Quran |
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Uthman The Generous (al-Ghani) |
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The Samarkand Kufic Quran (also known as the Uthman Quran, Samarkand codex, Samarkand manuscript and Tashkent Quran) is an 8th or 9th century manuscript Quran written in the territory of modern Iraq in the Kufic script, where it was later taken by Tamerlane to Samarkand (present-day Uzbekistan). Today it is kept in the Hast Imam library, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
It is said to have belonged to the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan. [1]
Based on orthographic and palaeographic studies, the manuscript probably dates from the 8th or 9th century. [2] [3] Radiocarbon dating showed a 95.4% probability of a date between 775 and 995. [3] However, one of the folios from another manuscript (held in the Religious Administration of Muslims in Tashkent) was dated to between 595 and 855 A.D. with a likelihood of 95%. [3]
The copy of the Quran is traditionally considered to be one of a group commissioned by the third caliph Uthman. According to Islamic tradition, in 651, 19 years after the death of the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad, Uthman commissioned a committee to produce a standard copy of the text of the Quran (see Origin and development of the Quran). [1] Five of these authoritative Qurans were sent to the major Muslim cities of the era, and Uthman kept one for his own use in Medina, although the Samarkand Quran is most likely not one of those copies. The only other surviving copy was thought to be the one held in Topkapı Palace in Turkey, [1] [4] but studies have shown that the Topkapı manuscript is also not from the 7th century, but from much later. [5] [6]
Uthman was succeeded by Ali, who is thought to have taken the uthmanic Quran to Kufa, now in Iraq. After Tamerlane captured that area seven centuries later he took it to his capital, Samarkand, as loot. [1] According to another, the Quran was brought from the ruler of Rum to Samarkand by Khoja Ahrar, a Turkestani sufi master, as a gift after he had cured the ruler. The Quran remained in the Khoja Ahrar Mosque of Samarkand for the next four centuries. [1]
In 1869, the Russian general Abramov bought it from the imams of the mosque and gave it to Konstantin von Kaufmann, Governor-General of Turkestan, who in turn sent it to the Imperial Library in Saint Petersburg (now the Russian National Library). [1] It attracted the attention of Orientalists and eventually a facsimile edition was published in Saint-Petersburg in 1905. The 50 copies soon became rarities. The first thorough description and dating of the manuscript was undertaken by the Russian Orientalist Shebunin in 1891.
After the October Revolution, Lenin, in an act of goodwill to the Muslims of Russia, gave the Quran to the people of Ufa in Bashkortostan. After repeated appeals by the people of the Turkestan ASSR, the Quran was returned to Central Asia, to Tashkent, in 1924, where it has since remained. [1]
The parchment manuscript now is held in the library of the Telyashayakh Mosque, in the old "Hast-Imam" (Khazrati Imom) area of Tashkent, close to the grave of Kaffal Shashi, a 10th-century Islamic scholar.
A folio containing a page from the sura Al-Anbiya is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, US.
The manuscript is incomplete: [1] it begins in the middle of verse 7 of the second sura and ends at Surah 43:10. The manuscript has between eight and twelve lines to the page and, showing its antiquity, the text is devoid of vocalisation as was the case with Arabic script back then.
Tashkent or Toshkent is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 3 million. It is located in northeastern Uzbekistan, near the border with Kazakhstan.
Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, in the languages which use Arabic alphabet or the alphabets derived from it. It includes Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, and Urdu calligraphy. It is known in Arabic as khatt Arabi, which translates into Arabic line, design, or construction.
Islam is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan. Islamic customs were broadly adopted by the ruling elite, and they began patronage of scholars and conquerors such as Muhammad al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, Ismail Samani, al-Biruni, Avicenna, Tamerlane, Ulugh Begh, and Babur. Despite its predominance and history, the practice of Islam has been far from monolithic since the establishment of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Many versions of the faith have been practiced in today's Republic of Uzbekistan. Most of them stray far from conventional Islamic tradition and law, and practice a far more relaxed approach. Heavily authoritarian interpretations of the Qur’an, including Shariah Law, as seen in parts of the Middle East, are almost unheard of in Uzbekistan. There are also traditions from the Zoroastrian era which are still practiced, before the introduction of Islam to the country.
Mushaf is an Arabic word for a codex or collection of sheets, but also refers to a written copy of the Quran. The chapters of the Quran, which Muslims believe was revealed during a 23-year period in Muhammad's lifetime, were written on various pieces of paper during Muhammad's era. Two decades later, these papers were assembled into one volume under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, and this collection has formed the basis of all written copies of the Quran to the present day.
The Bibi-Khanym Mosque is one of the most important monuments of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. In the 15th century, it was one of the largest and most magnificent mosques in the Islamic world. It is considered a masterpiece of the Timurid Renaissance. By the mid-20th century, only a grandiose ruin of it still survived, but major parts of the mosque were restored during the Soviet period.
The history of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is the timeline and origin of the written compilations or manuscripts of the Quran, based on historical findings. It spans several centuries, and forms an important major part of the early history of Islam.
In Islam, Qirāʼah are different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Differences between Qiraʼat are slight and include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words, but also differences in stops, vowels, consonants, and less frequently entire words. Qiraʼat also refers to the branch of Islamic studies that deals with these modes of recitation.
The Topkapi manuscript or Topkapi Quran is an early manuscript of the Quran dated to the early 2nd century AH.
The Shia view of the Qur'an differs from the Sunni view, but the majority of both groups believe that the text is identical. While some Shia disputed the canonical validity of the Uthmanic codex, the Shia Imams always rejected the idea of alteration of Qur'an's text. Only seven Shia scholars have believed in omissions in the Uthmanic codex.
The Sanaa palimpsest or Sanaa Quran is one of the oldest Quranic manuscripts in existence. Part of a sizable cache of Quranic and non-Quranic fragments discovered in Yemen during a 1972 restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, the manuscript was identified as a palimpsest Quran in 1981 as it is written on parchment and comprises two layers of text.
The Blue Quran is an early Quranic manuscript written in Kufic script. The dating, location of origin, and patron of the Blue Quran are unknown and have been the subject of academic debate, though it is generally accepted that the manuscript was produced in the late 9th to mid-10th century in either Kairouan, Tunisia or Cordoba in Umayyad Spain. The manuscript is among the most famous works of Islamic calligraphy, notable for its gold lettering on a rare indigo-colored parchment.
The page gives a timeline of the various events related to the Quran according to traditional Islamic accounts.
The Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus (CPP) is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Quran, attributed to the 7th century.
The Birmingham Quran manuscript is a single sheet of parchment on which two leaves of an early Quranic manuscript or muṣḥaf have been written. In 2015, the manuscript, which is held by the University of Birmingham, was radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645 CE. It is part of the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts, held by the university's Cadbury Research Library.
In Muslim tradition the Quran is the final revelation from God, Islam's divine text, delivered to the Islamic prophet Muhammad through the angel Jibril (Gabriel). Muhammad's revelations were said to have been recorded orally and in writing, through Muhammad and his followers up until his death in 632 CE. These revelations were then compiled by first caliph Abu Bakr and codified during the reign of the third caliph Uthman so that the standard codex edition of the Quran or Muṣḥaf was completed around 650 CE, according to Muslim scholars. This has been critiqued by some western scholarship, suggesting the Quran was canonized at a later date, based on the dating of classical Islamic narratives, i.e. hadiths, which were written 150–200 years after the death of Muhammad, and partly because of the textual variations present in the Sana'a manuscript. With the discovery of earlier manuscripts which conform to the Uthmanic standard however, the vast majority of Western revisionist theories regarding the historical origins of the Quran have fallen out of favor and been described as "untenable".
According to Islamic tradition, the Quran was revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel (Jibril) in seven ahruf, translated variously as "styles", "ways", "forms" and "modes". Islamic scholars agree that the ahruf were styles used by the early Muslims to recite the Quran.
Arabic miniatures are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks that occupy entire pages. The earliest example dates from around 690 AD, with a flourishing of the art from between 1000 and 1200 AD in the Abbasid caliphate. The art form went through several stages of evolution while witnessing the fall and rise of several Islamic caliphates. Arab miniaturists absorbed Chinese and Persian influences brought by the Mongol destructions, and at last, got totally assimilated and subsequently disappeared due to the Ottoman occupation of the Arab world. Nearly all forms of Islamic miniatures owe their existences to Arabic miniatures, as Arab patrons were the first to demand the production of illuminated manuscripts in the Caliphate, it wasn't until the 14th century that the artistic skill reached the non-Arab regions of the Caliphate.
Canonized Islamic scripture are texts which Muslims believe were revealed by God through various prophets throughout humanity's history—specifically the Quran and Hadith. Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God to mankind, and a completion and confirmation of previous scriptures. It was believed to have been revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad from 620 CE to 632 CE, and canonized in an official, unified text during the caliphate of Rashidun Uthman, around 650 CE.
Quran is the Holy Book of Allah in Islam.
The Hazrati Imam complex is an architectural monument dating from the 16th to 20th centuries, located in the Olmazor district of Tashkent city, Uzbekistan. The complex consists of the Moʻyi Muborak madrasa, the Qaffol Shoshi mausoleum, the Baroqxon Madrasa, the Hazrati Imam mosque, the Tillashayx mosque, and the Imam al-Bukhari Islamic Institute. The ensemble was built near the grave of Hazrati Imam, the first imam-khatib of Tashkent, a scholar, one of the first Islamic preachers in Tashkent, a poet and an artist.