Thread. Parchment, papyrus, paper : which materials for ancient Qur’ān manuscripts?
1/11. The writing material is the 1st basic component of a codex.. And a very significant feature for shedding light on the history of the Qur’ān but also on the history of writing technology.
1/11. The writing material is the 1st basic component of a codex.. And a very significant feature for shedding light on the history of the Qur’ān but also on the history of writing technology.
2/11. One of the most ancient writing materials, inherited from Antiquity, is of course papyrus. But already in the 4th CE, papyrus isn’t anymore the most suitable material for producing books, as its physi-cal properties aren’t well adapted to the codex’s shape.
3/11. Yet papyrus has been used for Arabic literary codices. Fragments of traditions, grammatical or poetical texts, from the 8th to the mid. 10th CE, are still existent today. The oldest dated codex on papyrus is from 229/844. What about the writing of the Qur’ān on papyrus?
4/11. Actually there are few fragments on papyrus. And so damaged that it’s hard to say if they were fragments of codices and especially, of complete Qur’āns. It’s worth noting that none of these have been found in the mosques' deposits. Was papyrus ever used for public muṣḥaf?
5/11. All of the Qur’ān codices from the 7th to the 10th CE (and until the 14th in Maghreb), are on parchment, made from animal skin. It's more expensive than papyrus, but more resistant, and can be produced everywhere there are cattle and water.
6/11. We don’t know if the scribes of the Qur’ān have used the locally available parchment or parchment of their own making. In any case, we can notice physical differences between groups of manuscripts. Here is, I think, a key evidence for regionalism and/or chronology.
7/11. Parchment raises crucial issues like the animal species used, the different processing steps and the variety of components used. But these can't be brought to light, except through extent physical analyses.
8/11. What about the transition from parchment to paper, which is cheaper and more fragile than parchment. According to the legend, Arabs learned the technology of paper from Chinese prisoners after the battle of Talas in Central Asia, in 751 CE. And material evidence agrees…
9/11. The oldest ms on paper from Middle-East is in Greek. It was copied around 800. We know also Arabic mss: the first one, a copy of the Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, kept in Alexandria, is dated from 233/848. In Europe, we know the Leiden copy of Gharib al-Hadith, dated from 252/866.
10/11. Until now, there is no evidence of Qur’ān on paper before the end of 10th CE. The earliest examples have been produced in the East, like the famous Ibn al-Bawwab Qur’ān, written in Bagdad. But, parchment was still in use in other regions.
11/11. In short, the writing materials offer the main evidence for enlightening the historical context of production of the manuscripts. Physical and chemical analyses provide today new perspectives... Here is one of my research focus since a while and, hopefully, for the future.
