Qur'ans of the Umayyads: A first Overview.

AuthorSmall, Keith
PositionBook review

Qur'ans of the Umayyads: A first Overview. By Francois Deroche. Leiden studies in islam and society, vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xiii + 155, illus. $71, [pounds sterling]55 (paper).

Fragmentary Quran manuscripts are among the earliest surviving Islamic artefacts and as such are a particularly important source for the history of early Islam. This welcome book sets Umayyad Quran manuscript studies on a firm footing both in their own right and in the historical setting of late antique scribal practice, which demonstrates a sophisticated trajectory of artistic and technical development accomplished in a relatively brief span of time. Though small in size, the book achieves a disproportionate effect because of the breadth and depth of scholarship represented.

As the senior Quran manuscript scholar in the field, Francois Deroche's contributions are read widely and carefully scrutinized; many of his books have become the basic texts that have set the parameters for orthographic, paleographic, and codicological examination of Quran manuscripts from Islam's first four centuries. This latest contribution is a focused study of an area that has been neglected in large part because of the difficulty of differentiating between the Quranic scripts in the decades of Islam's first 150 years, which span the beginning of the Quran's manuscript tradition through to its main codicological and artistic parameters established in the early Abbasid era. Deroche's qualifications should not be underestimated. He has visited every major and many minor repository of Quran manuscripts, including many private collections, and he has personally handled more early Qurans--along with a significant sampling of Umayyad parchment folios--than perhaps any other scholar. For this book, he draws on many years of study of Quran manuscripts in Western and Turkish collections as well as the examination of a little-known collection of manuscripts in Kairouan.

Qur'ans of the Umayyads opens with a brief overview (pp. 1-16) of the academic study of the earliest Quran manuscripts in Europe from the eighteenth century until today. This is followed by a summary of the current state of knowledge as to the chronological relationship of these manuscripts to Muhammad and the early caliphs. Deroche surveys the main arguments for their dating and for distinguishing their script styles, and provides a strong defense of his use of paleography as a major tool for dating manuscripts against his most significant critic, Sheila Blair. The...

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