{"data":[{"id":"f7667f74-4325-44a3-9ec7-705286b27985","type":"exhibition_sections","attributes":{"title":"Compilation of the Quran and Early Manuscript Evidence","body":"

With the emergence of Islam in the early 7^th century and the revelation of the Quran in Arabic, the Arabic book was born. Between the 7^th and 10^th centuries, the Arabic book developed from a simple codex to being at the centre of a burgeoning book culture. Whilst there is evidence from pre-Islamic Arabia of Arabic writing, inscriptions and a tradition of poetry, Arabs of the 7th century belonged to a predominantly oral culture. The codification and transmission of the Quran in its written form ensured that the history of the Arabic written tradition, and the Arabic script in particular, would be inextricably linked to the history of Quran manuscripts. The Arabic alphabet would also be adopted by other languages including Persian, Ottoman-Turkish, Urdu and Malay. The Quran in its original Arabic continues to have a central place in Muslim life, Arabs and non-Arabs alike. For non-Arabs, it is usually the first exposure to Arabic as they continue to read, recite and commit at least some parts to memory.

According to Muslim tradition, the prophet Muhammad ﷺ would routinely ask one of his scribes to write down verses after they were revealed. This was done on various material including bones, the flat ends of date palm fronds and other boards. As might be expected in a predominantly oral culture, there was a large expectation and desire from the early Muslims to commit the revelation to memory. There are many reports about this period that indicate a large number of the Companions of the prophet Muhammad ﷺ had committed the entire Quran to memory.

Following the death of the prophet ﷺ in 632, Muslim tradition states that his companion and successor Abu Bakr (d.634 CE) became concerned about the long-term preservation of the Quran after a large number of companions who knew the Quran were killed in the battle of Yamama in 633. He commissioned a group of scribes – including the Prophet’s principal scribe, Zayd bin Thābit – to consult those who had memorised the Quran and the existing written records to produce a complete written copy (manuscript) of the Quran.

The caliphate of the second caliph ʿUmar Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (r.634-644 CE) witnessed the rapid spread of Islam across a vast geographic stretch, which brought with it a challenge greater than the preservation of the Quran as a written codex. There was now a need for the Quranic text to be made available to a large number of people across a wide expanse. There were also some concerns that the authenticity of written copies of the text be preserved. The third caliph, ʿUthmān (d.656 CE) is reported to have consulted Abu Bakr’s muṣḥaf to produce a definitive canonical text from which he ordered all subsequent copies be made and distributed across the Islamic world.

Within a short period, Arabic had become the language of religious and liturgical expression throughout the vast regions that adopted Islam.

[Click on the images below to read more about some of the earliest manuscripts of the Quran that have survived]

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There are 114 sūrahs (chapters), in the Quran. Each surah has a varying number of āyah (verses). There are 6236 verses, although the total given can vary depending on whether the expression of piety at the beginning of almost every sūrah (the basmalah), is counted. A sūrah can vary in length between three to 286 verses. With the exception of the brief opening sūrah, the Quran is then ordered with its longest sūrah first, with the following ones arranged in roughly descending order of length.

Each sūrah can be categorised as either having been revealed during the earlier period of prophecy in Makkah or amongst those revealed after the migration of the prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his followers to Madinah (Hijrah) in 622. The Makkan phase of revelation is thought to have lasted around thirteen years. A sūrah ascribed to this phase tends to be short and based on themes of core beliefs: the unity of Allah, the coming of resurrection and judgement, and righteous conduct. A sūrah ascribed to the Madinan phase, which lasted about ten years, from the Hijrah to the death of prophet Muhammad ﷺ, tends to be longer and whilst they still incorporate the basic themes of the Makkan phase, they also refer to the growing together of the Muslim community and their experiences and interaction with other groups. It is apparent from this chronology that the ordering of the sūrahs according to length is not the same as the order of revelation. Muslim tradition states that the reordering of the sūrahs by length in this way was established by the prophet during his lifetime.

Early manuscripts of the Quran demonstrate the development of visual markers to make a distinction between one sūrah and the next as well as other markers to divide the text for readers, such as āyah separators, counting aids and divisions into volumes. It is useful to recognise these features when studying early Quran manuscripts.

[Click on the images below to read more about the visual markers and divisions that were added to Quran manuscripts]

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Arabic Script and Reading Aids

Arabic is a Semitic language that has twenty-eight letters and is written from right to left. There are seventeen different letter forms, and the remaining letters are distinguished by the presence and absence of dots above or below these letter forms. The letter forms change according to their position in the word, taking variant forms at the beginning, middle and end of a word. Various attempts to reform Arabic writing and render the letters more easily legible took place during the 7th and 8th centuries. They consisted mainly of adding dots to the skeletal script, or consonant pointing, to differentiate between consonants with the same basic shape (nuqaṭ al-iʿjām), and supplementary diacritical markings above and below the letters in order to make provision for short vowels (tashkīl, or nuqaṭ al-iʿrāb).

Consonantal Pointing

The earliest Quran manuscripts, such as the Birmingham Quran folios, do not generally use consonantal pointing or diacritical markings. There are, however, some exceptions to this: consonantal pointing is frequently used for the letters bāʾ, tāʾ, thāʾand initial and medial forms ofnūn, but less frequently and not at all in other instances. The purpose appears to be to avoid confusion where there may be ambiguity about the word or it could simply be due to the fact that their use was not yet an established practice. Quran manuscripts would have been used as an aide-memoire that prompted readers in their recitation; it was assumed that readers would be able to distinguish the letters either from their knowledge of the language or their own memorisation of the Quran. In some sources, the governor of the Islamic East, Al-Ḥallāj ibn Yūsuf (d.714) has been credited with commissioning the use of dots, but there is evidence of their use from earlier in the 7th century, as we have seen in the manuscripts presented and other dated documents from the mid-7th century onwards.

[Click on the images below to read more about the introduction of reading aids to mark consonants and vowels, and the scripts (calligraphy) used in early Quran manuscripts]

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