A Survey of Personal-Use Qurʾan Manuscripts Based on Fragments from the Cairo Genizah
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Abstract
The Cairo Genizah is a repository of texts spanning more than a millennium of Jewish history, including thousands of Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts now held in collections around the world. Among these thousands are fragments from at least 25 separate Qurʾan manuscripts in Arabic script, all of which lack any traces of Hebrew writing. Their palaeographic and codicological features do not differ from personal Qurʾan manuscripts found in other contexts, and their varied characteristics suggest that they were placed into the Genizah at many different points throughout its history. They thus provide a diachronic corpus for the study of Arabic writing, the transmission of the Qurʾan, and Jewish peoples’ engagement with the Qurʾan in Islamicate lands. This paper describes these 25 personal-use Qurʾan manuscripts in terms of their material history and orthography, while commenting on their place in the Genizah and the history of the Qurʾan.
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1755-1730
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Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2018-024)