1/8. The Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest is known as the only evidence of a different version of the Qur’an, hidden in its parchment. Despite its current fragmentary condition, we are now sure that it was at first a codex/mushaf, showing similarities with the so-called “Companions’codices”
2/8. The Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest consists of not 1 but 2 Qurʾān texts that were sequentially copied onto the same material. The primary text - with the variants - was erased but the ink remains enough visible for it to be deciphered. The secondary text agrees with the canonical Qurʾān
3/8. At present, 80 leaves are identified, that is almost half of the complete Qur’anic text. The leaves, dispersed in different sets and places, are almost all isolated. However, they still display evidence that they were originally assembled into quires
4/8. The quire is the basic component of the codex. It’s made of a regular number of sheets piled on top of each other in the same way (following the parchment’s sides) and folded in 2. After long efforts to identify the parchment’s sides, I was able to reconstruct the quires.
5/8. Reconstructing the quires however does not only prove that the Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest was at first a codex, it also gives us new light about its text’s original structure, and especially about its particular order of the sūras
6/8. We have been able to restore several sequences of sūras (some are more hypothetical because many leaves are missing within a quire). They show similarities or convergences with Ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy’s codices, but also sequences in line with the ʿUthmanic text (like Q.10>11).
7/8. To conclude, the Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest reveals that the Companions’ codices may have continued to be used in the first centuries, possibly with locally-specific variations. Further research on manuscripts, from Ṣanʿāʾ and elsewhere, will tell more about these local traditions.
8/8. The whole demonstration is available in my article published in JNES.
journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108…
And here available in video, for those who know French😅
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