Page 147 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

THE HISTORY OF ARABIC PALAEOGRAPHY 127

4. A dated (80 A.H.) Qjir'anic verse in Kufic script discovered near
Makkah. 37

Figure 9.13: A Qyr'iinic verse in lllffic script, dated 80 A.H.
Source: ar-Riishid, Kitabat Islamiyya, p. 160.

5. An inscription near Makkah based on Qur'anic verses" in Kufic
39
script, dated 84 A.H.

Figure 9.14: A beautifullllffic inscription dated 84 A.H.
Source: ar-Riishid, Kitabat Islamiyya, p. 26.

37 S. ar-Rashid, Kitiibiit Isldmiyya minMakkai al-Mukarrama, Riyad, 1416 (1995), pp.
160-61.
38 This inscription is not a Qur'anic verse but is derived from two different Qur'anic
verses (2:21 and 4:I). It could be due to a slip in the writer's memory. Quoting Bruce
Metzger, "The memory can play strange tricks when one quotes even the most familiar
passages .... a remarkable instance of this in no less a person thanJeremy Taylor, who
quotes the text 'Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God' nine
times, yet only twice in the same form, and never once correctly" [The Text of the New
Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, andRestoration, 3rd enlarged edition, Oxford Univ.
Press, 1992, pp. 88-89, footnote no. 3].
39 S. ar-Rashid, Kitiibiit Isldmiyya minMakkat al-Mukarrama, pp. 26-29.