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*Thread. The old Qur’ān library of the Great Mosque of Kairouan
1/9. In 1896, Muhammad Bayram Bey visited the mosque and its ancient library. In a lecture given at the Egyptian Geographical Association, he described Qur’ān mss and books, tied with cord and covered with cobwebs.
1/9. In 1896, Muhammad Bayram Bey visited the mosque and its ancient library. In a lecture given at the Egyptian Geographical Association, he described Qur’ān mss and books, tied with cord and covered with cobwebs.
2/9. It is how, the manuscripts of this library, located in the maqsūra, was rediscovered. Hence the French Protectorate set up a committee for undertaking measures for a more suitable storage. In 1901, some 10.000 folios from parchment Qur’ans have been inventoried.
3/9. First dispersed between different museums in Tunisia, the manuscripts were sent back to Kairouan in 1983 and are now in the Museum of Raqqada, where they can get optimal conditions of conservation and restauration.
4/9. Among this collection, there is an exceptional document : an old inventory of the manuscripts dated 693/1293, providing a description of the content of the library. 67 copies of Qur’ān (and more as the list is mutilated) were already in the mosque.
5/9. Most of the Qur’an copies from the old library are from the 9th-11th. The first dated (by waqf) copy is a small multivolume Qur’an, in kufic D.III, endowed to the mosque in 295/907. Among the most famous mss is the Blue Qur’an, written with gold on parchment dyed with indigo
6/9. Earlier copies are very few in Kairouan. Two well preserved single volumes have been signaled by F. Déroche in his “Qur’ans of the Umayyads”. The circumstances in which these were brought to Kairouan are still unclear. At any rate, they don’t seem to be a local production.
7/9. One is a small horizontal copy, written in a hybrid style between Hijazi and A. It shares many similarities with Codex Amrensis 1, from Fusṭāṭ.
8/9. The second one is a huge vertical manuscript. Script and ornaments point to the Late Umayyad period (720-730), while a radiocarbon analysis gives a result between 648 and 691 (2σ). Physical similarities with others in the storage of Ṣan‘ā’ are obvious.
9/9. Anyhow, these copies and the others from the 9th-11th show the importance of the muṣḥaf in Kairouan. If we count every Qur’ān volume (or section, juz’) listed in 1293, there were some 833 codicological units, maybe more. That is a guaranteed access to the Qur’ān reading!
