Page 336 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

316 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

are about one quarter of a million partial or complete Mushaf manu-
scripts covering all eras." Below is a list of some of these which have
been conclusively dated to the first century A.H. In compiling this I relied
on the work of K. 'Awwad," picking only the first-century Mushafs from
his own list (in boldfaced numbers) and then rearranging the entries by
name. 40
I. [1] A copy attributed to Caliph 'Uthrnan bin 'Affan. Amanat Khiz-
ana, Topkapi Saray, Istanbul, no. I.
2. [2] Another copy ascribed to 'Uthman bin 'Affan, Amanat Khizana,
Topkapi Saray, no. 208. This copy has some 300 folios and it is
missing a portion from both ends.
3. [3] Another ascribed to 'Uthman bin 'Aflan. Amanat Khizana, Top-
kapi Saray, no. 10. It is only 83 folios and contains notes written in
the Turkish language naming the scribe.
4. [12] Attributed to Caliph 'Uthman at the Museum of Islamic Art,
Istanbul. It lacks folios from the beginning, middle and end. Dr. al-
Munaggid dates it to the second half of the first century.
5. [43] Attributed to Caliph 'Uthman in Tashkent, 353 folios.
6. [46] A large copy with 1000 pages, written between 25-31 A.H. at
Rawaq al-Maghariba, al-Azhar, Cairo.

38 This is a conservative figure and in reality it may easily exceed it. The collection
at Turk ve Islam Esetleri Muzesi in Istanbul estimated to contain about 210,000 folios [F.
Deroche, "The Qur'an of Amagur", Manuscripts if the Middle East, Leiden, 1990-91,
vol. 5, p. 59]. Then, "With about 40 thousand sheets of old parchment and paper of
Qur'anic text from the Great Mosque of Santa' in hand ..." [G.R. Puin, "Methods
of Research on Qur'anic Manuscripts -A Few Ideas", in Majiif;if San'a', p. 9]. There
are many sizable collections in other parts of the world.
39 K. 'Awwad, Aqdam al-Makhtiitiit al-'Arabfyyafi Maktabiit al-'Alam, pp. 31-59.
40 A few points regarding this list:
• Though a good number of these Mushafs were supposedly penned by this or
that individual, we cannot confirm or deny these claims since the manuscripts
themselves are mute on this point. Other sources, mostly anonymous, have
supplied the scribes' identities. for approximate dating therefore we must do
our own homework. Where a Mushaf is ascribed to 'Uthman etc., it may well
mean for example that the scribe copied it from a Mushaf dispatched by
'Uthman,
• Many new writings have been discovered which assist us in tracking the evol-
ution of a script. An ugly-looking script does not necessarily precede a more
attractive one, date wise, and I have encountered one such example myself:
crude inscriptions in Baraqa Palace versus more polished, earlier ones from
the same region. [Ibrahlmjum'a, DirasaifiTaioiaour ai-Kuaba al-llufiyya, p. 127.]
A Mushaf penned in a beautiful hand does not inevitably mean that it is of
a later date; this unfortunately has been the attitude of al-Munaggid and
others, who blindly acquiesced to some unproven theories.