About The Manuscript
The palimpsest codex shows two layers of script. Both scripts are of the Hijazi type: firstly, a dark brown script is part of surah 20:1–10 (surah Taahaa or al-kamiyl). Secondly, under the dark brown script, traces of a light brown script are recognizable. This latter original script was washed off from the parchment so that it might be used again. The chess board-like pattern of the substrate is an artifact of the scanning procedure.
The manuscript is not complete. About 80 folios are known to exist: 36 in Yemen’s Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt (House of Manuscripts), 4 in private collections (after being auctioned abroad), and 40 in the Eastern Library of the Grand Mosque in Sana’a. Many of the folios in the House of Manuscripts are physically incomplete (perhaps due to damage), whereas those in private possession or held by the Eastern Library are all complete. These 80 folios comprise roughly half of the Qur'an.
The lower text of the folios in the Eastern Library has not been studied yet. However, the folios in the House of Manuscripts and those auctioned abroad have been studied. The German scholar Elisabeth Puin (of Saarland University), whose husband was the local director of the restoration project until 1985, has transcribed the lower text of six folios (and one side of another folio) in four successive publications. In 2010 Behnam Sadeghi (Professor of Islamic Studies at Stanford University) published, an extensive study of the four folios auctioned abroad, and analyzed their variants using textual critical methods. In March 2012, Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi (of Harvard University) published a long essay containing a complete edition of the lower text of the folios in the House of Manuscripts and those auctioned abroad, along with an analysis.
Read more about this topic: Sana'a Manuscripts
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