Morteza Karimi Nia, Codex Mashhad, An English Introduction

Codex Mashhad is one of the most important remaining documents from the first Islamic centuries that can give us a new and more inspiring picture of the history of the Qurʾānic text. The combination of all features of this codex as a whole is found in 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. Codex Mashhad: Qurʾān Manuscripts Nos. 18 & 4116 in the Āstān-i Quds Library, edited by: Morteza Karimi-Nia, foreword by: Jawad al-Shahrestani, Qom: The Alulbayt Islamic Heritage Institute, 1444/2022, 1024pp. ISBN: 978-964-319-664-8. Codex Mashhad: An Introduction to its History and Contents, Morteza Karimi-Nia, Qom: The Alulbayt Islamic Heritage Institute, 1445/2023, 192pp. ISBN: 978-964-319-665-3.