Author: Morteza Karimi-Nia
Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 10 (2019)

Abstract:
Codex Mashhad in the Āstān-i Quds Library (Mashhad), comprised of Manuscripts 18 and 4116, is possibly one of the most important documents for our understanding of developments in the early history of Qurʾānic text. The combination of all features of this codex as a whole is found in a few copies of early Qurʾāns written in ḥijāzī style. Considering the text, the spelling rules, the variant readings, the orthographic peculiarities, and the arrangement of sūras, it may be concluded that the main part of this codex was transcribed in a very early period, probably in the first/seventh century. Yet, unlike other early Qurʾānic manuscripts, the whole Qurʾān in the initial status of Codex Mashhad has been transcribed based on the official ʿUthmānic version but according to Ibn Masʿūd’s arrangement of sūras.

Bibliography:
Karimi-Nia, Morteza, A New Document in the Early History of the Quran (Codex Mashhad, a ʿUthmānic Text of the Qurʾān in Ibn Masʿūd’s Arrangement of Sūras), Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 10 (2019), pp 292-326.