Samarkand Kufic Quran

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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.

• Birmingham Quran manuscript
• Sanaa manuscript
• Topkapi manuscript
• Codex Parisino-petropolitanus

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Samarkand Kufic Qur'an.

• W. Ouspensky, S. Pissaref, ed. (1905). Coran coufique de Samarcand (facsimile) = Самаркандский куфический Коран (факсимиле). St. Pétersbourg: Institut Archéologique de St. Pétersbourg.
• Самаркандский куфический Коран (in Russian). RARUS'S GALLERY. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
• "Memory of the World Register - Nomination Form Uzbekistan - Holy Koran Mushaf of Othman" (PDF). UNESCO. Retrieved 26 September 2012.