Quran |
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Uthman The Generous (al-Ghani) |
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The Samarkand Kufic Quran (also known as the Mushaf Uthmani, Samarkand codex, Tashkent Quran and Uthman Qur'an) is a manuscript Quran, or mushaf, and is one of the 6 manuscripts which were penned under the caliphate of Uthman ibn Affan. They represented an effort to compile the Qur'an into a standardized version. It is not exactly known to which area the Samarkand codex was originally dispatched or whether it was Uthman's personal manuscript.
The Samarkand mushaf was moved around throughout centuries and as a result it has one of the richest histories and also saddest fates because of its alterations. It is one of the first texts written in the Kufic script. Today it is kept in the Hast Imam library, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Based on orthographic and palaeographic studies, the manuscript probably dates from the 8th or 9th century. [1] [2] Radiocarbon dating showed a 95.4% confidence interval for a date between 775 and 995. [2] 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%. [2]
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). [3] According to one report, 6 certified copies were written of which 5 were dispatched to various parts of the Islamic world, with the sixth being for Uthman's personal use in Medina. Each copy dispatched was accompanied by a reciter. These include: Zayd ibn Thabit (sent to Madinah), Abdullah ibn al-Sa'ib (sent to sent to Makkah), al-Mughirah ibn Shihab (sent to Syria), Amir ibn Abd Qays (sent to Basra) and Abdul Rahman al-Sulami (sent to Kufa). [4] The only other surviving copy was thought to be the one held in Topkapı Palace in Turkey, [3] [5] but studies have shown that the Topkapı manuscript is also not from the 7th century, but from much later. [6] [7]
Uthman was succeeded by Ali, who is thought to have taken the Uthmanic Quran to Kufa, now in Iraq. 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. [3]
The mushaf was initially in Damascus, Syria however after Tamerlane sacked the city during the Siege of Damascus in the beginning of the 15th century, he took it to Samarkand, as loot. [3] In 1868, the Russians conquered Samarkand in the Siege of Samarkand and as a result Russian general Abramov bought it from the imams of the mosque [8] and it was sent it to the Imperial Library in Saint Petersburg (now the Russian National Library). [3]
It attracted the attention of Orientalists and eventually S. Pissaref published a facsimile edition in 1905. [9] Unfortunately, before doing so he decided to retrace the fresh ink in the folios whose ink had faded over time. In doing so, he introduced many unintentional alterations into the text. [10] This rendered the text corrupted and hence useless for the purpose of textual study.
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. [3]
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: [3] 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.
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 history of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is the timeline ranging from the inception of the Quran during the lifetime of Muhammad, to the emergence, transmission, and canonization of its written copies. The history of the Quran is a major focus in the field of Quranic studies.
In Islam, qirāʼa refers to the ways or fashions that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is recited. More technically, the term designates the different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the Quran. Differences between qiraʼat include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words, but also differences in stops, vowels, consonants, entire words and even different meanings.. However, the variations don't change the overall message or doctrinal meanings of the Qur'an, as the differences are often subtle and contextually equivalent.Qiraʼat also refers to the branch of Islamic studies that deals with these modes of recitation.
The Topkapı manuscript or Topkapı Quran is an early manuscript of the Quran dated to the middle 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 Mushaf of Ali is a codex of the Quran that was collected by one of its first scribes, Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Ali is also recognized as the fourth Rashidun caliph and the first Shia imam. By some Shia accounts, the codex of Ali was rejected for official use after the death of Muhammad in 632 CE for political reasons. Some early Shia traditions also suggest differences with the official Uthmanid codex, though currently, the prevalent Shia view is that the recension of Ali matched the Uthmanid codex, save for the order of its content. The Twelver Shia believe that the codex of Ali is now in the possession of their last imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who would reveal the codex when he reappears at the end of time to eradicate injustice and evil.
The Codex Parisino-Petropolitanus (CPP) is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Quran, attributed to the 7th century.
The Birmingham Quran manuscript comprises two leaves of parchment from an early Quranic manuscript or muṣḥaf. In 2015, the manuscript, which is held by the University of Birmingham, was radiocarbon dated to between 568 and 645 AD. 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. Muslim scholars who oppose the views of the Western revisionist theories regarding the historical origins of the Quran have described their theses as "untenable".
Abu Sa'id Uthman Ibn Sa‘id al-Qutbi, better known as Warsh (110-197AH), was a significant figure in the history of Quranic recitation (qira'at), the canonical methods of reciting the Qur'an. Alongside Qalun, he was one of the two primary transmitters of the canonical reading method of Nafi‘ al-Madani. Together, their style is the most common form of Qur'anic recitation in the generality of African mosques outside of Egypt, and is also popular in Yemen and Darfur despite the rest of Sudan following the method of Hafs. The method of Warsh and his counterpart Qalun was also the most popular method of recitation in Al-Andalus. The majority of printed Mushafs today in North Africa and West Africa follow the reading of Warsh.
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, revealed to Muhammad between 610 and 632 CE, and canonized around 650 by the Rashidun leader Uthman.
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.
Uthman's Quran or the Imam's Quran is the Quran compiled by the third Rashidun Caliph Uthman ibn Affan. He ordered it to be copied and the copies sent to Islamic countries, after the death of Muhammad. The Quran was collected in a single book by order of the first caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, and when the caliphate was handed over to Uthman ibn Affan, the Islamic conquests expanded and the companions spread in the conquered countries, teaching people the Quran and how to read its different readings. When the Companion Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman noticed that Muslims differed in reading and some of this difference was tinged with melody, he told the Caliph about it, and Uthman ordered that the Quran be collected in one way. He sent Hafsa bint Umar to allow him to use the copy of the Quran in her possession to use it as a reference, and Uthman ordered several copies of the Quran to unify the reading and ordered them to be distributed to the Muslim countries, and ordered the destruction of anything that contradicts that Quran.
Codex Mashhad is an old codex of the Qurʾān, now mostly preserved in two manuscripts, MSS 18 and 4116, in the Āstān-i Quds Library, Mashhad, Iran. The first manuscript in 122 folios and the second in 129 folios together constitute more than 90% of the text of the Qurʾān, and it is also likely that other fragments will be found in Mashhad or elsewhere in the world. The current codex is in two separate volumes, MSS 18 and 4116. The former contains the first half of the Qurʾān, from the beginning to the end of the 18th sūra, al-Kahf, while the latter comprises the second half, from the middle of the 20th sūra, Ṭāhā, to the end of the Qurʾān. In their present form, both parts of Codex Mashhad have been repaired, partially completed with pieces from later Kufic Qurʾāns and sometimes in a present-day nashkī hand.