There is a copy of an old Quran kept in the mosque of al-Hussain in Cairo. Its script is of the old style, though, and it is quite possible that it was copied from the Mushaf of Uthman. The Madina Manuscript` Ibn Jubair (d. 614/1217) saw the manuscript in the mosque of Madinah in the year 580/1184. Some say it remained in Madinah until the Turks took it from there in 1334/1915. It has been reported that this copy was removed by the Turkish authorities to Istanbul, from where it came to Berlin during World War I. The Treaty of Versailles, which concluded World War I, contains the following clause: Article 246: Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, Germany will restore to His Majesty, King of Hejaz, the original Koran of Caliph Othman, which was removed from Medina by the Turkish authorities and is stated to have been presented to the ex-Emperor William II. The manuscript then reached Istanbul, but not Madinah. The Imam Manuscript This is the name used for the copy which Uthman kept himself, and it is said he was killed while reading it. According to some the Umayyads took it to Andalusia, from where it came to Fas (Morocco) and according to Ibn Battuta it was there in the eighth century after the Hijra, and there were traces of blood on it. From Morocco, it might have found its way to Samarkand. The Samarkand Manuscript This is the copy now kept in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). It may be the Imam manuscript or one of the other copies made at the time of Uthman. It came to Samarkand in 890 Hijra (1485) and remained there till 1868. Then it was taken to St. Petersburg by the Russians in 1869. It remained there till 1917. A Russian orientalist gave a detailed description of it, saying that many pages were damaged and some were missing. A facsimile, some 50 copies, of this mushaf was produced by S. Pisareff in 1905. A copy was sent to the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid, to the Shah of Iran, to the Amir of Bukhara, to Afghanistan, to Fas and some important Muslim personalities. One copy is now in the Columbia University Library (U.S.A.) The manuscript was afterwards returned to its former place and reached Tashkent in 1924, where it has remained since. Apparently the Soviet authorities have made further copies, which are presented from time to time to visiting Muslim heads of state and other important personalities. In 1980, photocopies of such a facsimile were produced in the United States, with a two-page foreword by M. Hamidullah. The writers of the History of the Mushaf of Uthman in Tashkent gives a number of reasons for the authenticity of the manuscript. They are, excluding the various historical reports which suggest this, as follows: • The fact that the mushaf is written in a script used in the first half of the first century Hijra. • The fact that it is written on parchment from a gazelle, while later Qurans are written on paper-like sheets. • The fact that it does not have any diacritical marks which were introduced around the eighth decade of the first century; hence the manuscript must have been written before that. • The fact that it does not have the vowelling symbols introduced by Duali, who died in 68 Hijra; hence it is earlier than this. In other words: two of the copies of the Quran which were originally prepared in the time of Caliph Uthman, are still available to us today and their text and arrangement can be compared, by anyone who cares to, with any other copy of the Quran, be it in print or handwriting, from any place or period of time. They will be found identical. The Ali Manuscript Some sources indicate that a copy of the Quran written by the fourth Caliph Ali is kept in Najaf, Iraq, in the Dar al-Kutub al-Alawiya. It is written in Kufi script, and on it is written: Ali Ibn Abi Talib wrote it in the year 40 of the Hijra. Sources Israel, Fred L. (ed.): Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, New York, Chelsea House Pub., Vol. ll, p.l418. The same information about this copy was published in a Cairo magazine in 1938 (Makhdum, op. cit., p.l9). Surprisingly the standard book Geschichre des Qorans, the third part of which was published in Germany in 1938, i.e. well after the Treaty of Versailles, although discussing the Uthmanic Quran and old manuscripts in detail, makes no reference whatsoever to this event. Also, the writer of the History of the Mushaf of Uthman in Tashkent, indicates that he does not know what to make of this reference. Ibn Said: al-Tabaqatal-kubra, Cairo, n.d., Vol. 111, (1). pp. 51-2. Makhdum, op. cit., p.22ff. The Muslim World, Vol . 30 ( 1940), pp.357-8 For more examples see Kamal, op. cit., pp.47-9; a list of these peculiarities has been provided by M. Hamidullah: Orthographical Peculiarities in the text of the Quran, in: Islamic Order, 3 (4), 1981, pp.72-86. Lings, M. and Y. H. Safadi: The Quran, London, 1976, No. 1A. See appendix. Grohmann, A.: Die Entstehung des Koran und die altesten Koran-Handschriften, in: Bustan, 1961, pp. 33-8. Makhdum, 1.: Tarikh al-mushaf al-Uthmani fi Tashqand, Tashkent 1391/1971 p. 17.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 05:09:55 +0000
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