Scriptures as Holy Objects: Preliminary Comparative ...

Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 4 (2016) 210–244 brill.com/ihiw

Scriptures as Holy Objects: Preliminary Comparative Remarks on the Qurʾān and the Torah in the Medieval Middle East* Daniella Talmon-Heller Ben-Gurion University of the Negev [email protected]

Abstract Jews and Muslims have developed similar perceptions about the divine origins of their respective sacred scriptures, including their aural and graphic forms. How to transcribe the accurate and authentic text was debated and eventually prescribed in detail in each tradition, but ultimately each religion adopted a different strategy. The Jewish tradition—which distinguishes between liturgical reading and study—developed two discrete formats of the Pentateuch. The ancient form of the scroll with the text inscribed in scripta defectiva was reserved for liturgical use, while the newer codex, written in scripta plena with vocalization and cantillation marks, was accepted for all other purposes. Muslim scholars were less concerned with preserving an ‘authentic’ form, and gradually allowed massive embellishment of the basic script, and a wide variety of designs. The two traditions regard a few early copies of their scriptures, notably the ʿUṯmānī Musḥaf (s) of the Qurʾān and the Aleppo Codex of the Torah, as particularly awe inspiring and holy, according them the role of “master copy” on the scholarly level, and bestowing them the veneration due sacred relics, on the popular level.

Keywords Qurʾān – Torah – scroll – codex – script – Musḥaf ʿUṯmān – Aleppo Codex – sacred scriptures * I wish to thank the Israel Science Foundation grant no. 878/15 for supporting this project. My thanks are also due to the editors of this volume, to the participants of the conference on the histories of books (Madrid, March 2015), to Raquel Ukeles, Meir Bar-Asher and Edward Fram, and to Salama Abu Rabiʿah, Shareef al-Atawneh, and Jesse Lempel.

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The Torah and the Qurʾān, as is well known, are not only the most sacred texts in the Jewish and in the Muslim traditions respectively, but also extremely venerated tangible objects in the religious thought and practice of those traditions. Both Jewish and Muslim jurists have determined the etiquette of reverential treatment and the rules of proper conduct regarding their safekeeping, touching (by believers and non-believers), holding, adorning, selling, teaching, exchanging, and discarding, if damaged beyond use. Scholars regulated what should be done if the sacred book is dropped, torn, defiled, or captured by the enemy. In both traditions, sacred scriptures, and, in the case of the Torah scroll, also its accessories,1 were employed in ritual, ceremonial, talismanic, therapeutic, and legalistic contexts. They were raised and paraded to engage God or the community, and to promote group solidarity. Oaths and bans were sworn on copies of scripture. Miniature copies were carried as amulets, and especially large and richly decorated copies were given away as pious donations to religious institutions, or as gifts to the rich and powerful. Images of the Torah and Qurʾān were employed as symbols—of divine presence and might, of the faith, and of the religious community. Alongside significant likenesses in many respects, some striking differences between the role of the book in Jewish and in Islamic liturgy seem to account for different attitudes towards the physical aspects of the object. One difference may be observed off-hand. In the synagogue, the congregation faces the HolyArk,2 and for the most important parts of the liturgy, its doors are open, so that the Torah may be seen by all, standing in reverence. Only then, it is taken out ceremoniously. In contrast, the Qurʾān is conspicuously absent from the qibla wall of the mosque. Moreover, early authorities, possibly in a polemical vein— setting Islam apart both from idol worship and from Judaism—have stressed that placing a muṣḥaf in the miḥrāb, or more generally in front of a man in prayer, is reprehensible.3 Another intriguing disparity pertains to conceptions of purity: the Talmudic notion that “scriptures defile the hands” (m. Yadayim 3:5) and should not be touched with bare hands,4 coupled with the maxim that “the words of the Torah are not subject to becoming unclean” (m. Berachot 22a),5 versus 1 Case, wrapper, binder, mantle, metal shields, ‘crown’ and ‘pomegranates’. See Dotan, “Ceremonial Objects,” and Yaniv, Torah Case; Yaniv, Maʿaseh Rokem. 2 See Maimonides, The Code, “Laws Concerning Prayer,” (11: 2–4), pp. 50f. 3 Ibn Abī Daʾūd, al-Maṣāḥif, pp. 559–563. 4 For a recent publication regarding this widely researched enigmatic idea, see Baumgarten, “Sacred Scriptures.” See also Sirat, “Rouleaux,” p. 431. 5 See also Maimonides, Code, 10:8, trans. p. 109: “Those ritually impure, even menstruants and

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the Muslim notion that “only the pure may touch it” (lā yamassuhu ilā lmuṭahharūn, Qurʾān 56:79).6 Few attempts have been made to explore from a comparative perspective the ways Jews and Muslims viewed their holy books and told their histories,7 despite the great potential of such an experiment. Comparisons always raise new questions; they often highlight otherwise imperceptible phenomena, and may draw attention to factors that are of crucial importance in one tradition, and totally absent from the other. In some cases a comparison may even allow “the tentative filling of gaps in the documentation of one society with facts observed in the history of another,” as suggested by B.Z. Kedar. While comparison is not necessarily the study of interrelations, stresses Kedar, it evokes a search for mutual influences and possible common sources, and enhances the understanding of the roots and development of various phenomena.8 While I do not attempt to make a comprehensive assessment of the resemblances and contrasts between the treatment and the perception of the Torah and the Qurʾān as sacred objects—undoubtedly a daunting project that demands a team of specialists—I intend to explore here the histories of their graphic form and design, with an emphasis on the discourses about preserving or changing their appearance. I will also highlight the stories of a handful of exceptional copies that were regarded as templates of the sacred text— Keter Aram Tzova (the Aleppo Codex) on the Jewish side, and the so-called Muṣḥaf ʿUṯmān on the Muslim side. My contention is that the narratives told

Gentiles, may hold a Torah scroll and read from it, since words of Torah cannot become ritually impure.” 6 The Qurʾānic warning is usually interpreted as barring non-Muslims from touching the Qurʾān, although it is also taken to mean that ritual cleansing is a prerequisite for touching the book (or its letters), and that measures should be taken to avoid the defilement of the muṣḥaf (see Kister, “lā yamassuhu”). For a comparative discussion of Jewish and Muslim law regarding impurities, see Lazarus-Yafeh, “Some Differences.” 7 For a remarkable comparison between the veneration of the Torah and that of divine images, see Karel van der Toorn, “The Iconic Book.” Michael Cook offers some thought-provoking comparisons between a number of sacred scriptures in his The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2000). My late teacher Hava Lazarus-Yafeh engaged in comparative religion in many of her works, among others in her “Some Differences,” in Intertwined Worlds, and in the inspiring collections of her talks Judaism-Islam Islam-Judaism. See also Sadan, “Geniza”; idem, “New Materials,” pp. 193–218; and my “Reciting the Qurʾān,” and “Reading the Qurʾān.” Meir Bar-Asher’s article on scholars’ attitudes towards the translation of the Qurʾān, includes comparative remarks; see Bar-Asher, “Muslim Opinions”. 8 Kedar, Explorations, esp. introduction, pp. 22–28.



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about these special copies and the actual expressions of their extraordinary sanctification may serve to illustrate the larger picture. Source material and scholarly research on every one of these subjects is immense, not to speak of hairsplitting debates between generations of specialists. At this stage, my work is based on a sample of primary sources: prescriptive Hebrew and Arabic literature; fragmentary information about devotional practices and beliefs of medieval societies as recorded in chronicles, biographical dictionaries, personal letters, and legal documents; and the material evidence of ancient manuscripts. It relies heavily on the works of some of the many experts in the fields of Islamic and Hebrew scriptural studies, codicology, paleography, socio-legal studies, religious studies, and art history. Finally, it is the result of my attempt to think in comparative terms, and to offer a few broad observations for further investigation.

The Form and Graphic Design of Sacred Scriptures: Outline of their History and Historiography Elaborating on Deuteronomy 31:19 “And now, write down this poem for yourselves,”9 and on Talmudic maxims (such as m. Eruvin 13a) Maimonides (d. 1204) asserts that every single Jewish male is obliged to write or commission a Torah scroll for himself.10 He also specifies, in unprecedented detail, the necessary conditions for the production and design of a proper scroll, one that may be used for liturgical reading in the synagogue. He refers to the materials that should be used; to the intention and routine of the scribe; to the dimensions of letters, lines, columns, margins, and empty spaces, and to the different forms of paragraphs of poetry and prose.11 Citing Rabbi Ishmael, Maimonides warns the Jewish scribe that, “should you perchance omit or add one single letter, you would thereby destroy all the universe,” and that even one misspelled word

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The poem is shirat haʾazinu (Deuteronomy 32), and the commandment is interpreted to apply to the whole Torah (San. 21b). Maimonides, based on m. Menachot 30a, qualifies this demand by saying that whoever corrects even a single letter may also be considered to have fulfilled the commandment (Code, “Laws concerning Tefillin, Mezuzah and Torah Scroll,” 7:1, trans. p. 95). It is most likely that his model was the Aleppo Codex, as he notes that “the Torah upon which we have relied in these matters is the scroll well known in Egypt containing the twenty-four books … all relied on it, since Ben-Asher corrected it … and checked it many times …” (Maimonides, Code, 8:5, trans. p. 100). We will return to this codex at length in the second part of this paper.


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or misplaced paragraph, subtraction or addition,12 may impede the sanctity of the scroll, and make it “like any regular Pentateuch from which children are taught,”13 that is—unfit for liturgical use. A regular Pentateuch, it should be noted, is typically a codex that deserves a different degree of respect altogether. Maimonides also lists the cases and time span in which the text of a newly transcribed Torah may be checked and corrected (most mistakes do not disqualify it irrevocably, as ink can be erased), and those errors that oblige the discarding of the scroll.14 In a less ‘halaḫic’ vein he remarks that “if he wrote it himself, it is as if he received it at Sinai.”15 The imperative to write the Qurʾān (al-amr bi-kitābat al-maṣāḥif ) is usually based on the saying of the Prophet “do not write anything but the Qurʾān from me,” and on his custom of summoning his literate companions, who would then grab any available surface for writing, while he dictated to them every new revelation.16 Writing the Qurʾān was never defined as a personal obligation, nor was possession of the Qurʾān, though it was considered desirable and prestigious. This attitude is aptly captured in a heading such as “The joy of the owner of the Qurʾān,” (iġtibāṭ ṣāḥib al-Qurʾān) of faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān compilations, or in ḥadīṯ such as: “Only two should be envied: a man whom God has awarded with a copy of the Qurʾān and he abides by it night and day, and a man whom God has awarded with money and he gives it as charity night and day.”17 As for the way the Qurʾān should be written down, ḥadīṯ compilations of the late second/eighth and third/ninth centuries, dedicated to faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, or more generally to matters pertaining to maṣāḥif al-Qurʾān, include a warning against transcribing the basmallāh (always the first words to be written) in a state of ritual impurity.18 They also quote the Prophet’s instruction that the

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This applies also to the addition of Prophetic writing and Hagiographa (Neviʾim u-Ketuvim) to the Pentateuch within the same binding (Maimonides, Code, 7: 15–16; trans. pp. 98f.). Maimonides, Code, 7:11, trans. p. 98. Rav Hai Gaʾon (d. 1038), also relegates defective scrolls to teaching purposes (Teshuvot ha-Geʾonim, no. 432). On copies of the Torah evidently used for the instruction of children in tenth-eleventh century, see Olszowy-Schlanger, “Learning to Read,” 64f. On the early history of the dual forms of the Torah, see Sirat, “Rouleaux,” 416. Maimonides, Code, 7: 11. For an earlier, more concise and less systematic version of these laws, see Sefer Halachot Ketzuvot, pp. 157–160; Seven Treatises, pp. 9–19 [trans.], and 81–87 [in Hebrew]. Maimonides, Code, 7: 1–3. See also Maimonides, The Commandments, pp. 25–26; positive commandment (mitzvat ʿaseh) no. 18. E.g. Ibn Abī Daʾūd, al-Maṣāḥif, p. 148, and in numerous ḥadīṯ collections. Ibn Kathīr, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, p. 61. Ibn Abī Daʾūd, al-Maṣāḥif, vol. 1, pp. 502f.



figure 1

Torah scroll courtesy of machon ott, jerusalem


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book of God be written only with pure things (šayʾ ṭāhir) and without haste.19 With time, the transcription of the Qurʾān came to be regarded an arduous task, which requires meticulous training and heavenly blessing; a devotional practice (ʿibāda) governed by a religious etiquette (ādāb) demanding purity of intention (niyya), ritual purity (ṭahāra), and cleanliness of body and clothes.20 But even greater attention, so it seems, was paid to laying down proper and praiseworthy norms of recitation,21 relating to aspects such as the intonation, timing, and setting of ceremonial recitation, the ritual purity of the reciter, the quality of his performance, and the pronunciation of variant readings (qiraʾāt).22 The canonization of the seven readings, and the elimination of all the other readings took place in the early tenth century.23 Early tradition, and some prominent later Muslim scholars, such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 320/932) and al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1143–1144), attributed the variant readings to human origins, namely to Qurʾān transmitters and readers, who have read the consonantal outline (scripta defectiva; rasm, ḫaṭṭ) of the text, which is almost devoid of diacritics and vocalization marks, in a number of ways. The later tradition, especially that formulated after the eleventh century, claimed that each one of the “master copies” of the Qurʾān authenticated by the caliph ʿUṯmān (see below) represented one of several variant readings acknowledged by the angel Ǧibrīl, who reviewed the text with the Prophet (twice) before his death. According to this view, the variant readings were of divine nature, and explicitly deemed equally legitimate by the Prophet, in his famous saying that the Qurʾān was revealed in 19

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E.g. Abū ʿUbayda al-Baghdādī (d. 204/819), Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, vol. 1, p. 295. The mixing of wine into the ink was explicitly forbidden, and there are discussions about defilement of ink (by a dead mouse, for example; see Sadan, “New Materials”). Gacek, Arabic Manuscript, pp. 235–237; Safwat, Art of the Pen, p. i. Some scholars allow concessions specifically for scribes (and teachers of Qurʾān), so they will not have to interrupt their work to wash again and again (Sadan, “New Materials,” p. 203). On Qurʾān recitation and its study, see Graham, “Orality”; Nelson, Recitation; Schoeler, Oral and Written; Gade, “Recitation,” 367–385; Talmon-Heller, “Recitation.” Abū ʿUbayda, Faḍāʾil, vol. 1, pp. 272–386, vol. 2, pp. 3–16, 105–108. Michael Cook has suggested that the Islamic “strong tradition of oral transmission,” as well as “surrounding the bare text with a supporting apparatus of explanatory scholarship,” were actually strategies for preserving the text and avoiding the establishment of scribal distortions (Cook, Koran, p. 63). Closely correlating, but not identical with the seven readings (qiraʾāt). Ibn al-Muǧāhid (d. 324/936) was the most influential of several scholars who dealt with this issue. See Rezvan, “Qurʾān,” pp. 94–98. Tabbaa stresses the involvement of Ibn al-Muǧāhid’s patron, the caliph al-Muqtadir in the enforcement of his dogma (Tabbaa, Transformation, pp. 42f.).



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the mysterious sabʿat al-aḥruf—seven modes of recitation or pronunciation.24 What concerns us here is the curious notion that the seven variant readings were put to paper already by ʿUṯmān, when he established the textus receptus. As for the establishment of the graphic form of the Qurʾān, Muslim scholars address the history and the legitimacy of the addition of diacritics and vocalization to the bare script (naqṭ al-muṣḥaf wa-šakluhu), the numbering of sūras and verses, the introduction of silver and gold embellishments, the use of thin script, and the preferred size of codices. Small formats are said to have been abhorred by ʿUmar b. al-Ḫaṭṭāb for being in opposition to the concept of taʿẓīm al-maṣāḥif—making the book great, in both senses.25 Concern about the accuracy of the transcription of the sacred text is reflected in an anecdote pertaining to the codex of the Qurʾān commissioned by the Umayyad governor of Egypt ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān (r. 65–86/685–705). According to the storyteller, once it was completed, a prize was offered to anyone who would find a scribal mistake in it. Only one was detected, eventually.26 Extant manuscript collections show that early Qurʾāns were usually copied on parchment codices27 made from goat, sheep, and gazelle hides, sometimes dyed.28 The format of the book was usually vertical, as is common for books produced in the Middle East at that time, and the lines long (rather than divided into columns). The text was inscribed in scripta defectiva, with the sparse and unsystematic use of diacritical dots, in a slender and evenly spread script designated by contemporary paleographs as ḥiǧāzī.29 Ends of verses were indicated by clusters of dots, and beginnings of sūras by empty spaces. 24

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Nasser, Transmission, pp. 5–9. For a concise presentation of the vast Muslim and Western scholarship on the codification of the Qurʾān, see ibid, pp. 8–15; for a detailed presentation and analysis of the 23 categories of variant readings, see ibid, pp. 165–227. Abū ʿUbayda, Faḍāʾil, vol. 2, pp. 228–238. Déroche, Qurʾāns, p. 97. For several short anecdotes on proofreading (ʿarḍ al-maṣāḥif ) in early Islam, see Ibn Abī Daʾūd, Maṣāḥif, pp. 559–563. The format of the codex had widely replaced the scroll by the end of the fourth century, with the triumph of Christianity. Guy Stroumsa suggests that the choice of the codex by Christians, against then-current Jewish and pagan practice, was a daring rejection of respected cultural and cultic traditions, “an announcement of preference of the popular and egalitarian” (Stroumsa, “Early Christianity,” p. 171). For the consequences of the transition to codex on the classification and study of texts, see Gorea, “Volumen, rotulus,” 150. A small number of papyrus copies had also survived, although papyrus is more easily damaged by creasing and wears more quickly. Bloom, “Paper,” p. 396. See also idem, “Paper and Books,” pp. 91–123. Virtually all extant early Qurʾāns were written on new (rather than recycled) parchment, despite its high cost. Déroche, “Manuscripts of the Qurʾān”; idem, Qurʾāns of the Umayyads, pp. 135–137.


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Around the beginning of the eighth century the orthography and layout of the text were reformed, with the gradual addition of long vowels, short vowel marks and diacritics, and the numbering of verses. The script—popularly designated kūfī—became more uniform, regular, complex, and exclusive to the Qurʾān. The form of the book changed to horizontal. Illuminations appear, especially as indicators of beginnings and ends of sūras.30 Francois Déroche claims that those changes demonstrate a dramatic change in the conception of the muṣḥaf, to “that of a book reflecting through its beauty the importance and the perfection of the text … challenging the Christian luxury Bibles by its appearance.” He also surmises that one reason for shifting to the oblong format was the desire to give the Qurʾān a clear visual identity of its own, distinct both from other sacred scriptures and from other Arabic books.31 This idea is also presented by Efim Rezvan in his captivating reconstruction of the history of the Qurʾānic text, alongside another explanation, that links the horizontal arrangement of the texts with the arrangement of the congregation praying in the mosque.32 Yasser Tabba suggests that producers of Qurʾāns in this new and more lavish style also wanted to differentiate their work from that of earlier, “old-school” copyists.33 Some scholars were very much against any additions to the bare script, basing their conservative stand on the maxim “do not mix the book of God with what isn’t in it” (lā taḫliṭū bi-kitāb Allāh mā laysā minhu; or: ǧarridū lQurʾān wa-lā tulabbisū bihi šayʾ) and on a commitment to the ʿUṯmānī rasm, as it were. They may have been motivated also by the fear of losing their position as expert readers and the main bearers of the tradition, if this tradition were to become more accessible to “lay” readers.34 Other scholars found good reasons 30

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A number of scholars have addressed the gradual transformations in the appearance of the muṣḥaf. For a very lucid explanation of this process, accompanied by basic illustrations, see Cook, Koran, pp. 64–72. For detailed studies, which reflect some serious disagreements among scholars, see works by Déroche, Gacek, Rezvan, and Tabbaa. My outline is based mainly on Déroche and Rezvan. Déroche, “Manuscripts of the Qurʾān,” pp. 254–265; idem, Qurʾāns of the Umayyads, pp. 97, 101. Rezvan, “Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān”, p. 81. He associates the return to the vertical format with the fading away, by the end of the tenth century, of the need to stress the “specialness” of Islam (ibid, p. 82). Tabbaa, Transformation, p. 30. Regarding script, Tabbaa treats the first two-and-a-half or even three centuries of Islam as one block, characterized by great uniformity of Qurʾānic writing and “a highly conservative and restrictive attitude towards the transcription of the Qurʾān.” Rezvan, “The Qurʾān,” p. 94.


figure 2

Qurʾān, first half of the third/ninth century ms yah. ar 968, jerusalem, the national library of israel


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figure 3

Qurʾān of the seventh/thirteenth century courtesy of the national library of israel, jerusalem—ms. yah. ar. 915

to permit it, and some scholars offered instructions for correct vocalization (naqṭ wa-šakl), establishing the location and color of the symbols in a manner that clearly marks “human” additions to the divine texts.35 In the Abbasid period, multi-colored notation of vowel marks, the use of ornamented sūra titles, frontispieces and dividers (which single out groups of five or ten verses), and the enumeration of verses became the norm.36 Opinions were divided on the topic of adorning the Qurʾān (taḥliyyat almaṣāḥif ), all the more so with gold and silver. Scholars who opposed it often coupled the prohibition together with that on the adornment of mosques, or contrasted it with the decidedly desirable beautification of recitation. Ibn Ḥanbal ruled that adorning the Qurʾān is reprehensible. Yet, responding to 35

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Ibn Abī Daʾūd, al-Maṣāḥif, pp. 521–541. M. Bar-Asher notes that the graphics of bilingual editions of the Qurʾān, produced from the eleventh century or even earlier, despite some heated opposition to the translation of the Qurʾān, were designed so as to leave no doubt that the Arabic is the authentic version (Bar-Asher, “Muslim Opinions”). Rezvan, “The Qurʾān,” pp. 88 f.



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a report on a ruler who spent a thousand dinars on a copy of the Qurʾān, he said: “Let him, for this is the best way to spend his money.” According to Ibn Taymiyya’s interpretation, Ibn Ḥanbal had recognized that it is preferable that rulers spend money on a sumptuous Qurʾān rather than on “immoral books, such as entertainment and poetry, or Persian or Greek philosophy.”37 Scholars who were outright in favor of illuminations define them as a means of glorification of the muṣḥaf.38 By the middle of the tenth century, paper, which was introduced to the Islamic world some two centuries earlier, by and large replaced parchment for the production of Qurʾāns in the eastern and central Islamic lands (it happened much later in the Maghrib). Flowing, proportioned (mansūb),39 and more compact nasḫī scripts, quicker to write and much easier to read, became prevalent.40 Yasser Tabbaa identifies two phases in this transition, firmly tied to the work and rank of two great calligraphers: Ibn Muqlā (d. 328/940) and Ibn al-Bawwāb (d. 413/1022). Deriving evidence from paleographic analysis of Qurʾānic manuscripts and from a wide variety of literary sources, and attempting a comprehensive cultural history, Tabbaa suggests that a number of factors besides the transition from parchment to paper joined the transformation from the angular (kūfīc) to the more legible and proportioned (nasḫī) script. He points to the wide application of geometric principles to Islamic art and calligraphy, the canonization of the text, and the involvement of the Abbasid caliphate.41 The change in material and script allowed for the production of smaller volumes in less time, gradually making the Qurʾānic codex more legible and more affordable for a larger number of people.42 Delia Cortese notes that our knowledge regarding private ownership and use of Qurʾāns in early Islam is very fragmentary, but there is evidence that demand for it grew rapidly, and with it grew the number of scribes.43 Earlier, as shown in her detailed study

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Ukeles, “The Sensitive Puritan?,” p. 327. Ibn Abī Daʾūd, Maṣāḥif, pp. 542–547. See also Cortese, “Commodification,” pp. 45f. See illustrated explanation in Tabbaa, Transformation, p. 34. Bloom, Arts, pp. 43, 186. See series of illustrations beautifully conveying the evolution in the script and illumination of Qurʾāns between the seventh and eighteenth centuries in Déroche, “Manuscripts.” Tabbaa, “Transformation”. Cf. Stroumsa’s evaluation of Christianity’s innovative adoption of the codex (for practical use rather than for cultic activity), which permitted faster and more convenient circulation (Stroumsa, “Early Christianity,” pp. 168 f.). Cortese, “Commodification,” pp. 41–43. Single volumes written in smaller scripts were


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on the basis of ḥadīṯ collections, there were contrasting voices on charging a fee for copying a muṣḥaf and for proofreading or repairing it.44 Alongside growing demand for small Qurʾāns, in Fatimid Egypt huge Qurʾāns, and later multi-volume Qurʾāns, were produced for sultans or amirs, or commissioned by them as gifts for mosques and foreign royalty. Some codices were exquisitely decorated, written on dyed parchment and illuminated in gold. Golden roundels were often placed in the margins outside the text area or frame, to mark verse-counts and to indicate bowing (rukūʿ) and prostrations (saǧda) during recitation.45 The list of treasures of the Fatimid palaces in Cairo begins with “five copies of the Qurʾān, one being of thirty parts with covers of blue satin and held together by golden clasps with gold locks bearing gold inscriptions, another of ten parts and covered with pistachio-colored brocade and a third of leather with a gold lock and written in the hand of the famous calligrapher Ibn al-Bawwāb.”46 A famous copy known as the “Blue Qurʾān” is one of the earliest surviving Fatimid works of art, probably of Maghribi origin. Written in angular gold script on indigo (royal) blue parchment, it must have comprised seven volumes of ninety leaves.47 The so-called Nurse’s Qurʾān was endowed to the Great Mosque of Qayrawan by Fāṭima, the former nurse of the Zīrid prince al-Muʿizz b. Badīs, in Ramaḍān 410/1020. It was a huge multi-volume copy of approximately 3,500 leaves of parchment, gilded and bound. Only five lines were transcribed on each page, with diacritics and vowel marks.48 Many small-sized Qurʾāns were also produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.49 The text does not always come alone, or in its entirety. Manuscripts of the Qurʾān very often also contain other texts: related to the correct reading of the text, as well as indications of its components (the number of sūras, verses, letters, etc.), the prayer that is recited upon the completion of

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owned by individuals during the early Abbasid period; a few of them can be dated according to notes recording births or deaths in the family of the owner (which means that people did not hesitate to write on the codex!). See also Déroche, “Working Pace”. Cortese, “Commodification,” pp. 41–48. Gacek, Manuscripts, p. 227. Trans. in Broadhurst, History, p. 48. Al-Qaddūmī, Gifts and Rarities, p. 240. Large Qurʾāns were kept in boxes made of wood and covered with leather, often decorated with Qurʾānic quotations; in front of the three outer edges, a continuous strip of leather glued onto the lower board held the manuscript tightly (Bloom, “Paper,” p. 397; Bloom, Arts, p. 186). For detailed information on bookbinding, see Déroche, Islamic Codicology, pp. 253–310. Torah scrolls also varied in size (Sirat, “Rouleaux,” pp. 425–428 430n.40).



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the reading/recitation of the text, other prayers, and divination formulas. Some manuscripts contain only selected parts of the Qurʾān.50 Looking back in the fourteenth century, the historian Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373) lists, in his Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, the innovations in the embellishment of the script (rasm) of the Qurʾān in chronological order. He begins with the addition of diacritical points and vocalization marks and goes up to the addition of cantillation marks (which probably happened between the tenth and the twelfth century) to denote the correct articulation of consonants and vowels, accentuation and pauses, which lend Qurʾānic recitation (taǧwīd) its unique sound.51 Ibn Kaṯīr ends his reconstruction of the debate that accompanied the changing appearance of the Qurʾānic text with a statement of Abū ʿAmar alDānī (d. 445/1053), namely, that finally Muslims had agreed that all the marks mentioned above are permissible on all copies of the Qurʾān, including those most ancient and revered ( fī l-ummahāt wa-ġayrihā).52 The modern scholarly work of al-Wādiḥ fīʿulūm al-Qurʾān precedes the iʿrāb (declention) to the addition of diacritics. The authors explain the gradual transition of the Qurʾānic script by the growing need to ensure its correct reading and understanding and flawless transmission, especially with multitudes of non-Arabs accepting Islam.53 The first biblical codices were probably produced in the eighth century.54 The earliest surviving codices of the Torah were written in the Middle East in the early tenth century. They shared the basic structure of the Arabic codex: similar proportions and formats, quiring and ruling. Jewish and Muslim scribes used the same materials and techniques, such as the employment of the reed rather than the quill as a writing instrument. Hence Malachi Beit-Arie’s observed that in general the similarity between the appearance of the Hebrew codices and non-Hebrew codices produced in their surrounding culture is greater than their similarity to Hebrew manuscripts produced in another geo-cultural region.55 The methods of vocalization and accentuation of the bare Hebrew script (niqqud) were developed by Jewish grammarians simultaneously with the development of the naqṭ by Arab grammarians—between the seventh and the ninth/tenth centuries.56 The system of cantillation marks was developed in 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

For the Mamluk period, see James, Master Scribes, p. 19. Gade, “Recitation,” p. 373; Rezvan, “Quran,” pp. 105 f. Ibn Kathīr, Faḍāʾil, p. 42. al-Bahja and Matu, al-Wādiḥ, pp. 80–87, 102. Sirat, “Rouleaux,” p. 430. Beit-Arie, “Script,” p. 34. On the Hebrew set of signs, known as the “Tiberian” system, see Eldar, “The Art,” pp. 34–37.


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figure 4

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Page of the Aleppo Codex (Keter Aram Tzova) courtesy of the ben-zvi institute, jerusalem



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the eighth or ninth century to record the oral tradition of the correct pronunciation of the Torah, along with a supporting apparatus of explanatory scholarship: thousands of tiny notes in the margins alongside the columns (masorah ketanah), and above and below them (masorah gedolah). The knowledge stored in those tiny notes made some codices into repositories of information for copyists, grammarians, and exegetes.57 Despite the many advantages of the codex—it is cheaper, as the pages are written on both sides; it is possible to leaf through quickly and go from the beginning of a book to its end easily, it is convenient to carry—Jews were reluctant to give up the format of the scroll. It had become the canonical carrier of the Torah in the second century ad approximately when the “square” Hebrew script, known as Ašuri (Assyrian), became firmly associated with the divine revelation (and with the creation of the world). The fact that it postdates by centuries an older Hebrew script (known as early Hebrew, or paleo-Hebrew, or ketav daʿatz). Talmudic scholars not only formulated the demand that the Torah be written only in Assyrian script, they also specified in detail the form of letters. Shlomo Naeh has observed that by doing so they had made all the elements of the text of the Torah—its contents, language, orthography, and graphic form—fixed and sacred.58 Consequently, the text continued to be transcribed on the scrolls without vocalization, cantillation marks, or verse-count, consisting solely of letters with spaces between words. In this form it was thought to be an accurate replica of the Torah given on Sinai,59 and—according to Midrash Devarim Rabba 9:9 (tentatively dated to the ninth century)—copied by Moses, before his death, onto thirteen scrolls. Maimonides mentions this midrash (tradition) at the very beginning of his Code of Law (in Hebrew), and in greater detail in the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishna (in Arabic): “And before his death [Moses] … wrote thirteen books of Torah … and gave each tribe one scroll to follow it and gave the thirteenth scroll to the Levites, as it was said: ‘Take this book of the law and put it by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee’ (Deut. 31:26).”60

57 58

59

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See Dotan, “Masorah”; Sirat, “Rouleaux,” p. 416. Naeh, “The Script.” Naeh concludes that for some of the scholars, Assyrian script, rather than the Hebrew language renders the Torah scroll holy, emphasizing the physical properties of the book as the carrier of its holiness. See also Naveh, “Alphabet, Hebrew.” See Halevi, Book of the Kuzari (mid-twelfth century), where it is argued that the correct pronunciation of the sacred text was transmitted orally, on Mt Sinai (Halevi, Book of Kuzari, vol. 3, pp. 29–31). Trans. by H. Lazarus-Yafeh in her “Taḥrīf,” p. 81. Lazarus-Yafeh explains the use of this relatively obscure midrash as an argument against the Muslim allegation that for centuries the


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Maimonides also concurs that the Torah was given in Assyrian script, and that it must be copied in Assyrian script. In his chapter on laws for writing the Torah mentioned above, he lists twenty additional conditions that underline the special sanctity of a Torah scroll. Five of the items on Maimonides’s list pertain to the use of proper materials: permanent black ink on the flesh-side of the specially processed skin of a kosher animal, entirely either on qelaf or on gevil (two types of skin)—but not on both.61 Three items pertain to the identity and proper intention of those involved in the production of the Torah scroll. A “fit” Jew must prepare the skin specifically for its purpose, and the Jewish scribe must pronounce God’s name with proper intention.62 The rest of the conditions pertain to the proper, accurate, and fully legible transcription: the letters must be Hebrew, clearly copied on incised lines, without any omission or addition, properly spaced and separate from each other; “open” and “closed” chapters63 must be correctly marked, and poetic paragraphs designed differently than paragraphs of prose. As mentioned above, Maimonides also lists scribal “slips”, which do not impede the sanctity of the scroll but result in a less beautiful Torah, such as the incorrect addition of tittles (tagin) or variations in the number of lines in each column. The production of a perfect copy, in line with the Talmudic recommendation to worship “with a beautiful Scroll of the Law” (Shabbat 133b), is most meritorious.64 The Karaites (whose attitude towards the Torah probably deserves a separate paper), have adopted the evolutions that occurred in Qurʾānic manuscripts: they preferred the codex, fully vocalized and punctuated, with numbered verses and decorative devices as separating marks, titles, and space fillers. Rachel Milstein, who attributes these characteristics to the Karaites’ special

61 62

63 64

Jews possessed only one copy of the Torah, and therefore could not have guarded the text against falsification (taḥrīf ). I find it reminiscent of the Muslim claim regarding the preparation and dissemination of multiple master-copies of the Qurʾān by ʿUṯmān (see below). See, Harran, “Bible Scrolls,” on writing-skins and halachik debates concerning their preparation and use. Elsewhere Maimonides writes “Torah scrolls, tefillin, or mezuzot written by a sectarian must be burned. But, if written by a Gentile, an apostate Jew, a traitor, a slave, a woman, or a minor, they are unfit and must be put away” (Code, vol. 1, p. 13, trans. p. 75). See also Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, “Laws of the Fundamentals of the Torah,” 6:8. According to Rav Natrunai Gaon (mid-ninth century), a Gentile may produce the parchment with the symbolic participation of a Jew (Natronai Gaon, Tešuvot, no. 264). See explanation in m. Sefer Torah 10–11, trans. Seven Minor Treatises, p. 11. The Talmudic maxim is, in turn, based on “This is my God and I will adorn him” (Ex. 15:2).



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regard for the Bible and their proximity to the Muslims, also points out similarities (in colors) and differences (in forms) between illuminated codices of the Qurʾān and Torah.65

Comparative Remarks Muslims and Jews have developed similar devotional practices geared toward showing reverence towards their sacred scriptures, as well as common perceptions about the divine origins, not only of the text, but also of its oral and graphic forms. Both attached great importance to precision, while possessing systems of writing that lacked vocalization symbols and allowed for multiple readings and understandings of single words, and even of whole sentences. Therefore, the means of transcription of the sacred text in an accurate and authentic manner were debated and prescribed in detail in both traditions. Finally, Jews and Muslims have adopted different strategies for the simultaneous conservation of what was held to be the ancient and true format of the material representation of the word of God on the one hand, and the improvement of the legibility, accuracy, and standardization of writing on the other hand. Jewish scholars seem to have devoted much more attention to the material components, the manufacture, and the format of the item. The Jewish tradition—which makes a distinction between liturgical reading and study, forbids recitation from memory, and employs the Torah not only for the preservation of the inscribed text, but also as the focal object of public worship—developed two distinct formats of the Pentateuch: scroll and codex. The design of the Torah scroll, considered an accurate replica of the Torah given on Sinai and transcribed by Moses, and used in liturgy that re-enacts the reception of the Torah on Mt Sinai, was kept uniform and minimalistic. It was immune, as it were, to the discovery of new materials (such as paper), new techniques of binding (such as the codex), changing scripts, evolving systems of vocalization, and the development of a rich repertoire of illumination. All those—including indispensable information about the correct spelling and pronunciation of the text—were added onto codices, over and under the lines of the text, and on its margins. Codices, the Aleppo Crown prominent among

65

Milstein, “Hebrew Book Illumination.” See also her discussion of the influence of the illuminations of the Qurʾān on the work of the Jewish scribe and masorite, and wonderful color reproductions of tenth-eleventh century illustrated codices of the Torah, in her “Multicultural Symbolic Language.”


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them, were used by scribes and experts for the authentification and correction of scrolls, but codices of the Torah, old as precise as they may be, were not (except by the Karaites), and are not till this day, used for liturgical purposes. The written form of the Qurʾān, as opposed to its oral performance, does not play a prominent role in Islamic worship: prayer and recitation are performed without the actual object. Moreover, the traditional claim deems oral performance as best suited to the special nature of the Qurʾān, and as most reliable. It is based on the aphorism that the number of scribes is much smaller than the number of Muslims, and the text that is guarded in the hearts of a multitude of believers is bound to be more accurate and reliable than the text written on paper by the hands of the few.66 As eloquently observed by William Graham, “the role of the written scriptural text has always been secondary to the dominant tradition of oral transmission and aural presence of the recited text.”67 I would like to suggest that this is the reason for the lesser attention Muslim scholars paid to “freezing” the supposedly authentic format, and (albeit after debates and disagreements) for allowing massive embellishment of the bare rasm and a variety of scripts and forms. They worried primarily about the authenticity and accuracy of the text. Theologically, they have coped with the variant readings by narrowing down the dozens of variant traditions of reading to seven, and pronouncing all of them as canonical, moreover dating back to the Prophet. Both traditions regard a few ancient copies of their scriptures as particularly awe inspiring and holy, according them—on the scholarly level, the role of “master copy,” and on the popular level, the veneration of a sacred relic. I will turn to this phenomenon now.

Special Copies: Keter Aram Tzova (the Aleppo Codex) and Muṣḥaf ʿUṯmān A codex of the Torah that drew excessive admiration is best known as Keter Aram Tzova (the Aleppan Crown in Hebrew; al-Tāǧ, the Crown, in Arabic), or the Aleppo codex. This copy was considered to be the most authoritative rendering of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, complete with instructions for reading and chanting, written in dark brown ink on 500 parchment leaves,

66 67

Weiss, “al-Muṣḥaf.” Graham, “Orality,” p. 584.



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three columns to a page, 28 lines to a column. It was transcribed in early tenthcentury Tiberias by Shlomo ben Buyaʾa “the swift scribe,” under the supervision of Aharon ben Asher, who probably added the masorah (see above). Ben-Asher was known to have been the greatest expert among Palestinian scribes, and his work was considered almost flawless.68 While the colophon of the Keter is missing, the codex carries four dedications that reveal that it had gained its special status early on. The first dedication spells out the names of the scribe and of the masorite who added vocalization notes, and the name of the person who dedicated the codex to the Karaites of Jerusalem in the mid-eleventh century (Israel son of Simḥah of Basra), as well as the names of two communal leaders who were nominated as its guardians. Apparently, they were in charge of supervising the non-believer (raǧul lā īmān bihi/fīhi), probably a non-Karaite, who may wish to read from the codex, or look through it. An explicit prohibition on entrusting the book to such a man is included in the dedication. The guardians were also expected to take the book out on three festival days a year, and show it to the public in the holy city of Jerusalem.69 While two of the dedications prohibit the sale of the book “for ever and ever,” the third, written in Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew, reports the purchase of the codex. There were, however, special circumstances for this transaction. Looted by the Crusaders during the sack of Jerusalem in 1099, it was most probably ransomed by the Jews of Fustat and Ascalon, who had raised money to “redeem the Scrolls of the Torah and to ransom the people of God who are in captivity” (in that order!).70 A letter, written in 1100, mentions the arrival of 230 Torah codices, eight Torah scrolls, and a hundred other volumes in Ascalon.71 The codex that came to be known as “the Aleppan” arrived in Cairo, and was dedicated to the Rabbanite synagogue of Fustat. It appears as the Tāǧ in a list of books written in 1186–1187 and found in that synagogue.72 Maimonides mentions that he had consulted a most reliable copy of the Bible while working on his Mishneh Torah (The Code of Law)—cited above for the laws pertaining to the writing of the Torah. As he explicitly refers to

68 69 70

71 72

For a detailed physical description of the Codex, see Glatzer, “The Aleppo Codex.” Ben-Shammai, “Notes.” For discussion of the actual authorship of the masorah, see Tawil and Schneider, Crown, pp. 25–27; whether Rabbanite or Karaite, ibid, pp. 33–37. Redemption of captives is paired with the writing of a Torah scroll in a responsum by Yitzhak b. Yaakov al-Fasi (1013–1103) as two praiseworthy acts of piety that justify even the sale of a heqdesh (endowment) that was dedicated to a synagogue (Responsa of the Rif, no. 6 [in Hebrew]). Goitein, “Contemporary Letters.” Ben-Shammai, “Notes,” pp. 146 f.


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map i

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Wanderings of the Aleppo Codex prepared by patrice kamisky, department of geography, ben-gurion university of the negev

the hand of Ben-Asher, that copy must have been the Keter, and it probably remained in his library after his death,73 until his great-great-great-grandson David ben Joshua took it with him when he moved to Aleppo in 1375. There is no extant mention of it, however, until 1479, when a visiting scholar, Saʿadya ben David of Aden, reported having seen “the codex which the giant of blessed memory—Maimonides—used.”74 Arguably, it was kept in a special box, hidden from the eye, in the “Cave of Elijah” in the main synagogue of Aleppo for almost 600 consecutive years (1479–1957).75 It seems that Aleppan Jews believed that the Keter was even holier than Torah scrolls (despite obviously lacking the elements that produce the special sanctity of the cultic Torah, as listed by Maimonides).76 Pregnant women and 73 74 75 76

On the debate whether the Aleppo Crown was indeed the text referred to by Maimonides, see Tawil and Schneider, Crown, pp. 27–33. Tawil and Schneider, Crown, p. 51. The tribulations of the Keter after 1957 are told as a gripping detective tale in the popular rending of the story by Friedman, The Aleppo Codex. On the veneration of ancient scrolls of the Torah see Kraemer, “Jewish Cult,” p. 592.



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other persons in need implored by it for God’s mercy, and solemn oaths were taken on the box containing it. At some point, local tradition attributed the production of the Crown all the way back to Ezra the Scribe, who had returned from the Babylonian Exile in the mid-fifth century bc (as recorded in Neḥemiah, ch. 8),77 to reintroduce the Torah in Jerusalem. Ezra institutionalized its study, important aspects of its weekly liturgy, and—according to one opinion—also its transcription in Assyrian script (see above). Local tradition identifies his grave in Tedef, near Aleppo.78 According to Rabbinic literature, the master copy (textus receptus) established by Ezra was, in its turn, based upon three ancient and reliable copies of the Torah that had survived the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. Interestingly, it is claimed that these copies were written in scripta plena, contrary to the later convention of refraining from the addition of vocalization and cantillation marks on the Torah scroll.79 The authoritative “master copy” of the Qurʾān is known to have been prepared at the command of the third caliph, ʿUṯmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23–35/644–656), by a committee of the Prophet’s disciples and tribesmen, headed by his erstwhile scribe, Zayd b. Ṯābit.80 Most early Muslim authorities who described the project agree that ʿUṯmān prepared four copies of this final version of the Qurʾān, kept one in Medina, and dispatched the other three to Kufa, Basra, and Damascus. Those authoritative copies came to be known also as maṣāḥif alamṣār, al-aʾimma, or al-ummahāt (the codices of the garrison towns, the imams or ‘the mothers’). The eleventh-century expert Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī records also minority opinions claiming that there were six, seven, eight, or nine (rather than four) copies, and that Mecca, al-Yaman, and Baḥrayn had also received a copy, but he asserts that four is the correct number.81 Muslim tradition regarding the codification of the Qurʾān disagrees as to whether the copies sent by ʿUṯmān to the amṣār were identical, or deliberately different (that is, preserving the variant versions of qirāʾāt). The later tradition, especially that formulated after the eleventh century, opted for “deliberately different” and of divine nature.82

77 78 79 80 81 82

Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, pp. 130 f. Tawil and Schneider, Crown, p. 63; Meri, Cult, p. 24. A competing tradition points to a tomb in Basra (ibid, pp. 229–237). Nafha, “The script,” pp. 64 f. For a detailed treatment of this tradition, see Motzki, “Collection”; Burton, “Collection”. al-Dānī, Muqniʿ, pp. 123 f. See above. Al-Dānī presents all the variant spellings (especially concerning the use of vowels: maḥḏūfa vs. muṯbata) in the text, letter by letter, and then explains the reason for the discrepancies in orthography (rasm) in Muqniʿ, pp. 293–295.


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Pre-ʿUṯmānic codices (“maṣāḥif al-ṣaḥāba,” in the language of the Muslim sources)83 were supposedly shredded or burnt, despite some bitter resentment,84 either immediately, or approximately seventy years later, by the Umayyad governor al-Haǧǧāǧ b. Yūsuf (d. 95/714). Al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ is known to have destroyed those of ʿAlī (d. 40/661), Ubayy b. Kaʿb (d. 21/642), ʿĀʾiša (d. 58/678), and Abū Mūsā al-Ašʿarī (d. c. 42/662). Marwān b. Ḥakam is said to have burnt the ṣuḥuf of Abū Bakr. This was done in order to remove variant copies from circulation and assure the standardization of the sacred text.85 Efim Rezvan, who elaborates upon the great project of the standardization of the Qurʾān, surmises, in the language of academic scholarship, that “the widespread disappearance of early copies” actually took place (to the dismay of codicologists and historians of early Islam!) somewhat later, at the turn of the eighth-ninth centuries. Variant copies were then removed from active circulation and either deposited in special repositories in mosques, or buried.86 Rezvan suggests that Qurʾāns created at that time “with a minimal number of variant readings were preserved by the community for many centuries.”87 Some of these codices, notably more than four (see map ii), became popularly known as ʿUṯmānic Qurʾāns and drew special veneration, based both on their alleged antiquity and authenticity, and on their relic-like “persona”. Even though ʿUṯmān’s personal copy, known to have been stained by his blood, was declared lost by Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796) in the second half of the second/eighth century,88 it was “found” time and again in centuries to come, in various places. According to the tenth-century historian al-Ṭabarī, when the assassins who had come for ʿUṯmān in 35/656 set fire to his front door, he prepared himself to die by taking up the Qurʾān and reciting appropriate verses. 83

84 85 86 87 88

Various ḥadīṯ traditions list the variation between Muṣḥaf ʿUṯmān and the earlier versions (iḫtilāf maṣāḥif al-saḥāba). There were eleven disagreements with the Qurʾān that the people of Medina held at the time, for example (Ibn Abī Daʾūd, al-Maṣāḥif, vol. 1, pp. 245– 252, vol. 2, pp. 283–354). Ibn Masʿūd supposedly was flogged for having refused to give up his copy; cf. Djaït, La Grande Discourse, p. 135. Leehmuis, “Codices of the Qurʾān.” On the role of political authorities in the creation of a unified redact of the Qurʾān, see Rezvan, “The Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān,” pp. 94–96. Rezvan, book review. On the Islamic and Jewish methods of disposal of sacred scriptures that are removed from use, see Sadan, “Geniza.” Rezvan, book review. Déroche, Qurʾāns of the Umayyads, p. 3. According to Samhūdī the muṣḥaf was kept by ʿUṯmān’s descendants in al-Madīna, until the city was raided by the army of al-Manṣūr in 145/762, or in 169/785–786, and then taken to Baghdad. There is a report about al-Muʿtaṣim (r. 833–842) renewing its cover (Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, vol. 1, pp. 668–670).



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One of the three men who struck him kicked the sacred book with his foot and ʿUṯmān’s blood flowed over it. Al-Balāḏūrī (d. 279/892) knew which verse was affected—appropriately it was verse 2: 137, “but if they turn away, then they are clearly in schism. God will suffice for you against them ( fa-sa-yakfīkuhum Allāh).”89 In theory, a muṣḥaf stained with blood—a contaminating substance— should have been disposed of. Al-Šāṭibī (d. 790/1388), however, argues that if the Qurʾān is one of the ‘master copies’ [ummahāt, literally, mothers] which is prized by all, and is considered authoritative and is used for deciding on the correctness of other copies … the source of impurity should be removed as completely as possible, and it is no defect if a mark remains. For did not the Companions of the Prophet … leave the tome of the Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān … as it was, with the signs of [ʿUṯmān’s] blood and did not wash it with water?90 Indeed, in practice the bloodstained ʿUṯmānī Qurʾān was sanctified beyond any “clean” copy of the Qurʾān, and venerated to such an extent that it “multiplied”: Cordoba, Marrakesh, Tlemcen, Fez, Damascus, Basra, Tashkent, Katta Langar (south of Samarkand), Cairo, Hims, and Istanbul are all said to have housed, at least temporarily, such a copy of the Qurʾān, or parts of it. I will sketch here the telling stories of a few of these codices, beginning with that of Damascus. According to the twelfth-century historian Ibn al-Qalānisī, an ʿUṯmānī codex was brought to Damascus from Tiberias by the atābeg Ẓāhir al-Dīn Ṭuġtakīn (d. 522/1128), the founder of the Būrid dynasty, in 500/1107.91 According to the later historian Ibn al-Dawādarī, the Damascene copy was actually transferred from Maʿarrat al-Nuʿman when the city was conquered by the Crusaders in 492/1098,92 in order to keep it safe from the Franks. Neither this nor any other source I have found so far, explains how this important codex ever reached Tiberias or Maʿarrat al-Nuʿman,93 and its earlier history remains shrouded in mystery. 89

90 91 92 93

Rezvan, “The Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān,” p. 30 n. 2. See Shoshan, Poetics, pp. 190f. Another muṣḥaf stained by the blood of a murdered caliph was attributed to al-Walid ii (d. 744); see Borrut, “La ‘memoria’ Omeyyade,” p. 46. Trans. in Sadan, “New Materials,” pp. 205 f. Sibṭ b. al-Ǧawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān, vol. 8, p. 43. On the Būrids, see Talmon-Heller, “Būrids.” Ibn al-Dawādarī, Kanz al-Ḍurar, vol. 6, p. 452. Descriptions of Tiberias, by al-Masʿūdī (314/926) and by al-Muqaddasī (c. 364/975) do not mention it, although al-Masʿūdī does mention another unusual book a Tiberian Muslim scholar had shown him (Shboul, Al-Masʿudi, p. 10).


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map ii

Alleged locations of ʿUṯmānī Qurʾāns

In Damascus, the muṣḥaf was deposited in a large wooden chest in the great Umayyad Mosque, next to the central miḥrāb, and attracted public veneration. The historian Sibṭ b. al-Ǧawzī (d. 654/1257) mentions a visit of the rulers of Mosul and Damascus to the Umayyad Mosque in 507/1113–1114, for the purpose of prayer, and for the blessing drawn from looking at the codex (al-tabarruk binaẓr al-muṣḥaf ).94 Ibn Ǧubayr, who visited Damascus in 580/1184, witnessed people crowding around it, touching and kissing it, as it was taken out of its case once a day. Sibṭ b. al-Ǧawzī describes contemplation in front of the muṣḥaf a couple of decades later; Ibn Taymiyya (d. 727/1327) addresses a question regarding supplication by it (al-duʿāʾ ʿinda l-muṣḥaf al-ʿUṯmānī), and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 770/1368–1369) mentions that Damascenes swore oaths ( yuḥlifu) on this particular muṣḥaf.95 The muṣḥaf was taken out of the mosque on special occasions. In 543/1148, during the Second Crusade siege of Damascus, it was brought in a procession to the mosque’s courtyard, to enhance the efficacy of a special mass prayer that was held there. Men, women, and children gathered around it bareheaded,

94 95

Sibṭ b. al-Ǧawzī, Mirʾāt, vol. 8, p. 43. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Travels, vol. 1, p. 105.



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and raised their supplications to God.96 The attack was averted and the baraka (blessings) of the muṣḥaf was confirmed. In 680/1282, the ʿUṯmānic codex and other venerable copies of the Qurʾān were once again invoked in several Syrian cities, this time in order to ward off a Mongol invasion. The holy books were held above the people’s heads, and surrounded by preachers, Qurʾān reciters, and muezzins. The ʿUṯmāni codex was taken out yet again in 711/1312, when the people of Damascus marched in procession to protest against the imposition of oppressive taxes by the local governor. Two other relics—a sandal of the Prophet and the caliphal standards—accompanied it.97 Ibn Haǧar mentions that the crowd, threatened by the governor, began to retreat, when the person who carried the muṣḥaf tripped and dropped it. The crowd, obviously enraged and agitated, turned back to pelt the officials with stones.98 The sanctity of the Damascene muṣḥaf seems to have increased with time, hand in hand with the evolution of the narrative telling its history. According to Jean-Michel Mouton, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, if not earlier, the Damascene muṣḥaf ceased to be known as one of the maṣāḥif alamṣār (the copies sent out by the caliph ʿUṯmān to the early Muslim centers) and came to be known as an ʿUṯmānī autograph. In the early Ottoman period, the claim that the copy was the one ʿUṯmān had read while attacked and murdered, appeared.99 Mehmed Ali Pasha, the governor of Egypt, transferred this allegedly bloodstained copy from Damascus to Istanbul in 1226/1811. Finally, it acquired a new kind of reputation, as an object on display in The Pavilion of Sacred Relics of the Topkapi Museum.100 A few unusually large pages of another so-called ʿUṯmānī codex, also said to carry bloodstains of the murdered caliph, were held in the great mosque of Cordoba, and routinely taken out and read from the miḥrāb. This ritual is mentioned by the geographer al-Idrīsī, writing in 549/1154: To the left of the miḥrāb is a room … in this store there is a copy of the Qurʾān which requires two men to lift it because of its weight. In it are four leaves from the Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān b. ʿAffān, the one which he wrote

96 97 98 99 100

Meri, Cult, p. 115; Mouton, “Reliques.” Meri, Cult, pp. 114–116; Mouton, “Reliques,” p. 251 n. 25; al-Ibn al-Qalānisī, Ḏayl, p. 298. Ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-Kāmina, vol. 3, p. 352. I thank Or Amir for this reference. See discussion in Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety, pp. 56 f. Muhanna, “King’s New Clothes,” p. 207. It seems difficult to determine whether such an item is an artifact or a sacred relic, apparently, not only for the academic observer. I have heard from an eyewitness that for some time visitors were requested to dress properly upon entering the pavilion, but the notice was removed.


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with his own hand on which there are drops of his blood. This Qurʾān is taken out every morning by two men entrusted with the task from among the employees of the mosque (qawmat al-masǧid). A third man precedes them with a candle. The Qurʾān has a cover of splendid workmanship decorated (manqūš) with the most unusual, fine and amazing decoration. In the place of prayer there is a stand upon which it is placed and the imām then undertakes to read half a ḥizb from it. Then it is returned to its place. In 552/1157, three years after al-Idrīsī’s account was written, the pages were carried away by the Almohads and taken to Marrakesh.101 In Egypt, a Qurʾān said to have been transcribed by ʿUṯmān b. Affān, “enclosed in a case of red satin embroidered with gold, over which was a leather cover lined with striped silk, and a stand for it, encrusted with carved ivory and ebony with a silver latch and a silver lock,” was supposedly prepared as a present for the Ilḫanid Baraka Ḫān, by the Mamluk sultan Baybars (who became his brother-in-law). It was delivered along with other pricy extravagant gifts, all given away “in the interest of Islam.”102 In 843/1440, another copy, described as “the noble Kūfī Qurʾān written in the hand of the Imam ʿUṯmān b. ʿAffān,” was sent from the Mamluk sultan Ǧaqmaq to the Ottoman sultan Murad ii, along with loads of luxury goods. Elias Muhanna notes that the symbolic meaning and intent of such a gift could not have been lost on the Ottomans. On the one hand, it stressed the common link of both Mamluks and Ottomans to ʿUṯmān and to the sunna (perhaps bonding them against their Šīʿī adversaries). On the other hand, it announced the Mamluk claim to custody over Islamic heritage, hence to political legitimacy.103 A third ʿUṯmānī manuscript was kept in Cairo in the Madrasa al-Fāḍiliyya since the Ayyubid period. It was moved around several times, arriving finally at al-Mašhad al-Ḥusaynī in 1305/1887–1888. Interestingly, I have not found mention of its employment in processions, in contrast to several cases of the parading of the Damascene muṣḥaf, mentioned above. Its absence from ceremonial contexts, if one may argue e silencio, is all the more striking in anecdotes about Jews and Christians displaying their sacred books on the

101

102 103

Soucek, “Material Culture,” p. 302. Several authors dealt with this tradition extensively: Bennison, “Almohads”; Pascal Buresi, “Une relique almohade”; idem, “D’une Péninsule à l’ autre”; Zadeh, “From Drops of Blood.” I thank Maribel Fierro for these references. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir, Baybars, pp. 189 f. Muhanna, “King’s New Clothes,” p. 199.



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streets of Cairo: once to demonstrate joy, another time, to demonstrate concern and raise supplications.104 The fascinating journey of a likewise allegedly ʿUṯmānī codex—known as manuscript e 20 from St Petersburg—probably from Syria (not to say alMadīna) to a Sufi lodge of the ʿIšqiyya brotherhood in mountainous Uzbekistan in the fifteenth century, was tracked by Efim Rezvan. Combining the methodologies of codicology, anthropology, and oral history Rezvan made a quest for the full copy and the full story. The lodge that housed the muṣḥaf until its confiscation by a zealous Soviet official in the early 1980s was established in a place known as Katta Langar by a member of the ʿIšqiyya, who carried with him the order’s relics: an ʿUṯmānī Qurʾān and a ḫirqa (mantle) of the Prophet.105 Rezvan points out the role Sufis played in the preservation of ancient manuscripts of the Qurʾān, which, in turn, conferred on the brotherhoods that possessed them an aura of authority and antiquity.106 Scientific enquiry has shown that the Katta Langar codex is indeed ancient, but not ancient enough to reach back to the 650s. It was written by the hand of two copyists in a style commonly designated as “late ḥiǧāzī” i.e. an early Abbasid script, with illuminated red and green dividers between sūras, in the final quarter of the eighth century.107

Comparative Remarks At this stage, having looked at the venues by which certain copies of the Torah and Qurʾān, such as the Aleppo Codex and Muṣḥaf (s) of ʿUṯmān were venerated and employed, and at the narratives that evolved about them, I would like to return to an observation made by S.D. Goitein. Referring to the hallowed status accorded to some copies of the Torah, Goitein suggested that it was based on a claim to antiquity and authority, tied in with the “touch” of a figure of great prominence.108 In our case, the caliph ʿUṯmān serves this purpose in the Muslim tradition; the great sage Maimonides and at some point also Ezra the Scribe, in the Jewish tradition. Typically, sacred genealogies tend

104 105

106 107 108

Frenkel, “Conversion stories.” Members of the ʿIšqiyya showed the stain of ʿUṯmān’s blood exactly on the words “fa-sayakfīkuhum Allāh”—God will suffice for. Those were the very words covered by ʿUṯmān’s blood according to al-Balāḏūrī, as mentioned above (Rezvan, “The Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān,” p. 30 n. 2). Rezvan, “Yet another ʿUṯmāni Qurʾān,” pp. 49–58. Revan, Qurʾān of ʿUṯmān, pp. 67, 69. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, p. 24.


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to “improve” with time: hence Ezra the Scribe and the blood of the martyred ʿUṯmān were added to older, humbler narratives. The resulting heightened sanctity called for visitation, kissing, vowing, special safekeeping, measured and controlled exposure to the public eye, invocation at times of stress, local pride, and translation from place to place by those in power, or by cautious believers. Strikingly, popular adoration converges with scholarly appreciation in the cases of the Aleppo Crown and the ʿUṯmānī Codex: both were considered as master copies, indispensable repositories of the correct transcription of the sacred text, and at the very same time as relics that disseminate baraka. Local veneration versus general recognition seem to differentiate between the case of the Aleppo Crown, which was very much tied to a specific place and community, and the Muṣḥaf (s) ʿUṯmān, recognized and admired in multiple locations, if not all over the medieval Middle East. At this point, we still need to assess the relevance of the case of these special copies for understanding the larger picture of Jewish and Muslim attitudes towards “regular” copies, that is—towards the material object carrying sacred scriptures.

Final Observations I have tried to show that Jews and Muslims had adopted different strategies to cope with conflicting needs. On the one hand was the urge to preserve as conservatively as possible the written representation of the word of God in what was considered to be its authentic form. On the other hand, opportunities opened by the appearance of new and better means of writing, and new methods of annotation that simplify and standardize reading served the need to accommodate to changing historical circumstances that presented new challenges.109 Jews responded by preserving the ancient form and design of the scroll almost intact, and allowing additions and annotation only on the format of the codex. One Torah scroll had to be exactly like the other; every iota of what was written in it was meticulously prescribed. Intended for liturgical use, most importantly, for the public reading of the weekly portion in a ceremony that reenacts the reception of the Torah on Mt Sinai,110 it had to be produced according to a strict set of directives. Some diversions from the formula may be corrected, but some prohibit the sanctification of the Torah

109 110

I am indebted to Raquel Ukeles for helping me articulate this important point. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, p. 24; Langer, “Study of Scripture.”



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scroll, disqualify it from ritual use, and relegate it to the status of a codex. Torah codices that serve for study and for the safekeeping of vital data about the text, are produced differently, and demand a different degree of respect and reverential treatment. Even the ancient, flawlessly copied, special codex known as the Aleppan, or Keter Aram Tzova, allegedly handled and transmitted to later generations by great figures such as Ezra the scribe and Maimonides, could not be elevated to the status of a Torah scroll and replace it in public liturgy. The Muslim tradition—despite its great veneration for the “master copy” known as Muṣḥaf ʿUṯmān, and even with the gradual emergence of a unified standard text—allowed for great variation in the design of Qurʾāns. Following a period of debate and disagreement, medieval Muslim scribes were allowed to produce miniature copies and huge multi-volume copies, plain copies and richly decorated copies, utilizing a wide variety of scripts, colors, and bindings. From the tenth century at the latest, the addition of vowels, vocalization and punctuation marks, numbered verses and decorative separation marks, titles and space fillers was widely accepted and spread out geographically. Perhaps beyond the design and veneration of the material objects: it may said that Jews and Muslims sanctify their holy scriptures and accord them a status above and beyond anything else in ways that are basically different. There is no Jewish parallel to the Muslim concept of iʿǧāz al-Qurʾān, which reflects the great admiration for the oral, memorized, and vocalized Arabic text. There is no Muslim parallel to the Jewish ritual process of sanctifying the scroll by the work of the scribe, making it the focal object of communal worship and according it the power to defile the hands, yet remain immune to all sources of impurity.

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Ralph Flores, Buddhist Scriptures as Literature, by Will Buckingham [PDF]

Searching the Scriptures study

Searching the Scriptures study

% Holy, Holy, Holy - Willow Creek Association

Are the Scriptures Reliable?

World Conquerors Church Scriptures

Searching the Scriptures study

Scriptures for - GreaterAs1