The care that has surrounded the production of copies of the QurʾÄn since the beginnings of Islam was reflected early on in the development of calligraphy and in the recourse to illumination. It is therefore not surprising that art historians were, if not the first, then at least those who most consistently studied these manuscripts as part of their research on Islamic art. However, as early as the end of the eighteenth century, attempts had been made, on the one hand to use the oldest QurʾÄns from the perspective of an investigation into the history of the text, and on the other hand to lay the foundations of Arabic palaeography, since QurʾÄn manuscripts offered the advantage of covering all periods of manuscript production, from the earliest to the most recent, and of illustrating all the regions in which Islam had taken root. Jacob Georg Christian Adler,1 Jean-Louis Asselin de Cherville2 and Johann Heinrich Möller3 were pioneers in this field.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the issue relating to the beginnings of the manuscript transmission of the text of the QurʾÄn, initiated by J.G. Chr. Adler and developed, albeit without immediate sequels, by Michele Amari,4 contributed to bringing ancient QurʾÄn manuscripts back to the forefront in a context marked by the hypotheses of the hyper-critical schoolâs proponents, who assigned the compilation of the QurʾÄn to the second/eighth, or even to the third/ninth century.5 However, the movement goes beyond this one area of research on copies of the QurʾÄn: a better knowledge of manuscript collections, some spectacular discoveries and a field of study in constant progress have marked this same period on a more general level.
The present proceedings do not aim to do justice to the diversity of interests and approaches aroused by QurʾÄn manuscripts, from all periods, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The colloquium âCurrent research on QurʾÄn manuscripts,â organised on 2 and 3 June 2022 at the Collège de France in the framework of the chair âHistoire du Coran. Texte et transmission,â had the more modest aim of presenting some of the avenues currently being explored by researchers working on one aspect or another of the manuscript transmission of the QurʾÄn, and of opening up a debate on the results obtained.
The progress that has been made in the field of palaeography, and which the contributions of Eléonore Cellard and Morteza Karimi Nia in this volume show is continuing, has accelerated in different directions the exploitation of what the oldest copies can teach us about the text and its transmission. Generally speaking, the concern to put those oldest copies into context in order to better understand them leads us to take into account the series within which they take on their full meaning, and to question the texts of the Muslim tradition that are likely to shed light on this subject.6 The careful study of these sources, as proposed by Hassan Chahdi, enriches and stimulates the exploration of the oldest layer of manuscript production. But other texts also contribute to this end, such as the colophon analysed by M. Karimi Nia.
Medieval literature, whose importance cannot be denied in current research on the ancient manuscripts of the QurʾÄn and the transmission of the text, has however only preserved part of the information that the copies reveal to us as research goes on. This is what Alba Fedeli highlights in her study of the systems of vowel notation whose gradual and partial introduction took place in the course of the second/eighth century: with the help of the resources of the digital humanities, she is able to grasp their subtleties and understand more precisely the relationship between the oral and the written.
This research is part of a larger examination of the âreadingsâ (qirÄʾÄt). As Marijn van Putten shows, the analysis of vocalization systems and orthoepic signs allows us to hope for a more precise localization of the origin of the copies â if not from a geographical point of view, then at least from that of adherence to one or another qirÄʾa. In this case, as in the previous one, the Muslim tradition, as formalised in the treatises that have come down to us and whose information is partial, is completed and enriched by these results. In the longer term, the study of what has been preserved in the manuscripts will complete what the research carried out on the data of the tradition has already contributed to the history of the âreadingsâ â and, more generally, to the history of the text in the early centuries.7
The new avenues of research that have been reported also benefit from the increased availability of data. For example, Iran seemed to have preserved almost nothing of the manuscript tradition of the QurʾÄn in the early period of Islam. In recent years, thanks to the local development of research, there has been a considerable increase in documentation: M. Karimi Niaâs contribution, which offers a way to identify a specifically Iranian production from an early period, illustrates the richness of the countryâs collections for the period from the third/ninth to the fifth/eleventh century.
The proceedings give pride of place to the oldest layer of the manuscript transmission of the text of the QurʾÄn, but the scope of the investigation has been opened up to more recent periods. In addition to the studies of M. Karimi Nia and M. van Putten, already mentioned, the editor of these proceedings reopens the case of a famous manuscript from the early Abbasid period, the Blue QurʾÄn. The transition to the following centuries and the emergence of the classical tradition is made with the text of Alya Karame, who presents the results of her research on a group of QurʾÄn manuscripts that were produced in Nishapur in the fifth/eleventh century and mark the beginning of a new stage in the history of the QurʾÄn manuscript, from the point of view of both its presentation and how it was used.
The attention paid to the functions of the QurʾÄns constitutes a sort of guiding thread through the different contributions. Considering the manuscripts in a wider context is of course not specific to the early period. Two contributions that deal with a more recent production in two regions far apart from each other show the benefit of these approaches, for which they consider the documentation from two contrasting points of view. Nuria de Castilla offers a synthesis of the production of copies of the QurʾÄn in the particular context of Muslim communities in Golden Age Spain (ninth/fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth centuries), and shows the solutions adopted at the time to maintain the transmission of the text in the face of increasing prohibitions imposed by the Christian authorities. Eloïse Brac de la Perrière analyses a group of Indian copies, the emblematic representative of which is the Gwalior QurʾÄn. This Indian production, easily recognised by its particular script, the bihÄrÄ«, is typified by its multifunctional character. It underwent an evolution between the end of the eighth/fourteenth century and the tenth/sixteenth century that could reflect a change of patrons. Although the contribution of the analysis of the materials to the study of QurʾÄn manuscripts was not specifically dealt with during the conference, it should be stressed that the results obtained by various methods, both in the field of dating8 and in that of the identification of the components,9 have made a significant contribution to the study of the manuscripts under discussion: it is therefore not surprising that various authors refer to them in their texts.10
The editor of the proceedings has opted for a unified system of transliteration inspired by that of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. However, an exception was made for the paper by M. van Putten insofar as the technical nature of his subject required particular precision in the transcription of QurʾÄn Arabic. The dates are given by indicating the date of the Hijra, followed by the Common Era date. Where there are general indications referring to one or more centuries, the equivalences have been simplified: one will thus find âthird/ninth centuryâ and not âthird century/ between 816 and 912â. The dates which concern recent studies are indicated only according to the Common Era.
The texts correspond for the most part to the papers that were given by their authors during the conference. I would like to thank Ms. Luisa Louajed and Dr. Hassan Chahdi for the valuable help they gave, each in their own field, to the organisation of this meeting. My thanks also go to Ms. Claire Jeannequin, whose team ensured the video recording of the lectures and debates, and then their broadcast on the web.11 I owe a special debt to Prof. Consuelo López-Morillas, who kindly agreed to take care of editing the texts in English: my gratitude goes to her.
J.G. Chr. Adler, Descriptio Codicum Quorundam Cuficorum partes Corani Exhibentium in Bibliotheca Regia Hafniensi et ex Iisdem de Scriptura Cufica Arabum Observationes Novae [Praemittitur Disquisitio Generalis De Arte Scribendi apud Arabes ex ipsis auctoribus Arabicis iisque adhuc ineditis sumta], Altona, Officina Eckardiana, 1780.
J.L. Asselin de Cherville, Lettre de M. J. L. Asselin de Cherville, Agent du Consulat général de France, au Caire, à M. Dacier, secrétaire perpétuel de la troisième classe de lâInstitut, Magasin encyclopédique 3 (1815), p. 87. See also P.F. Burger, Jean-Louis Asselin de Cherville, agent consulaire et collectionneur de manuscrits orientaux, Dix-huitième siècle 26 (1996) pp. 125â133.
H. Möller, Paläographische Beiträge aus den Herzoglichen Sammlungen in Gotha.Orientalische Paläographie, Heft I, Erfurt, J.L. Uckermann (1842).
M. Amari, Bibliographie primitive du Coran [â¦] Extrait de son mémoire inédit sur la chronologie et lâancienne bibliographie du Coran, publié et annoté par Hartwig Derenbourg, dans Centenario della nascita di Michele Amari I, Palerme, Virzi, 1910, pp. 1â ??; about M. Amariâs essay see also F. Déroche, La genèse de la Geschichte des Qorâns, in Les origines du Coran, le Coran des origines, F. Déroche, Chr. J. Robin and M. Zink eds., Paris, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 2015, pp. 15â16.
J. Wansbrough, Quranic studies, Sources and methods of scriptural interpretation, Oxford, Oxford University Press (London Oriental series, 31), 1977, pp. 43â52.
J.G. Chr. Adler, Descriptio, pp. 25â30; Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, Notice du manuscrit Arabe n° 239 de la Bibliothèque impériale, contenant un traité sur lâorthographe primitive de lâAlcoran, intitulé
About the âReadingsâ see Sh. H. Nasser, The transmission of the Variant Readings of the QurʾÄn. The Problem of TawÄtur and the Emergence of ShawÄdhdh, Leiden, Brill, 2013.
See for instance M. Marx and T. Jocham, Radiocarbon (14C) dating of QurʾÄn manuscripts, in QurʾÄn quotations preserved on papyrus documents, 7thâ10th centuries. And the problem of carbon dating early QurʾÄns, A. Kaplony and M. Marx eds., Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2019, pp. 188â221; A. Aghaei and M.J. Marx, Carbon dating of seven parchment Qurʾan manuscripts and one Syriac Bible of the National Museum of Iran, Journal of Iran Museum 2â1, Serial 2 (2021), pp. 205â226.
See for example B. Guineau et al., Colouring materials in Maghrib manuscripts from the sixth/twelfth to the ninth/fifteenth century: fundamentals of identification and comparison, in F. Déroche et al., Islamic codicology, an Introduction to the study of manuscripts in Arabic script, London, Al-FurqÄn Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2005/1426, pp. 119â157; F. Déroche, Patricia Roger and Malika Serghini, Matériaux de la couleur dans les manuscrits arabes de lâOccident musulman. Recherches sur la collection de la Bibliothèque générale et archives de Rabat et la Bibliothèque nationale de France, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, Comptes rendus des séances de lâannée 2004 (2006), pp. 799â830; Ch. Porter, The materiality of the Blue Quran : a physical and technological study, in The Aghlabids and their neighbors: Art and material culture in ninth-century North Africa, Glaire D. Anderson et al. eds., Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2017, pp. 575â586.
See the contributions by Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Eléonore Cellard and François Déroche.