JAM'
AL-QUR'AN:
THE CODIFICATION OF THE QUR'AN TEXT
by John Gilchrist
CHAPTER 7:
THE
EARLY SURVIVING QUR'AN MANUSCRIPTS
1.
THE INITIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE WRITTEN TEXT.
When the Qur'an was first reduced to writing there was no attempt
to distinguish the consonants in the text which used the same
symbol, nor were there any vowel points to identify the correct
pronunciation of each word. Only the basic seventeen consonantal
letters were used and, as we have seen, this gave rise to a number
of variant readings which Uthman's decree to standardise a single
text could not obviate or suppress. Some marks were used to indicate
verse endings but apart from these no other qualifying marks were
used.
It was generally assumed, as it is today, that the Arabic language
is so familiar to those who speak it as their mother tongue that
the vowelling of the text is not necessary. Most Arabic books
to this day are written in consonantal form only. The widespread
use of variant readings in the early days of the Qur'an's transmission,
however, resulted in an attempt to define the correct reading
or, where appropriate, the reader's preference, in the written
text. The introduction of red and other coloured dots followed
together with short strokes to identify specific consonants or
vowel points in the text and to distinguish the reading in each
case from a variant known to exist. Only a very limited information
is available to determine precisely how the early written text
developed but, as the major portions of those initial texts were
left unmarked, it appears that the dots and strokes that were
introduced were included specifically to distinguish particular
readings. In some quarters this practice was disapproved of as
a dangerous innovation but it gradually gained widespread acceptance
especially when al-Hajjaj became governor of Iraq.
In time the strokes came to indicate the vowel points and the
dots the diacritical marks distinguishing respective consonants.
This system was gradually applied to the whole text so that eventually
all the vowel points were specifically included in the text and
every relevant consonant was given its particular diacritical
mark. Today, almost without exception, all printed copies of the
Qur'an are fully vocalised.
At the same time long vowels were also distinguished where appropriate
from short vowels by the use of the three weak letters (alif,
wa and ya) which were otherwise considered to be
actual consonants and not vowels. These modifications all helped
to define the actual text of the Qur'an more accurately, a practice
of obvious suitability in the light of the fact that the written
Arabic text is as phonetic as it could possibly be. Also introduced
in time was the marking of the hamzah, the unusual letter
like a small 'ain.
These developments, however, only partly assist one in determining
the likely origin of any particular manuscript. The vast majority
of the early manuscripts make no mention either of their date
of writing or their place of origin. As a result it is impossible
to accurately date any of the earliest texts surviving or to determine
which is the oldest Qur'an in existence. Nothing certain can be
said about them, whether they have been preserved intact as whole
codices or only in fragmentary form.
The use of a colophon at the end of a Qur'an, widely used in later
centuries, was not considered appropriate in the early days. Qur'ans
of later centuries concluded with a disclosure of the name of
the calligrapher in each case and usually with the date and place
of origin. What complicates matters here is that some colophons
are known to have been forged in the earlier texts so that an
accurate identification of age and place of origin becomes even
more improbable.
The development of the text in respect of the use of diacritical
and vowel points is not entirely helpful in this respect either.
On the one hand texts originally written without these points
are known to have been supplemented with them at a later date
while other texts were expressly written out without such points
in later centuries as a sign of the calligrapher's or owner's
mastery in his knowledge of the Qur'an and the lack of any need
in his case to employ marks of identification to specifically
record the whole text.
A good example of this is the superb Qur'an manuscript written
in gold script upon blue vellum which survives almost intact from
Kairouan in Tunisia where it was originally inscribed in the late
ninth or early tenth century (nearly three hundred years after
the time of Muhammad). By this time the use of diacritical and
vowel points was widespread yet this manuscript is almost entirely
devoid of them both. It has been suggested that the omission of
such distinguishing points in the text (they are so few in number
that they distinguish only two letters) is the result of the original
scribe's intention to design his script for beauty rather than
legibility as this Qur'an was intended to be presented to the
Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun for the tomb of his father, Harun ar-Rashid,
at Mashad in what is now Iran. For some reason the completed codex
never left Tunis and the bulk of it is preserved in the National
Library of Tunisia in the city (a number of leaves having been
removed from it which are now in other public libraries and private
collections).
There were numerous other codices, however, often very simple
in design, which also omitted the distinguishing points even though
their use was almost commonplace by the time they were written.
Once again nothing certain can be said in such cases and it cannot
automatically be presumed that a text is of great antiquity simply
because it is confined to the basic consonants without any diacritical
or vowelling marks.
The best clue to a manuscript's probable origin, if it is of obvious
antiquity, is its script. A number of different scripts were used
in the earliest days of the Qur'an's transmission and these went
through various stages of development. As a result they assist
one far more than the other factors we have mentioned to determine
the likely origin of each of the early Qur'an manuscripts that
survive to this day.
Prior to the advent of Islam the only proper script known to exist
was the Jazm script. It had a very formal and angular character,
using an equal proportion in respect of its letters, and it became
the standard from which the other famous early scripts developed.
No Qur'an texts or fragments in this script are known with any
certainty to exist though there are some very early texts which
cannot be defined accurately in respect of the script employed.
Apart from some fragments of obvious early origin which cannot
be reliably dated, it appears that none of the early Qur'an manuscripts
surviving, whether in whole codices or sizeable fragments, can
be dated earlier than the late eighth century (about one hundred
years after Muhammad's death). Virtually all the relevant texts
surviving were written in a developed form of Kufic script or
in one of the other scripts known to have developed some time
after the early codification of the Qur'an text. None of them
can be reliably dated earlier than the second half of the second
century of the Islamic era. We shall proceed to analyse some of
these scripts.
2. KUFIC, MASHQ, AND THE OTHER EARLY QUR'ANIC SCRIPTS.
Shortly after the death of Muhammad a number of written codices
of the Qur'an appeared until Uthman ordered the destruction of
all but one and further ordered that copies be made of this codex
to be sent to the various provinces. From this text further copies
were made and the written manuscripts began to increase in number.
Three different forms of script developed in the Hijaz, particularly
in the cities of Mecca and Medina. One of these was the al-Ma'il
script, unique in the early days in that the letters were vertically
inscribed and were written at a slight angle. The very word al-Ma'il
means "the slanting" script. The upright character of this script
gave rise to the use of a vertical format for each codex in the
form that most books are published today. This script survived
for about two centuries before falling into disuse and all manuscripts
bearing its form are of obvious antiquity. A sign of its early
origin is the fact that it employed no vowel marks or diacritical
points and also had no verse counts or chapter headings. Only
a very few examples of Qur'anic script in al-Ma'il survive, the
most well-known being a manuscript occasionally placed on public
display in the British Museum in London.
The second early script originating from Medina was the Mashq,
the "extended" style which continued to be used for many centuries
and which went through a process of development and improvement.
Unlike the al-Ma'il, the Mashq was horizontal in form and can
be distinguished by its somewhat cursive and leisurely style.
Gradually the developed Mashq script came to closely resemble
the Kufic script, yet it always retained its particular characteristic,
namely a balanced dispersal of its words and letters in varying
degrees of density. It was supplemented by coloured diacritical
points and vowel marks in the same way that the more predominant
Kufic script was in later years.
A script which also derives from the Hijaz is the Naskh,
the "inscriptional" script. This took some time to come into vogue
but, when it did, it largely displaced the Kufic script and became
the standard for most Qur'ans from the eleventh century onwards
and is the script used in virtually all printed Qur'ans today.
A very good example of a complete Qur'an text in Naskh which is
hardly different to contemporary Qur'ans is the manuscript
done by Ibn al-Bawwab at Baghdad in 1001 AD which is now in the
Chester Beatty Library at Dublin in Ireland. It differs slightly
from the Naskh script of most Mamluk Qur'ans and has a more oriental
character.
The script that most concerns any student of the earliest Qur'an
manuscripts is the Kufic script, properly known as al-Khatt
al-Kufi. Its title does not hint at any particular characteristic
form of its script as the others from the Hijaz do but indicates
its place of origin. It derives from Kufa in Iraq where Ibn Mas'ud's
codex had been highly prized until Uthman ordered its destruction.
It was only after this event that the Qur'an text as we know it
came to be written in Kufic script in this region and it took
some time to become predominant but, when it did, it attained
a pre-eminence for three centuries as the approved script of the
Qur'an until it was largely displaced by the Naskh script. It
reached its perfection during the late eighth century (up to one
hundred and fifty years after Muhammad's death) and thereafter
it became widely used throughout the Muslim world.
Like the Mashq script it employs a largely horizontal, extended
style and as a result most of the codices compiled in Kufic were
oblong in format. Its letters are more rigid and austere in character
than the Mashq script, however. Large numbers of manuscripts and
single leaves of Qur'an texts in Kufic survive from various centres,
most of which date from the late eighth century to the early eleventh
century. Here too the text became supplemented with vowel marks
and coloured diacritical points in time. No Kufic Qur'ans are
known to have been written in Mecca and Medina in the very early
days when the al-Ma'il and Mashq scripts were most regularly used
and none of the surviving early Kufic texts are attributed by
modern scholars to this region. In any event even the rare complete
Kufic Qur'ans that have survived lack proper colophons giving
the time and place of the transcribing of the text and the name
of its calligrapher so that it is virtually
impossible to date or locate them with any degree of certainty.
The history of the written text of the Qur'an would tend to suggest,
as a general principle, that all manuscripts in the al-Ma'il or
Mashq scripts derive from the Hijaz, usually the second century
of Islam, with the exception of the developed Mashq texts which
would be of a later date and more widespread origin. Surviving
Kufic Qur'ans can generally be dated from the late eighth century
depending on the extent of development in the character of the
script in each case, and it is grossly improbable that any of
these were written in Mecca or Medina before the beginning of
the ninth century.
3. A STUDY OF THE TOPKAPI AND SAMARQAND CODICES.
The question, in closing, which arises is whether any of the original
Qur'ans transcribed by Uthman survives to this day. We have already
seen that the codex of the Qur'an said to have been the mushaf
of Hafsah was destroyed by Marwan ibn al-Hakam after her death
(p.58). Although this would appear to have been an independent
codex of her own as distinct from Zaid's codex which came into
her possession after her father's death, there is clear evidence
to suggest that it was in fact the very codex of Zaid from which
the others were transcribed. The record linking this codex with
that destroyed by Marwan begins as follows:
These are the leaves (as-suhuf) making up the collection
of the Qur'an which were with Abu Bakr while he was alive until
he returned to Allah, then they were with Umar until he returned
to Allah, then they were with Hafsah, the daughter of Umar. (Ibn
Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.21).
It is quite clear that it is Zaid's codex which is being spoken
of, yet we read very soon afterwards that it was this particular
manuscript which came into the possession of
Marwan after the funeral of Hafsah, having been sent to him by
Abdullah ibn Umar (Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif, p.21;
cf. also, p.24) and which must therefore be the codex said to
have been destroyed by him immediately thereafter. If so, then
there can be no doubt that the original codex of Zaid has been
irretrievably lost. What then of the codices made directly from
this codex at Uthman's instigation?
As virtually all the earliest Qur'an codices and fragments cannot
be dated earlier than about one hundred and fifty years after
the time of Muhammad it would seem most improbable that portions
of the Qur'an copied out at Uthman's direction should have survived,
least of all whole codices or substantial sections thereof. Nevertheless
Muslim writers often claim that Uthmanic manuscripts still exist.
We have seen that the Muslim dogma that the Qur'an has been perfectly
preserved by divine decree is based not on evidences or facts
but purely on popular sentiment, so it should not surprise a student
of the early text of the Qur'an to find that this sentiment is
often buttressed by claims that proof of the perfection of the
text can be found in actual Uthmanic codices still in existence.
There are many references in modern Muslim writings to Qur'ans
said to have belonged to Uthman, Ali or the grandsons of Muhammad
which are said to have survived to this day. One cannot help wondering
whether in such cases the wish is not perhaps father to the thought.
Professor Bergstrasser, one of the contributors to Nöldeke's Geschichte
des Qorans, recorded up to twenty references to claims made
in different parts of the Muslim world to possess not only one
of the copies ordered by Uthman but even the actual codex of the
Caliph himself, in each case with attendant claims that the pages
which he was reading when he was murdered are to this day discoloured
by his blood. We shall give two direct examples of such claims
made even today for different Qur'ans towards the end of this
chapter.
In the Apology of the famous Christian scholar Abdul-Masih al-Kindi,
who wrote a defence of Christianity against Islam during the time
of the Abbasid Empire, we find it said that of the copies made
under Uthman's supervision, the one sent to Mecca was destroyed
by fire while those commissioned for Medina and Kufa were lost
irretrievably. Only the copy destined for Damascus was said to
have survived, it being preserved at Malatja at the time (Nöldeke,
Geschichte, 3.6). There are some conflicting claims about
the ultimate fate of this copy but it is generally agreed that
it, too, is now lost.
All the references one finds in Muslim records to the destiny
of those early codices are sketchy, incomplete and often contradictory.
Some suggest that the Damascus manuscript is in fact the famous
codex of Samarqand while others say that this codex originally
came to the city from Fez in Morocco. There hardly appears to
be anything like the kind of record of transmission that an objective
scholar would require to give serious consideration to the claim
that any of the surviving Qur'an manuscripts is Uthmanic in origin.
In moderate Muslim writings today, however, we find as a rule
that only two of the surviving early manuscripts of the Qur'an
are said to be the actual mushaf of Uthman or one of the
copies prepared under his official supervision. The one is the
Samarqand codex and the other is an old Qur'an manuscript kept
on public display in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul which I had
the privilege of seeing during a visit to Turkey in 1981. Let
us briefly consider these two manuscripts.
We shall begin with the Samarqand codex. This manuscript is said
to be preserved today in the Soviet State Library at Tashkent
in Uzbekistan in southern Russia. It is said to have first come
to Samarqand about 1485 AD and to have remained there until 1868.
Thereafter it was removed to St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) and
in 1905 fifty facsimile editions were prepared by one Dr. Pissaref
at the instigation of Czar Nicholas II under the title Coran
Coufique de Samarqand, each copy being sent to a distinguished
recipient. In 1917 the original manuscript is said to have been
taken to Tashkent where it now remains. A further limited edition
was published by Dr. Hamidullah in the United Kingdom in 1981
from which the photographs in this book have been taken.
The manuscript is considerably incomplete. It only begins in the
middle of verse 7 of Suratul-Baqarah (the second surah) and from
there on numerous pages are missing. In some cases only two or
three leaves have been removed, in others over a hundred are omitted.
The last part of the Qur'an text from Surah 43.10 onwards is altogether
missing from the manuscript. Many of the pages that have survived
are also somewhat mutilated and much of the text has been lost.
Nonetheless a study of what remains tells us something about the
manuscript. It is of obvious antiquity, being devoid of any kind
of vocalisation (a point specially made in Nöldeke, Geschichte,
3.262) although in a few cases a diacritical stroke has been added
to a relevant letter. It is perhaps the apparent antiquity of
the manuscript that has led to the convenient claim that it is
an Uthmanic original. Nevertheless it is precisely the appearance
of the script itself that would seem to negate such a claim. It
is clearly written in Kufic script and, as we have seen,
it is asking too much of an objective scholar to believe that
a Qur'an manuscript written at Medina as early as the caliphate
of Uthman could ever have been written in this script. Medinan
Qur'ans were written in the al-Ma'il and Mashq scripts
for many decades before the Kufic script became the common denominator
of all the early texts throughout the Muslim world and, in any
event, Kufic only came into regular use at Kufa and elsewhere
in the Iraqi province in the generations following Uthman's demise.
Furthermore the actual inscription of the text in the Samarqand
codex is very irregular. Some pages are very neatly and uniformly
copied out whereas others are distinctly untidy and imbalanced.
Then again, whereas the text in most pages has been fairly smoothly
spread out, on some pages it has been severely cramped and condensed.
At times the Arabic letter kaf has been written out uniformly
with the rest of the text, at other times it has been considerably
extended and is the dominant letter in the text. As a result many
pages of this manuscript differ so extensively from one another
that one cannot help wondering whether we do not have a composite
text on our hands, compiled from portions of different manuscripts.
Although the text is virtually devoid of supplementary vocalisation
it does occasionally employ artistic illumination between the
surahs, usually a coloured band of rows of squares, and at times
accompanied by varying medallions which would tend to indicate
that it dates from the late eighth century. It may well be one
of the oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an surviving to this day,
but there appears to be no good reason to believe that it is an
Uthmanic original.
In an article written in a Russian Journal in 1891 the author,
A.Shebunin, gives particular attention to the medallions which
appear in various colours at the end of each group of approximately
ten verses. Within these medallions a kufic number is written
indicating the number of verses that have passed since the beginning
of the relevant Surah. These medallions, usually being flower
figures, were composed in four colours, red, green, blue a nd
orange. One hundred and fifty-one such figures feature in the
remnant of the text. Shebunin finishes his article with the conclusion
that the manuscript dates from the second century of Islam and,
being inscribed in Kufic script, most probably derives from Iraq.
The partial illumination of the text would almost certainly compel
one to give the codex a second-century origin
- it is grossly unlikely that such embellishments would have accompanied
the Uthmanic manuscripts sent out to the various provinces.
The other manuscript said to be one of the Uthmanic codices is
the one on display in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. Once again
it requires only a sight of the text to discount this possibility
as we are again faced with a Kufic manuscript. Then again,
like the Samarqand codex, it is written on parchment and is also
largely devoid of vocalisation, both of which suggest that it,
too, is one of the very earliest manuscripts of the Qur'an to
survive, but those who claim that it dates back as far as Uthman
himself must explain the obvious anachronism in the use of a Kufic
script.
This manuscript is also supplemented with ornamental medallions,
indicating a later age, with occasional ornamentation between
the surahs as well. One only needs to compare it with the Samarqand
codex to realise that they most certainly cannot both be Uthmanic
originals. The Istanbul codex has eighteen lines to the page whereas
the Samarqand codex has between eight and twelve; the Istanbul
codex is inscribed throughout in a very formal manner, the words
and lines always being very uniformly written out, while the text
of the Samarqand codex is often haphazard and considerably distorted.
One cannot believe that both these manuscripts were copied out
by the same scribes. (As pointed out already, it is hard to believe
that even the Samarqand codex alone was not written out by a number
of different scribes).
An objective, factual study of the evidences shows that neither
of these codices can seriously be regarded as Uthmanic, yet one
finds that Muslim sentiment is so strong at this point that both
of them are said to have been not only Uthmanic originals but
even the actual Qur'an which Uthman was reading when he was murdered!
A photograph of a page from the Samarqand codex appears
as a frontispiece in a book titled Muhammad in the Quraan
published in Pakistan by an author who only gives his initials
(S.M.A.) and, underneath the photograph, a caption appears clearly
identifying it as the Samarqand text now preserved in the
Soviet State Library and alleging that "This is the same Quraan
which was in the hand of the Caliph when he was murdered by the
rebels and his blood is still visible on the passage 'Fasa Yakhfihum
(sic) Ullah-o-Wa huwasamiul-Alim' (Surah 2.137)".
In a recent edition of the Ramadan Annual published by The Muslim
Digest in Durban, South Africa, however, a photograph appears
of the Topkapi Codex in Istanbul, correctly identifying
it as such, but alleging that it belonged to Uthman with the comment
"This Qur'an, written on deerskin, was being read by the Caliph
when he was assassinated and the bloodstain marks are still seen
on the pages of this copy of the Qur'an to this day" (Vol. 39,
Nos. 9 & 10, p.107).
It is most intriguing to find that both the manuscripts are not
only attributed to Uthman but are alleged to be the very codex
in his own possession which he was said to have been reading when
he was assassinated. Of course each one has verifiable bloodstains
of the Caliph himself to prove the point!
It is contradictory statements like these, where the same fame
is claimed for each of these codices, that expose the Muslim approach
to this subject as one based not on a cautious historical research
dependent on available evidences but on popular sentiment and
wishful thinking. It would suit the Muslim world to possess an
Uthmanic original, it would be convenient to have a codex of the
earliest possible origin to verify the proposed textual perfection
of the Qur'an, and so any manuscript of the Qur'an surviving that
can be shown to be of a relatively early age is automatically
claimed to be the one desired! It hardly matters that the
same claim is made for more than one codex, or that in each case
internal evidence (particularly the Kufic script) must lead an
honest enquirer to presume on a much later date.
The Samarqand and Topkapi codices are obviously two of the oldest
sizeable manuscripts of the Qur'an surviving but their origin
cannot be taken back earlier than the second century of Islam.
It must be concluded that no such manuscripts of an earlier date
have survived. The oldest manuscripts of the Qur'an still in existence
date from not earlier than about one hundred years after Muhammad's
death.
Jam' Al-Qur'an: Table of contents
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