in Arianna D’Ottone Rambach (ed.), Palaeography Between East and West. Proceedings of the seminars on arabic palaeography at Sapienza University of Rome. Supplemento No 1 alla rivisita degli studi orientali nuova serie. Volume XC, pp. 141-153., 2018
Since the 80s, the manuscript 01-27. 1, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, Sanaa, Yemen, commonly known as ‘the Sa... more Since the 80s, the manuscript 01-27. 1, Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, Sanaa, Yemen, commonly known as ‘the Sanaa palimpsest’ continues to inspire the academic discussion about the paticularities of the script and the reasons behind the storage of the leaves in the false ceiling of the Great Mosque of Sanaa. In this paper, I study the multiple layers of texts in the manuscript with a focus on the upper text. I demostrate that the writing process of the upper layer has been interrupted and this might be one of the reasons behind the storage of the text in the false ceiling of the Great Mosqe of Sanaa.
Keywords: Sanaa palimpsest, early Qur’ān manuscripts, Behnam Sadeghi, Gerd Puin, Great Mosque of Sanaa, Hijazi script.
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Papers by Asma Hilali
يتنـاول هـذا البحـث مسـائل منهجيـة تتعلـق بمفهـوم «القـراءات القرآنيـة»، ونـدرس فيـه طريقـة
الحديـث عـن القـراءات في النصـوص الإسـلامية الأولى، وفي مجـال علـوم القـرآن، وأيضـا الطريقـة التـي نظـرت بهـا الدراسـات القرآنيـة الغربيـة إلى القـراءات في العقديـن الأخيريـن.
Keywords: Sanaa palimpsest, early Qur’ān manuscripts, Behnam Sadeghi, Gerd Puin, Great Mosque of Sanaa, Hijazi script.
يتنـاول هـذا البحـث مسـائل منهجيـة تتعلـق بمفهـوم «القـراءات القرآنيـة»، ونـدرس فيـه طريقـة
الحديـث عـن القـراءات في النصـوص الإسـلامية الأولى، وفي مجـال علـوم القـرآن، وأيضـا الطريقـة التـي نظـرت بهـا الدراسـات القرآنيـة الغربيـة إلى القـراءات في العقديـن الأخيريـن.
Keywords: Sanaa palimpsest, early Qur’ān manuscripts, Behnam Sadeghi, Gerd Puin, Great Mosque of Sanaa, Hijazi script.
This volume provides a new annotated edition of the two layers of the ‘Sanaa palimpsest’, one of the oldest Qur’an manuscripts yet discovered, together with a critical introduction that offers new hypotheses concerning the transmission of the Qur’an during the first centuries of Islam. The palimpsest contains two superimposed Qur’anic texts within two layers of writing, on thirty-eight leaves of parchment collectively numbered MS 01-27.1 in the Dar al-Makhtutat (lit. ‘the House of Manuscripts’) in Sanaa, Yemen. The palimpsest’s lower text, which has been dated to the first century of Islam (seventh century CE), was subsequently erased and the parchment was later reused for writing another Qur’anic text, which remains visible in natural light. This upper text is thought to date from the second century of Islam (eighth century CE). The two layers were imaged in 2007 by a French–Italian mission.
Both Qur’anic texts are fragmented and present aspects of work in progress. In its lower layer, the manuscript offers the oldest witness of a reading instruction in a Qur’an text and perhaps even in any Arabic text. Such peculiarities offer rare evidence as to how the Qur’an was transmitted, taught and written down in the first centuries of Islam. In this book, Asma Hilali presents an annotated edition of the texts, together with a critical introduction. These contextualise the volume within the field of Qur’an manuscript studies, and engage with the historical and institutional contexts of transmission of the Qur’anic passages. The volume also makes systematic reference to previous studies and partial editions of the same manuscript.
Shīʿī teaching in the scholarly milieu in Kairouan during the Fatimid period
Asma Helali, Words Upon Words: The Paratext in the Islamic manuscript tradition
Maitresse de conférences of Islamic studies at the University of Lille, France
Her project examines the forms, functions, and cognitive values of the paratexts in the Islamic manuscript tradition, focusing on Arabic manuscripts the Chester Beatty library and Arabic texts on variant readings of the Qur’an, like "The Book of Beauty". Dr Helali suggests that the paratext is a multi-layered, mobile fragments whose display and flow on the page plays a crucial role in its reception by the reader. In other words, paratexts are central to understanding the Qur’an and its transmission.