Early scripts, copies of Koran:
Different scripts of the early Koran:
Here are some of the old scripts, surely the oldest of the following examples are the nearest though by no means identical, to the original Uthman Koran, of which there are no authenticated copies.
Sanaa Koran (thought to be the oldest known copy of Koran), with hardly any dots above and below letters, and no vowel markings what so ever.
In the Sanaa Koran there are differences to the current Korans, examples of the diffrences:
a. 19:62 in present copies of Koran is ”they will hear” in Sanaa “ he hears” ie in present Koran is pleural, in Sanaa Koran is singular
b. 34:49 in present Koran “say” in Sanaa “said” ie in present Koran in present tense, in Sanaa Koran in past tense.
Example of a page is here shown:
This next is an example of what is thought to be one of the earliest styles of Quran copying. Dated to the first Islamic century, this manuscript is written in the "ma‘ili" or "slanting" script. This particular example has no vowel markers but does include dots below and above letters to distinguish them from one another. Located in the Tareq Rajab Museum in Kuwait.
Below example is in “maili” script with dots above and below letters but no vowel markings.
http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/ ... _1dAH.jpeg
These two manuscripts (the two below) are written in the Kufic script called "al-mishaq al-mujud" and are dated to the second Islamic century. Both of these are on parchment. The writing is in black ink with red used for short vowels. The fatha is indicated by a superscript dot to the right of the letter, and two perpendicular dots to indicate fatha tanwin. A dot under the letter indicates kasrah with two dots for kasrah tanwin. The damma is indicated by one or two dots to the left of the letter. Located in the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.
The Kufic script in the examples below contains an early and different vowel marking system to the Korans of later dates.
http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/ ... _2dAH.jpeg
http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/ ... _2dAH.jpeg
These two manuscripts exhibit the Kufic script written on vellum. They are dated to the 3rd Islamic century and thought to have been produced in North Africa. Note the coloured dots in the first manuscript to distinguish the letters. The second example shows an elaborate example of the marking between surahs, here done in gold. Both are located in the Tareq Rajab Museum in Kuwait.
http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/ ... _3dAH.jpeg
http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/ ... um_3dAH.jp
This copy of the Quran is on paper, sized 29x25 cm. It is written in a brown and red Andalusian script. Note the careful attention to recitation marks, vowelling, verse divisions, and surah divisions. Located in the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Medina, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The dialectal and vowel symbols are nearer to present day ones.
http://faculty.washington.edu/wheelerb/ ... 12dAH.jpeg
Other known famous scripts are:
The Higazi and Maghrabi scripts.
Sanaa Koran:
Sanaa Koran: Discovered in 20th century in Sanaa Great Mosque, Yemen, during some renovations
Gerd-R. Puin, who have studied some available microfilms of the Sanaa Koran reported the following differences between the Koran in the hands of Muslims now when compared with the Sanaa Koran, some of these differences are:
1. The letter “Alif” is missing from many words.
2. No presence of the symbol “Hamzah”, being replaced by an “Alif”.
3. Some examples of changing the words:
a. 19:62 in present copies of Koran is ”they will hear” in Sanaa “ he hears” ie in present Koran is pleural, in Sanaa Koran is singular
b. 34:49 in present Koran “say” in Sanaa “said” ie in present Koran in present tense, in Sanaa Koran in past tense.
4. Variations in counting the verses.
5. Variatians in the endings of some Suras, example where Sura 26 ends and Sura 27 begins and there are other examples of such variations.
Now: What if the Sanaa Koran shows the verses 53:19-20 “ consider al-Lat and al-Uzza and the third one, Manat”
are followed, as used to be in the past but removed, with this verse as 53:21 “ These are sublime swans whose intercession may be sought”.
Question: Will the heavenly copy have these Satanic verse or not?
All the points above shows:
The Koran has changed over the years.
Following is Yemeni Koran Fragments,
as they were found in 1972.
Photograph by Ursula Dreibholz
Following is A page from perhaps the world's
oldest extant Koran, from before
750 A.D. Ultraviolet light reveals
even earlier Koranic writing
underneath. Photograph by
Gerd-R. Puin.
Following is Example of a page of Sanaa Koran is shown here:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Gerd Puin was the head of a restoration project commisioned by the Yemeni government who spend a significant amount of time examining the ancient Qu'ranic manuscripts discovered in Yemen in 1972. His examination revealed unconventional verse orderings, textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. The scripture were written in the rare and early Hijazi Arabic script matching the pieces of the earliest Korans known to exist, they were also versions very clearly written over even earlier, faded versions. What the Yemeni Qu'rans indicated was an evolving text rather than a revelation in its entirety to a mythical Muhammad in the 7th century.
More than 15,000 sheets of the Yemeni Korans have painstakingly been cleaned, treated, sorted, and photographed.
Gerd Puin states "My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one wants. The Qur’an claims for itself that it is ‘mubeen,’ or clear, but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur’anic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Qur’an is not comprehensible, if it can’t even be understood in Arabic, then it’s not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid. Since the Qur’an claims repeatedly to be clear but is not—there is an obvious and serious contradiction. Something else must be going on.”