Eléonore Cellard, a French scholar and researcher who specializes in Arabic paleography and codicology, particularly Quranic manuscripts, gained rare access to the National Library of Egypt and unveiled the rare gem.
The library is an ancient institution that was founded by the Khedive Ismail Pasha in 1870. It is also an inaccessible dream for researchers and historians like me, in search of early manuscripts of the Quran.
Moreover, this fascinating copy is thought to be one of the copies by Caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, written in his hand and stained with his blood because, according to the Islamic historical accounts, he was assassinated while reading it.
The manuscript arrives on a carriage with sacred silence. I was full of emotion. Its size is colossal – around 50 x 60 x 40 cm thick, more than 30 kg, requiring two men to transfer it to the table.
We open the book – freshly rebound by the National Library restoration team – and begin to delicately turn the pages. Unlike the very earliest known examples of the Quran, most of which are oriented vertically, the large leaves of our copy, although nearly square, are slightly horizontal.
This may be evidence that it was produced later than other early Qurans, perhaps around the early 8th century CE. The first pages that we turn are written on paper. A note says that they were manufactured in 1830 to complete the missing parts of the manuscript as part of a restoration sponsored by the Khedive Muhammad ʿAlī Pasha.
Courtesy: The New Arab
